GROUP SHOW
Cuban Virtualities II: New Media Art from the Island
Date
December 5, 2014 – February 14, 2015
Artists
Alexander Arrechea, Celia & Yunior, Ernesto Leal, Glenda Léon, Jairo Gutiérrez, José Rolando Rivera, Levi Orta, Mauricio Abad, Naivy Pérez, Núria Güell, Rodolfo Peraza, and Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo.
Curated by
Liz Munsell & Rewell Altunaga
Gallery
Sullivan Galleries and Betty Rymer, Aidekman Arts Center
Location
Chicago, United States
Curatorial Statement
Cuban Virtualities is the first New Media Art exhibition from Cuba to be held outside the island, embracing the concept with a conscious approach to technological and global communication mediums as elements of appropriation or tropological resources in the face of a reality that hinders the development of artistic, cultural, and social processes within the island. While access to digital technologies and the Internet is increasing in third world countries, its effects in Cuba are exacerbated by extreme geographical, political, and economic isolation, stalling the intellectual activities of a highly educated society.
The scarcity of resources has shaped New Media Art in Cuba, compelling artists to improvise creative solutions that transcend the imaginative capabilities of artists in first world countries. Digital technologies such as the Internet are becoming increasingly accessible beyond the first world, allowing diverse voices to emerge within the growing global consciousness of the West. Due to the censorship of the Internet in Cuba and its replacement with a limited and monitored network (Intranet), artists working with new media have developed a spirit of resistance, aiming to transcend the boundaries set by authorities and general poverty. The works in this exhibition engage in dialogue about the global production, distribution, and application of digital technologies in the arts, as well as the local context in which they are reinterpreted and reconstructed from the artists’ perspective.
Despite these obvious challenges, or partly because of them, young Cuban artists are creating works that repurpose, reinterpret, copy, break, and dismantle technologies developed in or by the United States. The presence of this exhibition in Boston signifies an important exchange between a city that considers itself a national hub of intellectual activity and technological advancement, and a country eager to both consume and subvert these outcomes. The exhibition returns remixed versions of technologies imported to Cuba back to their country of origin, enabling a broad dialogue and reflection on the amalgamated effects of these resources on our perception of the unknown and the everyday.
Since art can travel more freely than humans, the platforms for communication and aesthetic experience that constitute this exhibition will serve as a community-building force, connecting countries whose relationship has been characterized by conflict since the mid-20th century.