Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection

Book Description

This volume presents 59 examples of contemporary Cuban art drawn from the distinguished collection of Howard and Patricia Farber (New York and Miami Beach). Created primarily during the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, these evocative works represent the combination of utopian impulses and dystopian realities, the ruptures and new beginnings that have characterized Cuban art. Although the underlying issues are serious, many of the works are imbued with a sense of humor and irony, and all demonstrate a clear commitment to the Cuban homeland.

Among the 40 Cuban-born artists represented in the exhibition are many internationally renowned figures, such as JosÃ© Bedia, Antonio Fernandez (Tonel), Los Carpinteros, Tania Bruguera, Carlos Garaicoa, Alexis Leyva (Kcho), Luis Cruz Azaceta, and Elsa Mora. Approximately half of the artists currently reside in Cuba, while the other half reside outside Cuba in countries such as Spain, Mexico, and the United States.

The artworks in the exhibition encompass a broad range of media, including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures, and mixed-media installations, and the accompanying bilingual text includes essays by Kerry Oliver-Smith, curator of contemporary art at the Harn Museum of Art and curator of the exhibition "Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from The Farber Collection," and Abelardo Mena, curator of contemporary art at the National Museum in Havana. Also included are essays by Magda GonzÃ¡lez-Mora, a founder of the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana, and an independent curator based in Havana and Toronto.

Customer Reviews:

EXCELLENT.......2007-08-16

REALLY GOOD BOOK. I ENJOYED IT VERY MUCH. NOTHING MORE TO SAY BUT GET IT NOW.

Cuban Cinema (Cultural Studies of the Americas, 14)

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Cuban Cinema (Cultural Studies of the Americas, 14)
Michael Chanan
Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0816634246

Book Description

The earliest films made in Cuba-newsreel footage of the Cuban-Spanish-American War-date from the end of the nineteenth century, but Cuba cannot be said to have had an indigenous film industry before the revolution of 1959. The melodramas, musicals, and comedies made until then reflected Hollywood's-and the United States's-cultural domination of the island, but the revolution precipitated urgent debates about the role of cinema in a socialist country and the kinds of films best suited to the needs of the people and their rulers. Among the feature films, documentaries, and short subjects made in accordance with revolutionary principles are celebrated works by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Humberto Solás, and other filmmakers who have had a profound influence on both Latin American and world cinema.

Michael Chanan provides a comprehensive, authoritative, and absorbing account of Cuban cinema both before and after the revolution, deftly setting individual films and filmmakers within the larger framework of Cuba's social, political, and cultural history. First published as The Cuban Image in 1984 to wide acclaim, Cuban Cinema now appears in a new, expanded edition that updates Chanan's discussion to the beginning of the twenty-first century. New chapters address ongoing concerns about freedom of expression; Havana's restored importance within the Latin American film industry through the Havana Film Festival, before state support for filmmakers dwindled in the economic collapse that followed the fall of the Soviet Union; Cuban cinema's place within the globalized cultural market; and the changing audience for Cuban films.

The only book-length study of Cuban cinema written in English, this indispensable work on one of the world's most vital national cinemas offers a unique perspective on the Cuban experience in the twentieth century.

Book Description

It was to Havana what the Moulin Rouge was to Paris or the Blue Note to New York. The brightest jewel in 1950s Cuban nightlife, Tropicana was a "paradise under the stars" where you could gamble, hear the finest mambo and jazz musicians, and ogle the extravagantly risqué floorshows. Nat "King" Cole played Tropicana; so did Josephine Baker. Americans-celebrities and suburbanites both-were drawn to its kinetic sensuality and tropical setting. And Tropicana remained a uniquely Cuban institution; unlike most Havana nightclubs, it operated free from the American mob's control.

Journalist Rosa Lowinger and Ofelia Fox, widow of Tropicana's last owner, vividly portray the cultural richness and roiling social problems of pre-Revolutionary Cuba and take the reader on an intimate insider's tour of one of the world's most glamorous venues at its most brilliant moment.

