The Art of Cuba

Cuba has long held a fascination for the United States, an interest that has grown steadily ever since travel restrictions were imposed in 1961. In the ensuing decades, sports fans have seen the talent of the island's baseball players as third-stringers on the Cuban national team become starters in the Major Leagues, and champions such as Ana Fidelia Quirot and Alberto Juantoreana win medals and set records in the Olympic Games. And the high quality of Cuba's musicians was brought to our attention by Ry Cooder in 1998 when he recorded the sweets sounds of Cuban son in "The Buena Vista Social Club."

Now, Cuban artists are stepping into the limelight. Artists such as Victor Manual and Wifredo Lam, and the Vanguardia Movement, were stars of Cuban art in the last century, and the country is being re-discovered by collectors once again. Through the decades of embargo, blackouts and hardships, artists on the island have produced significant work that is highly regarded internationally. Most of the artists in this Rembrandt Yard show came of age after the "Period Especial" that marked the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the vast subsidies it provided to Cuba. "The Possible Look" refers both to the possibilities these artists see in the new Cuba that is emerging – supplies are still in short supply, but the work gets done, and gets done well – as well as to the possibilities inherent in the potentialities we all have.

The artists in Ana's Art Gallery range from established professionals Armando Torres, Expo, and Jose Luis Hernandez ("Kilo"), to talented newcomers Milene Busutil and Jorge Vinent, to "primitive" painter Osvaldo Castillo. Each has a fascinating story to tell: Busatil, for example, paints on scraps of furniture scavenged from crumbling buildings, while Torres and Kilo are part of the artistic mainstream and are collected in Europe. Some of the painters in the show were academically trained at the prestigious San Alejandro Academy, the top art school in the country, while others are self-taught. Different styles, different backgrounds, different training, but all have the "the possible look" of what the future holds for Cuba in this uncertain time, and in another sense, what the future holds for all us. As you view these paintings, you can perhaps think to yourself: "What possible looks do I have?" And as the world warms, species vanish and borders shrink, some of you might take the question a step further, and ask, "What possible looks do we, as a species, have?"

—Ana Weir