Subject

Cuba means garden and is as such a quite unique one, since it became with the discovery of the american continent a major outpost of the same and thus a meeting place for cultures and ethnics from all over the world.
Located between three seas, Cuba is also a meeting place for natural forces which manifest in extreme weathers and climates, as well as in extraordinary lights and colors. Strangely enough, the latter have been ignored for centuries by its artists, especialy the landscape painters, which was probably because their clientele, the oligarchies, were only interested in old european stile paintings and in presentations of nature from a colonial view.
This convention was fortified by "San Alejandro", the one and only art academy, and thus survived the worldwide changes in arts, as well as the occational attacks by the cuban avantgarde (see: catalog 1 > Subject) and began only to disappear with the ruling class in the course of the revolution (1959) and when its enthusiasm spread through the cuban art and made it, so to speak, appear in a new light - or rather explode into colours.
And with the joining of the also liberated afro-cuban cults, namely the Santería, which brought in their rich symbolism, their spiritual aspects and, last not least, a new approach to nature, the contemporary art of Cuba was born.
This catalog is, like the first one, dedicated to the founder generations and begins with Mendive, Fonseca and Benítez, the protagonists of the spiritual, natural and social aspects. Followed by P. P. Oliva who combined them allready in the early seventies and has ever since been a model for every new (school) generation.
Julia Valdés was the first woman who dedicated herself to astract expressionism, which Carlos Trillo enriched since the early sixties with all kinds of materials.
Ulises Bretaña depicts with his - one may call - naive surrealism the conflicts between postindustrial man and nature, while Cosme Proenza combines the cuban landscapes with his mystical dreamscapes.