Customer Reviews:

While Waiting for the Movie, read this book!.......2007-07-28

Tropicana Nights brings to life the second most famous nightclub of the 20th century, and the events of the Castro revolution. Rosa Lowinger weaves into the story just enough personal history to give context to all the larger events. Details are included when they are relevant to the story told, but the story is allowed to move along quickly, and this book is entertaining and illuminating. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get an idea of what pre-revolutionary Havana was like, whether or not they are interested in nightclubs. My parents, who often went to Tropicana, said that the book tells it like it was. The book also includes wonderful vintage photos.

Seeing early Cuba through two women's eyes.......2007-02-20

Tropicana Nights gives the reader a sense of what life was like in Havana during the 1940s and 1950s. The Tropicana nightclub embodied the creativity and glamour of that era.

Tropicana still exists in Havana today. In the 1940s and 50s, it was a nightclub, cabaret and casino. It hosted performers such as Nat "King" Cole, Ginger Rogers and Liberace. Its audience was composed of the rich and famous, politicians and people wanting a special night out. Tropicana consistently met and raised people's expectations. The shows were legendary due to the imaginative choreography, live animals and beautiful Tropicana models.

This book is a collaboration of two women who are brought together to tell Tropicana's story. Ofelia Fox is the widow of Martin Fox who owned the Tropicana from 1950-1962. Rosa Lowinger was born in Havana but raised in Miami. As they work together on the book, some issues are raised.

Rosa and Ofelia have different views on Cuban politics. Ofelia claims that both Batista and Castro are dictators. Rosa must be sensitive about what she writes about Castro or risk being denied entry back into Cuba.

Rosa is curious about the possible Mob involvement at Tropicana. Ofelia and Martin went to Trafficante's daughter's wedding and were personally entertained by Frankie Carbo (a hit man for Bugsy Siegel in the 1930s) when they visited New York. Ofelia maintains that this was just a good business relationship. but Rosa isn't so sure. It is up to the reader to decide who is right.

There are also questions about Ofelia's relationship with her roommate (Rosa Sanchez). They have been together for more than 30 years yet when asked, Ofelia states that Rosa is a close friend but they are not a couple.

Lowinger has written a book that reads like a juicy novel. She has a great writing style, I kept turning the pages to find out what happened next. After reading the personal anecdotes and seeing the photos, I felt like I knew the various characters (the showgirls, the dancers and roulette dealers). I also enjoyed finding out what happened to everyone in recent years.

Armchair Interviews says: Come spend some time at the Tropicana and find out why it was paradise under the stars.

A Movie Waiting To Be Made!.......2006-09-16

Rosita Lowinger brings Cuba in the '40s and '50s to vibrant life in this excellent book. Anybody interested in learning about the island of Cuba should read it, because it's chock-full of historical facts. In addition, you learn all about the politics, the music, the cabaret circuit, the culture, even the Mafia connections! Rosita is an excellent writer who puts lots of "sabor" in her prose. I hope she's working on the screeplay right now. You cannot put the damn book down! It's easily the best I've read all year.

A Temple to the Goddesses of Flesh.......2006-04-03

Lowinger, Rosa and Ofelia Fox 2005 Tropicana Nights. The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub. Harcourt, Orlando, New York, London ISBN 0151012245

This is a very exciting and interesting book, well worth reading. Personally I found this book, "Tropicana Nights", by chance and in it my distant cousin Leonela Gonzalez.

In my recall it is Cuba in the 1950. Leonela is six years older than I, Professor of Ballet, student of Alicia Alonzo and showgirl in La Tropicana; she sings professionally. She is all curves, raven black hair, smooth skin, full lips, high cheek bones, jet eyes. She is 5 foot four and less than 120 pounds, but towers over me in her high heels. I stutter but cannot speak, so drunk on her presence I cannot talk, unable to take her extended hand, I mere give a judo bow. She is one of the goddesses of flesh.

