A Havana native born in 1974, Michel Mirabal, paradoxically, is an artist with greater international than national projection, despite living in Cuba.
He trained in informational and industrial design at the Higher Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI, 1996) and in painting and drawing at the San Alejandro Academy of Plastic Arts (1994-1996).
In November, he will exhibit in a large space in the capital. Then, he hopes, critics, collectors, academics, and the general public will be able to get a more or less accurate idea of his career over the three decades he has been practicing his craft: as a painter, draftsman, sculptor, and installation artist.
To date, Michel Mirabal has held 60 solo exhibitions in galleries, museums and biennials in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, including Dibujos al por mayor (2020, Galería La Aurora, Havana), The History Behind the Sheets (2022, Kansas City Museum, United States), Arquitectura de un sistema (2023, Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy) and Éxodo (2024, Palazzo Español, Puglia, Italy).
His works have been acquired by the Rockefeller Museum (New York), and his collectors include King Mohammed VI of Morocco, actor Danny Glover, Carlos Santana, rapper Jay-Z and Usher, the U.S. model, singer and choreographer.
We visited Finca Calunga to meet him in person and appreciate some of the works he creates there. It is a facility that includes a large studio, farming and livestock grazing areas, housing and recreational areas.
From the promontory where it sits, a mere 500 meters from Guanabo Beach, the panoramic view is beautiful. The conversation took place in several locations. Here’s an excerpt.
Let’s start with the present. Your next solo exhibition, which will occupy the entire space of the Línea Cultural Station in Havana, is titled “Tú no me conoces” (You don’t know me). Do you really think the Cuban public doesn’t know you?
Having not exhibited my work in Cuba for over 15 years, and only creating murals in the Banderas series, it’s logical that very little is known about my work. For example, I was able to fully develop the Manos, Calles de La Habana and Banderas series in my first 10 years.
Then I went on a creative scholarship to Italy, and when I returned I had many international commitments that prevented me from spending time with my family even for an extended period. I traveled a lot, and that kept me away from the industry and from interacting with the public inside Cuba.
I’ve developed 14 series in my 30-year career. And Banderas is just another one of them. I understand that it had a very strong impact here, and its international reception was also immediate. This was helped by the promotion I received when the White House commissioned a work from this series to serve as a backdrop for President Obama’s visit to Cuba.
Banderas, both media-wise and financially, was a worldwide phenomenon, especially due to an NBC article about it.
They began to identify me as the painter of flags, and of course I took advantage of this boom to my advantage in every way. And when I say every way, I mean it literally. I don’t know if I did the right thing or not, but that’s the story.
When I wanted to show my other series and my more critical work in Cuba, I never got that opportunity. For more than 15 yearsI begged to be able to show what I was doing outside the country. They never said no to me, but they never said yes to me either.
An official even told me that it was counterproductive for me to be so media-friendly. That pissed me off, because I couldn’t understand exactly what he meant, although I can guess something.
I have international commitments that I must put on hold now. The work I’m presenting outside of Cuba is the same one I’ll be showing in November. There won’t be any flags. It will be a Michel Mirabal unknown to the national public.
The issue of the flag is controversial in our country, where issues like national symbols tend to be sacralized by the established powers. Have your flags, often deconstructed, not caused you problems when exhibiting them here?
Yes, of course, I had problems with acceptance with this series. I think what saves me, besides Obama requesting a work and very important collectors acquiring them, is that I don’t paint the Cuban flag or use it in performances. As you say, I make an interpretation, and the result is almost inspired by it to create something else that looks like the Cuban flag, but isn’t.
How do you explain the fact that foreign collectors, some of whom can’t identify the Cuban flag, acquire these pieces?
They buy works from this series because they’re drawn to the composition and the colors, even if they can’t fathom their origins. Some come to my studio, and when they learn the starting point of the piece they want to acquire, they get excited and like it even more.
Let’s go back to the beginning of your story. In the Guanabo studio I saw a percussion set that will be part of an installation in the upcoming exhibition. Are those conga drums merely objects for the composition of a work or do they have some connection to your life?
Those conga drums were my first congas. They accompanied me for two decades, and the love I have for our shared history, and the thousand and one rumbas they were involved in, make them worthy of becoming one of the installations for this exhibition. La rumba prohibida is its title.
So, at the beginning, it was music?
Those of us born in marginal neighborhoods like Cayo Hueso, the birthplace of great rumba musicians like Chano Pozo, embraced the rumba as a cult of celebrations and religious rituals.
The rumba also unites us in spontaneous festivities, springing up with the slightest pretext. A doctor can join a criminal in making sounds out of leather, and together celebrate life. It’s very normal there.
In a sort of statement you sent me, it says that your work explores the symbols of Cuban identity. Why this interest in investigating symbols, which are only the external aspect of identity?
Cuban identity is each one of us, wherever we are. The food, the music, the way of speaking, of gesturing, of making love, the stigma that if we don’t make it, we’ll miss out — all of that and much more is Cubanness. Symbols are a form of representation, but they are not Cubanness. What is ours, what is Cuban, is us, the people, and their ways.
