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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesWEEKEND BRINGS CUBAN ART RECEPTIONS, LECTURE

WEEKEND BRINGS CUBAN ART RECEPTIONS, LECTURE

What kind of images does indigenous Cuban art call to mind?
Most people — certainly most Americans — may well draw a blank at that question, because most of them, because of U.S. embargoes on travel and trade, haven't seen indigenous Cuban art in at least four decades, if ever at all.
A picture, the saying goes, is worth a thousand words, and this weekend, the Tillett Gallery is opening a month-long exhibition that offers a veritable visual dictionary of Cuba's contemporary artistic output. Seven artists are represented, and a total of 41 works, nearly all of them paintings.
The artwork has found its way to St. Thomas legally and above board, acquired by Latin American art dealer Gloria Frank under license from the U.S. Treasury Department. Frank, a New York resident who spends time in the winter on St. Croix, has made two trips to Cuba to meet artists, visit their studios and exhibitions, and purchase what she considered their most marketable work.
Art Business News, a trade journal, carried a report in its April 1998 issue about the opening up of Cuba to the U.S. art market. It noted that the federal government only recently began licensing art dealers to travel to Cuba and purchase art for export to the United States. The policy change came about for two reasins, it said: the growing number of Americans making unauthorized visits, and lawsuits brought by individual dealers and organizations against the Treasury Department "for the right to import art."
The article quoted a Los Angeles gallery owner as saying: "A Lot of curators and major collectors have gone to Cuba. People are buying the artists' work. For us as dealers, it is not a political platform. It is a visual arts platform."
Illustrations accompanying the article include works by two artists represented in the Tillett Gallery show, Jose Garcia Montebravo and Jose Fuster. Montebravo is known for his images of figures from the religious practices of santeria, Cuba's blending of West African Yoruba and colonial Roman Catholic beliefs. Fuster, whose paintings reflect the influence of Picasso, is one of Cuba's leading artists and recently had a solo show in Chile.
The other three artists with multiple works in the show are Jorge Luis Sanfiel, who combines natural flora and fauna with invasive images of urban sprawl; Santiago Diaz Lopez, whose colorful mosaic-design paintings call African-print fabrics to mind; and Pablo Hernandez, whose works depict costumed, round-headed figures in settings that convey both pathos and optimism.
Salvador Vasquez has a single work, a fanciful jungle scene; V. Pelly Blanco Aroche also has one, a charming small piece depicting a couple kissing.
"Cuba's appeal, though faded from its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s — when Havana was known as the ‘Paris of the West' — is strong," the Art Business News article stated. "Though visitors are often stunned by the visible decay and poverty, they are also fascinated by a rich and lively Afro-Euro-Caribbean culture that has not been erased by the decades of communism."
Frank will discuss what she found in her visits to Cuba and its artists in an informal lecture/discussion Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Tillett Gallery. Co-sponsored by the St. Thomas-St. John Arts Council as an "Arts Not Quite After Dark" event, It's free and open to the public.
The exhibition, presented by Arts Alive and the Society for Latin American Art and Culture, will have a preview Friday night at the Charlie Musselwhite Blues Band performance in Tillett Gardens. It will be open only to those attending the concert.
Two opening receptions will be held — Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. and Sunday immediately following Frank's presentation, from 4 to 7 p.m. Both are open to the public without charge.
The paintings and drawings, all original works, are priced from $275 to $2,800.
The show will hang through March 18. The gallery is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Students accompanied by their teachers and other groups are welcome but are asked to schedule visits ahead of time. For further information, call 775-1929.

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