We are family, both of us great grandchildren of Leonela Enamorado Cabrera, that brave and graceful Taina woman who was consort of the great general Calixto Garcia at the time of the fullest power of his fiery warrior strength. Grandfather was child of Leonela Enamorado's passionate war time love match; Leonela Gonzalez is fruit of the descendents of a later formal marriage.

Thus I read this book intensely, trying to better understand things past. The authors have compiled oral history and compared it to the record of scholarly and popular writings on the matter. Lowinger and Fox have struggled, as all honest authors must on books about Cuba, to eliminate propaganda. What has come of this is a beautifully detailed, well written, hypnotically fascinating and engrossing book on the Havana Nightclub "La Tropicana."

The book presents the scene and the lives the actors of that place against a background of Cuban history. And it does that with remarkable accuracy, there are a few errors: as a University of Havana student, Castro did his first killings when he belonged to the "the trigger happy" Unin Insurreccional Revolucionaria (UIR) not Masferrer's Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario (MIR). The official Cuban Communist Party had very little to do with war against Batista until the last few months, quite the contrary it frequently supported that regime by providing information on resistance groups. The presence of Tano racial mix and culture, now clearly demonstrated by DNA studies, is glossed over yet both Batista and Leonela had such ethnic roots; the word Guajiro is taken from the original Taino word.

These authors of "Tropical Nights" explain that those who visit Cuba are not welcomed to return if they write the mildest criticism of the Government. They honestly point out such details as that the nomenklatura of the Castro government, took over and keep well painted the residences of the upper class, while the residences of most of the population are crowded and in disrepair.

As the Lowinger and Fox point out, contrary to official Cuban government propaganda in the Tropicana then these goddesses were not available to the clientele, for there were enough such places in Havana. The goddesses' loves of after hours which were then private matters are clearly presented. There were Mafia gangsters there, but they fearful of losing their comfortable residence in Cuba, limited their activities to providing gambling advice and were mere toothed minnows when compared to the far more numerous and lethal Batista goons. Don't keep on reading this, go buy this book!!!!!!!

Tropicana Nights.......2006-02-05

Tropicana Nights shows the views of two Cuban women from different generations who politically disagree, but are brought together by their love for Cuban culture, particularly the Tropicana Nightclub. This book provides an insider's view on the intrigue, gambling, music and dance of a place that holds an almost mythical place in the history of Cuba.

Cuba Style: Graphics from the Golden Age of Design

Average customer rating:

Nice!
Graphics, not Propaganda
Cuba Style : Graphics from the Golden Age of Design

Cuba Style: Graphics from the Golden Age of Design
Steven Heller , and Vicki Gold Levi
Manufacturer: Princeton Architectural Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1568983603

Book Description

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the national republic of Cuba. To usher in the centenary, Steven Heller and Vicki Gold Levi have collected hundreds of vintage graphics of Cuba from the 1920s to the 1959 revolution. Cuba Style recalls the days of glory when the island was a veritable resort colony for Americans and Europeans who came in search of Latino music and dancing, gambling, tropical romance, and the best beaches in the Americas.

To advertise these attractions, Cubano graphistos combined elements of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Bauhaus modernism, and Vegas-style kitsch in a distinctly Cuban sensibility. Cuba Style, the first book of its kind, reproduces a treasure trove of graphics from popular magazines, packaging, posters, and indigenous products such as liquor and cigars. It is a visual history of Cuba in its golden age as well as a wellspring of capitalist extravagance, seen here through the rare graphics of its extraordinary and now lost popular culture.

Customer Reviews:

Nice!.......2007-08-17

Like anything by Steven Heller, there's tons of amazing imagery in this book. Great for the price! Fun & exotic!

