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Cernuda Arte Celebrates Centennial Of Surrealism

Written By Erin Parish
October 28, 2024 at 8:39 AM

Artworks by Wifredo Lam. Photo credit Cernuda Arte.

“A Surrealist Century” at Cernuda Arte celebrates the centennial of Surrealism, an art movement which combines imagery from the subconscious, dreams, and the irrational.

By depicting a universe filled with magical and ludicrous features, surrealism aimed to challenge and disrupt the traditional understanding of reality. They endeavored to reveal the subconscious mind and investigate the human psyche by expressing their deepest thoughts and aspirations. This exhibition includes the luminaries of 20th-century Cuban art, and the magical realism inherent in the fabric of Latin America was a perfect segway into dream imagery.

At one time, artists of the Americas were urged to each take a grand tour of Europe and to ultimately find themselves in Paris to complete their education. In the 19th century, Paris was the center of the art world. This changed dramatically with the significant influx of European artists fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe to Manhattan. Wilfredo Lam, arguably Cuba’s most significant artist, is part of this history, having travelled to the United States with André Breton, the writer of 1924’s seminal Surrealist Manifesto, aboard a ship to escape persecution by the Nazis. The artist community was one of their targets.

Wifredo Lam, Yemaya 29-50, (Yemayá), 1977. Photo credit Cernuda Arte.

Lam is represented in the exhibition by pre-surrealist works from 1926, 1932, and 1938 as well as the mature works for which he is known. He is the most important and direct link to Cuban artists to take on the mantel of Surrealism. Born in Cuba, he made the requisite trip across the Atlantic to complete his education.

While in Paris, Lam became acquainted with fellow Spanish speakers Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. Through Picasso’s champion of “Primitive Art,” as it errantly was called, from Africa, Lam’s Afro-Caribbean roots were validated. No stranger to the forms and methods of this genre, it was a natural shift from the desire to depict the real to depict the unreal, translated as the “surreal” in French.

Antonio Gattorno – Classicism versus Buffoonery. Photo credit Cernuda Arte.

Antonio Gattorno’s painting Classicism versus Buffoonery, exemplifies a cutting critique of the antics of Salvador Dali, the most infamous Surrealist. He is represented as a court jester in a classic Surrealist landscape, interestingly this is the work most similar to Dali in the exhibition.

Manuel Medive (Cuba, 1944) takes this impulse further into the depiction of the Yoruban deities, layered in an imaginary space in a less conventional, more abstract manner. His surrealism is a link to the paintings of Marc Chagall as are the work of Pedro Pablo Oliva (Cuba, 1949) to a certain extent.

Roberto Fabelo, A Bit of Us, (Un Poco de Nosotros), 2012. Photo credit Cernuda Arte.

Roberto Fabelo (Cuba, 1950) is well represented in this exhibition with several works that bring us into the 21st century, expanding the canon of Latin American Surrealism. He weaves in classic symbols found in Cuban art, such as the rooster and the espresso pot, to his works heavy in metaphor.

Gina Pellon straddles the space between surrealist representation and abstract expressionism. Tomás Esson brings a link not only to the realm of the imagination, but through the lens of Neo-expressionism. This tradition has been carried on by contemporary artist Vincente Hernández (Cuba 1971), who uses a fisheye lens representation of primarily urban settings, often with some kind of method of transport, even his typewriter could be understood as a vehicle when analyzed with his other works.

Artwork by Vincente Hernández (Cuba 1971) offers the example of using a fisheye lens in painting. Photo credit Cernuda Arte.

Gina Pellón (1926 – 2014) has a James Ensor-like magical realism in her works, not dissimilar to the work of Felipe Orlando’s work (1911 – 2001) in this exhibition. Humberto Calzada’s works have the architectural space reminiscent of René Magritte.

Tomás Sánchez (Cuba, 1948) is a well-known and well-regarded Cuban artist. His floating islands are populated by endless trash that fades into the distance, an environmental critique rather than an inquiry into the nature of Freudian dream imagery. These read as more aligned to the European Surrealists in the style of imagery.

Artwork by Tomas Sanchez. Photo credit Cernuda Arte.

Other artists included in the exhibition are Eduardo Abela, Angel Acosta León, Francisco Antigua, Jorge Camacho, Augustín Cárdenas, Mario Carreño, Demi, Augustín Fernández, Antonio Gattorno, Carmelo González, Irina Elén González, and José Milajares.

Surrealism continues to echo through the visual arts since its inception, especially in Latin America. It can be found in contemporary Cuban art such as in the work of Los Carpinteros, Consuela Casteñeda, Rocio Garcia, José Bedia and the list extends ad infinitum. Those four artists are found in the Museo des Bellas Arte in Havana, as well as most represented in the exhibition. At Cerenuda Arte you will find the progenitors of this creative inquiry into the mind that perpetuates.

WHAT: A Surrealist Century
WHERE: Cernuda Arte, 3155 Ponce de Leon Blvd, Coral Gables
WHEN: 10:30 a.m. to  6:30  p.m., Monday through Friday, noon to 6:30 p.m., Saturday
COST: Free
INFORMATION: 305.461-1050, cernudaarte.com

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