| | | |  | | | Juan Carlos Alom, Harley Davidson, 2010
Gelatin silver print, 36,6 x 35,8 cm | | | | | A Journey to Cuba | | | | | | | 25 August – 23 September 2017 | | | | Opening: Thursday, 24 August, 5 to 8.30 pm | | |  | | | | | | | | | |  | | | René Burri (1933-2014, CH)
Ernesto Che Guevara, from the series Cuba, 1963
Vintage gelatin silver print, 30 x 40 cm © René Burri / Magnum Photos | | | With "A Journey to Cuba" the Fabian & Claude Walter Galerie will present a journey through Cuba’s eventful photographic history of the past 60 years.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary 1967 of the death of Ernesto Che Guevara, we will be showing Vintage prints on the subject of the controversial revolutionaries. During the Cuban revolution of 1956 - 1959, the M-27-6 resistance movement led by Fidel Castro (1926-2016, Cuba) and Ernesto Rafael Guevara (1928-1967, Argentina), known as Che Guevara, succeeded in expelling Cuban dictator Flugencio Batista, who was unpopular among large sections of the population. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara used photography as a propagandistic means of documenting the revolution. In addition to Alberto Korda (1928-2001, Cuba), who accompanied the revolutionary elite from 1959 to 1968, international photographers such as Magnum photographer René Burri (1933-2014, Switzerland) were given the opportunity to document the events of the post-revolutionary period. | | | | | |  | | | René Peña (CUB, *1957)
Untitled #3, 1997
Digital print on paper, 80 x 61 cm | | | With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba lost its most important political ally and trading partner. The Special Period in Time of Peace, "periodo especial en tiempo de paz", a period of economic austerity called for by Castro, was meant to cushion the worst of the effects. The artists of this generation questioned the values of a utopian society in their work. The two internationally renowned photographers René Peña (*1957, Cuba) and Juan Carlos Alom (*1964, Cuba) illustrate the real, everyday surreal living conditions in Cuba. These photographs are the complete opposite of the idealistic photographs that emerged during and immediately after the revolution.
The young Cuban artists born after 1980 now operate globally, and their visual imagery is no longer the same. At first glance, it would appear that this generation of artists is less political. This is far from the truth. In fact, nowadays Cuba is viewed in a wider geopolitical context as the young artists search for the roots of their own social structures. They prefer a subtle form of criticism, with their own perception allowing them to enter into a sophisticated dialogue that stretches far beyond the political borders of Cuba, which are gradually melting further away. | | |  | | | Juan Carlos Alom (CUB, *1964)
Mochi, from the series Special Period, 1991
Silver gelatin print, 30,6 x 23 cm | | | | | | The conceptually charged series by young Cuban photographer Adrián Fernández Milanes (*1984, Cuba) combines different elements which he uses to reflect the understanding of the social and aesthetic differences in Cuba’s society and history. In his "Epilogue II" series, Fernández Milanes looks at the stereotypical figures of the world-famous revue theatre Tropicana in Havana, which was opened for an international clientèle in a tropical garden in 1939, during the prohibition in the USA, based on the model of Las Vegas. In a magnificently staged dance theatre, the individual groups of figures tell the story of the suppression and endless liberation struggle of the Cuban people over the centuries.
Adrián Fernández Milanes takes these figures from Cuban popular culture out of their stage setting and photographs the individual dancers in their unique costumes in front of a neutral black background. This results in perfect, bewitchingly aesthetic photos of the dancers in their costumes, in which Adrián Fernández portrays each separate individual through Cuba’s collectively influenced socialist society. | | |  | | | Adrián Fernández Milanes (CUB, *1984)
Untitled #16, from the series Epilogue II, 2012
Pigmentjet print with archival pigment ink, 100 x 67 cm | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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