Graphics, not Propaganda.......2007-08-15

I haven't finished it and I can say that this book is a "must have", this images are worth not a thousand words but a million words (any Cuban could give you a million words speech in a matter of five minutes), this book is going to solve me just that, whenever somebody would ask me questions about Cuba before Castro, all I have to do is show them this book. This book will show you exactly what Graphics and Arts, in general, were before Castro, not the political propaganda that it became after the revolution-take as an example the image of Murder, Che Guevara, shown all over Cuba promising you "Victory"-. For some, this book will bring back memories and nostalgia, for others like me, born and raised during the communist period, a confirmation that things were a lot better, not perfect, not the paradise they proclaimed it was, simply the place to be, it was for most Cubans the place to be born Cuban and die Cuban.

Cuba Style : Graphics from the Golden Age of Design .......2006-07-11

Ahhh, nostalgia. Nothing but that. Excellent, outstanding...

Cuba Represent!: Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures

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Cuba Represent!: Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures
Sujatha Fernandes , and Sujatha Fernandes
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822338912

Book Description

In Cuba something curious has happened over the past fifteen years. The government has allowed vocal criticism of its policies to be expressed within the arts. Filmmakers, rappers, and visual and performance artists have addressed sensitive issues including bureaucracy, racial and gender discrimination, emigration, and alienation. How can this vibrant body of work be reconciled with the standard representations of a repressive, authoritarian cultural apparatus? In Cuba Represent! Sujatha Fernandesâa scholar and musician who has performed in Cubaâanswers that question.

Combining textual analyses of films, rap songs, and visual artworks; ethnographic material collected in Cuba; and insights into the nation’s history and political economy, Fernandes details the new forms of engagement with official institutions that have opened up as a result of changing relationships between state and society in the post-Soviet period. She demonstrates that in a moment of extreme hardship and uncertainty, the Cuban state has moved to a more permeable model of power. Artists and other members of the public are collaborating with government actors to partially incorporate critical cultural expressions into official discourse. The Cuban leadership has come to recognize the benefits of supporting artists: rappers offer a link to increasingly frustrated black youth in Cuba; visual artists are an important source of international prestige and hard currency; and films help unify Cubans through community discourse about the nation. Cuba Represent! reveals that part of the socialist government’s resilience stems from its ability to absorb oppositional ideas and values.

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Street Graphics Cuba
Barry Dawson
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0500282692

Book Description

Much of today's most exuberant, most creative, and most telling imagery can be found in the street. A public art gallery of visual icons, each city hosts permanent collections and temporary exhibits, each country reflects its own much-loved identity. Cuba has a unique place in the world's street galleries, where its colonial past and the revolution have created something vibrantly distinct. Che Guevara is a popular presence, but beyond the ideology the streets provide a venue to enjoy pre-Revolution enamel Coke signs, Crystal beer and Cohiba cigar billboards, the imagery of the Buena Vista Social Club, and a nostalgic look at the chromium trim and high tail fins of 1950s automobiles. This book captures it all in an evocative medley of impressions for visitors—and would-be visitors—to Cuba and an inspirational resource for designers everywhere. 214 color photographs.

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LIGHT INSIDE
BROWN DH
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1588341232

Book Description

A groundbreaking study of a secret Afro-Cuban society, its sacred arts, and their role in modern Cuban cultural history The Abakuá Society is a system of men's fraternal lodges developed by African slaves and, later, creoles in urban Cuba. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the country, Brown builds his novel approach around examinations of dazzling Abakuá altars, chalk-drawn signs, and full-body masquerades worn in ceremonies. His art history goes far beyond tracing changes in styles to show how they evolve through cycles of tradition and renovation.

"The light inside" reflects the essence of the artists' creativity and experience, which Brown treats with an insider's passion and a scholar's rigor. He describes how Abakuá arts have participated in Cuban cultural history, showing how the Abakuá Society initially became a force in port cities, controlling local justice and labor on the wharves; was seen as a "savage" threat to the Cuban nation; and was soon criminalized. By the 1930s Abakuá arts became a prime source for avant-garde primitivism and surrealism, ultimately becoming icons of national folklore since the Cuban Revolution.