Do you have any ties to Afro-Cuban religions? Is that aspect of your life reflected in any way in your work?
Yes, I’ve become a part of the Santeria religion, with Elegguá, and I’m also a Babalawo. Early in my career, I addressed some of these themes with one of my Cristo criollo series, but I didn’t exploit it much.
I heard a comment that I don’t know if it’s true. Does Netflix plan to dedicate a series to your life?
One day, Alejandro Pérez, a friend and brother whom I greatly respect, came to me and told me he had some news that would have an impact on me.
On one of those Sundays when friends come to the farm to spend time with me, and I cook for them, we play dominoes, and have a great time, over alcoholic drinks, I told them my story from the moment I was born.
By the way, it was a traumatic birth, because I was born almost dead, not breathing.
I told them everything I went through in the neighborhood: fights, false steps and other things I’m not proud of, until I ended up being the man I am today.
My life has been filled with incredible stories, and this, apparently, caught Alejandro’s attention, so much so that he spoke with a Netflix executive, and they offered to make a 12-part series about my life.
Alejandro recorded me and is currently preparing a script to bring this project to fruition. Tú no me conoces, the exhibition, will be the culmination of the series.
Was your path really so eventful that the platform was interested in turning it into an audiovisual product?
Believe me. I’ve seen many Hollywood movies, and my personal story doesn’t stray far from their guidelines: drama, blood, sex, strong, delicate and humorous moments.
I know you work in series. Of the fourteen listed on your resume, which do you consider the most accomplished? With which do you feel the deepest identification?
This is the series about hands. It was my first series, and it was dedicated to Yirmelis, my first wife, mother of my first daughter. The girlfriend of the bicycle grill and the frugal parties, a love from early youth that is never forgotten, especially because we both had nothing. We were there for the desire to be together.
That series, for my family and me, is the most important in terms of creation, especially because it came from a true and healthy inspiration.
In your case, the series are closed chapters or subjects to be revisited over time. What series are you working on now, and what is it about?
I always return to all my series. I never leave them alone. In fact, I’m making a sketch to have all these series on a single canvas. It would be like my Guernica, mural-sized.
There’s very little time between now and November to finalize all the plans you have for the exhibition. Still, there’s a lot of work done. Can you tell our readers what they can find at the Línea Cultural Station between November 7 and December 19?
There, they’ll encounter an artist they hadn’t previously considered, and who hopes that the stigma of being a flag painter will begin to fade.
Of course, I have a lot of love for that series, which has given me so much joy, but I think the time has come to show what I love most, which is being myself, as well as one or another of my series of work.
In fact, the exhibition will feature works from 10 or 20 years ago, which I’m revisiting and showing just as they first saw the light.
What I want them to understand is that for decades I’ve been creating a very diverse body of work, which includes the flag series, which isn’t even 20% of my entire creation.
Thanks to Martha Ibis Sánchez, director of the Cuban Fund for Cultural Assets, I’ve now been given the opportunity to immerse myself in my own creative world.
The curators of Tú no me conoces are Nelson Herrera Ysla and Andrés Isaac Santana. Why did you turn to them? Do you think differences in age and background can be enriching rather than conflicting?
I’ve been working with Nelson for four years now, and the most important thing we did together was the exhibition Arquitectura de un sistema at the Venice Architecture Biennale. I met Isaac in Valencia one afternoon when he interviewed me for the magazine Plataforma de Arte Contemporáneo (PAC). I realized we shared many common points of view, and that’s why I invited him to be a partner in this project.
I thought it would be a positive contrast: experience and drive, although Isaac also has experience, especially internationally. I don’t think I was wrong. There have been several clashes, but reason, affection and mutual respect always prevail. These arguments are healthy for the project. I wish this kind of debate could take place in other social and political spaces. Our country would be much better. But anyway, I’ll leave those topics for my work.
You share your time between Havana and Valencia. Which of the two cities do you consider your place of power, the place where you are fully present, where your essence is fully revealed and rebelled?
Definitely Finca Calunga, in Havana.
Does the name of this place have any significance for you?
Yes. It was my grandfather’s nickname. His name was Carlos Martínez, an extraordinary man, always surrounded by young people to whom he told stories. A generous, noble man, with clear concepts. Calunga was, and is, the pillar and pride of our family.
Finca Calunga is a place I built with my middle daughter, Chiny, and I love it so much. It’s my pride. It’s also a source of pride for everything we do here to benefit people in need.
In the city, there’s a space I always want to return to, because it refreshes me and replenishes me with energy. It’s the La Aurora tenement house, at 358 Oquendo Street, in Central Havana, where I entered the world.
I also hold Spain and Valencia close to my heart. I have very good friends there, and I work hard there to take my art around the world, as it makes it easier for me to travel. But Finca Calunga is a dream that I made a reality with my own hands.
