HAVANA—The Havana Biennial was organized by the Wifredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art where several installations were exhibited. Housed in a yellow building adjacent to Cathedral Square in Old Havana, the center is devoted to the study and promotion of African, Asian, Latin American and Caribbean Art.
Lam (1902-1982) was an accomplished Cuban artist of African and Chinese ancestry whose work celebrated Afro-Cuban culture. Primarily a painter, who also produced sculptures and worked with ceramics and did printmaking, Lam exhibited around the world and his work is in the collections of several prestigious institutions in Paris, Brussels and throughout the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, both in New York.
Two installations at the center were particularly intriguing. One literally titled “Work in Progress” by Cuban artist Jorge Pardo was being installed when Arts Observer viewed it. The other, “Family Abroad,” was a collaboration by a married couple—an Afro-Cuban artist and white American jazz musician—inspired by real life circumstances of Cubans being sustained by remittances and care packages from family members in the United States.
View more coverage of the 11th Havana Biennial.
All photos by Arts Observer
Above and top of page, “Untitled,” 2012 by Jorge Prado (Cuba).
LLegooo! Fefa! “Family Abroad,” by María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard. Read an interview with the artists explaining the inspiration and concept behind the exhibit.
“Family Abroad” includes video interviews with people from particularly poor communities in Havana.
Detail of “Family Abroad.”
Detail of “Family Abroad.”
Detail of “Family Abroad.”
Above and all images below, “Work in Progress,” 2012 by Jorge Prado (Cuba).
Artists working on “Work in Progress” by Jorge Prado.
Painting elements of “Work in Progress” by Jorge Prado.
Detail of “Work in Progress” by Jorge Prado.