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NICE

Art Cuba

Art Cuba: The New Generation
Holly Block
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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New Art of Cuba (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture)

Cuban-American Art In Miami: Exile, Identity And The Neo-Baroque

Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection

Latin American & Caribbean Art: Moma At El Museo

Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde, 1923-1982 (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture)

ASIN: 0810957337

Book Description

The art scene in Cuba is thriving as never before. Young, politically active artists are stretching the limits of creative freedom and, as tourism to Cuba continues to increase, making their mark in the international art world. Coming at a time when Americans' interest in the country and its art is at a peak, this is the first major survey to show the wide range of art coming out of Cuba today.

Overflowing with illustrations—including 100 colorplates—Art Cuba presents exciting new works, most produced in the past five years, by more than 60 artists. The mediums extend from oil on canvas, pen and ink, watercolor, lithography, and mosaic to photography, sculpture, embroidery, and performance art. The essays examine the changes in Cuban art in the decades since the Revolution and the new directions it is taking today. This comprehensive look at Cuban art today is an important addition to the literature on contemporary art.

Customer Reviews:

NICE.......2007-08-16

THIS BOOK IS FULL OF PICTURES AND REAL EMOTION BY THE CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS. IT IS A GREAT BOOK FOR THE CUBAN ART FAN AND THOSE THAT UNDERSTAND THE NEW AND MODERN CUBAN CULTURE. GOOD FOR THOSE TRYING TO LEARN A BIT ABOUT IT AS WELL. ART IS ALWAYS REPRESENTATIVE OF NOT JUST THE INDIVIDUAL BUT OF THE ARTISTS' WORLD AS WELL. CUBA SEEN THROUGH THESE PEOPLE. GET IT. YOU WILL ENJOY IT.

Art Cuba.......2007-03-09

A wonderfully clear, concise and insightful introduction to the art of Cuba from the 1960's on.

Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution

Average customer rating:

Not a history, but a very personal account
Deserves a close reading
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dancer
Different and interesting
Dancing with Cuba

Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution
Alma Guillermoprieto
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0375725814
Release Date: 2005-02-08

Book Description

In 1970 a young dancer named Alma Guillermoprieto left New York to take a job teaching at Cuba’s National School of Dance. For six months, she worked in mirrorless studios (it was considered more revolutionary); her poorly trained but ardent students worked without them but dreamt of greatness. Yet in the midst of chronic shortages and revolutionary upheaval, Guillermoprieto found in Cuba a people whose sense of purpose touched her forever.

In this electrifying memoir, Guillermoprieto–now an award-winning journalist and arguably one of our finest writers on Latin America– resurrects a time when dancers and revolutionaries seemed to occupy the same historical stage and even a floor exercise could be a profoundly political act. Exuberant and elegiac, tender and unsparing, Dancing with Cuba is a triumph of memory and feeling.

Customer Reviews:

Not a history, but a very personal account.......2006-12-16

Guillermoprieto's memoir of the Cuban Revolution is a very personal account of one person's experience in Cuba after the revolution. She does not endeavor to provide broad background information regarding the history or politics in Cuba and is in fact quite naive and ignorant of even basic current events during the memoir. While I wasn't particularly moved by her story, her aloof and intimate account of her time in post-revolution Cuba does provide a very readable and accessable introduction to the subject.

Deserves a close reading.......2006-09-11

I hated this book the first time I read it. The writing is that good - it definitely evokes strong emotions. However, I kept coming back to the ideas in the book, especially her conflicts as an artist and as a dubious and somewhat neurotic 'internacionalista.' So, I read it again a year later....and loved it.

What I mean to say is, upon a fast reading, it comes off as just another anti-Castro 'terrified' take on the heady first decades of the Cuban rev, or the navel-gazing of a somewhat neurotic artist. The book deserves a closer look, though, because the memoir actually has a much more interesting - and complicated - narrative to tell. The character of Elfrida alone could generate volumes of reflection. It's really fascinating.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dancer.......2006-05-22

The person who stressed this is a memoir is on target though I think it is quite well written. As a long time admirer of Guillermoprieto's journalism I found this a fascinating and unfaiingly honest account of her life as a dance teacher in Cuba before she became a writer. IT IS a memoir and the self pity of her young self is conveyed with a brutal honesty--it is the middle-aged writer descibing where she once was and her perspective is a perfect balance of scorn and affection for who she was. If you are looking for a wide ranging view of the revolution, this is not the book you want to read, though you will get a very interesting perspective on life in Cuba in the early 1970s. If you have not read anything by her before, read The Heart That Bleeds and Looking for History (as well as Mark Danner's The Massacre at El Mozote, a story she was responsible, with Ray Bonner at the Times, for breaking in 1982. She is a remarkable writer and this memoir was one of my favorite reads of the last several years.

Different and interesting.......2005-10-30

Why is it that so many readers, incorrectly, think a memoire is going to teach them something -- in this case about Cuba and Fidel? This is a memoire, folks. You won't get all the facts. You'll get the writer's reactions to the events of her life as they occurred against the background of an historical era or event, not details of what "really happened." If you're looking for history, read a history book.

Anyhow, I enjoyed this book, but didn't think it was particularly well written. The conversations were stilted and used only to convey information, not really to show what the people speaking were like. The author told the reader repeatedly how awful the director of the school was, but I never really saw it for myself.

But I read with sympathy for this young woman, adrift in a very strange country and for the people she met who were affected by the revolution.

Dancing with Cuba.......2005-07-29

I too, thought this book would be a well-written account from which I could learn. While learning about Cuba during the Revolution, I was a bit bored and quite frankly annoyed by the writer's self pity and confusion. On behalf of Guillermoprieto, I will say that she does create some powerful imagery. I was sorry however, that I wasted the money on a hard cover!

Cuba: 400 Years of Architectural Heritage

Average customer rating:

GET IT NOW
cuba:400 years of architecture
Bella!
Fantastic, a work of art

Cuba: 400 Years of Architectural Heritage
Rachel Carley
Manufacturer: Watson-Guptill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0823011283

Book Description

Exquisite, rare photographs and timely, illuminating commentary reveal a rich architectural history waiting to be rediscovered as travel to Cuba burgeons among Canadian, European, and Latin American tourists and gradually becomes more accessible to visitors from the United States as well. The lucid, intelligent text and superb photographs shot exclusively for this book present the architectural treasures of the entire island, from the first India boh'os, early colonial structures, and Mudjar craftsmanship to baroque churches, classically inspired civic buildings, ambitious modernist designs, and present-day preservation work. Now in practical paperback edition, this unique reference source will be valued by architects, preservationists, historians, students, and armchair and actual travelers.

Customer Reviews:

GET IT NOW.......2007-08-16

WONDERFUL PICTURES AND YES, THE PAPER IS EXCELLENT QUALITY. DEFINITIVELY A COFFEE TABLE PIECE. CAN ANYONE SAY COHIBA? THE TEXT IS VERY CLEAR AND TO THE POINT AND INFORMATIVE ALL AT THE SAME TIME. ARCHITECTURE YOU NEVER THOUGHT EXISTED THERE.

cuba:400 years of architecture.......2006-06-27

great book. awesome pictures and paper quality. Very good price in amazon.
Thanks.

Bella!.......2002-06-16

Lots of beautiful photography (by Andrea Brizzi) for anyone who dreams of Cuba and would like to feel the cobblestones of Old Havana underfoot, taste the mojitos in the lobby bar of the Hotel Nacional, hear the strains of the mariachi band at sunset, and learn about the history of our most enigmatic, so-close-yet-so-far neighbor through it's architecture and the very readable text by Rachel Carley.

Fantastic, a work of art.......1997-11-02

One of the best pictorial books on Cuba that has ever been published. It's the realization of profesionals and very objective, a very difficult achievement considering Cuba. Highly recommended to those willing to discover the real Cuba.

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