The 2014 has just arrived to its second month, but for connoisseurs, enthusiasts and experts of the visual arts in Cuba options do not wait. This year comes with anniversaries in several major institutions, including the Center for the Development of Visual Arts (CDAV) that will mark its 25 years. As part of this celebration one of the most followed events due to its wide appeal: the VI Cuban Contemporary Art Salon will open its doors. This year the Salon will be dedicated to information and its flow channels in the Cuban context. In it there is a group of specialists from the CDVA working from which may are worth mentioning the curators Gretel Medina - CDAV Deputy Director - Frency Fernández and Caridad Blanco. Structured through exhibition packages that include outreach activities such as lectures and talks, this month they will present three exhibitions as the P350 editorial alternative project and the pedagogical artistic La Red , on the 26th, and n a meeting with artists Celia and Yunior on the 28 . The months of September and October were chosen to summarize the core of theoretical events and exhibitions. These include the group show entitled Por el Dos...

Scarves, patches, leaves and even a rope were made by the young artist Iván Marcos Pereda with pieces of threads drawn from books on politics, philosophy, history and bibles, and are part of an exhibition on display in the Cuba Pavilion in the framework of the 23rd Cuba International Fair Book. Under the name Ibid. the artist brings us to a more detailed analysis of knowledge, history and the book itself as the object that will serve to accumulate each new discovery. However, Ibid. alerts on the relationship between opposites: there is no knowledge without prior emptiness and finiteness of life is also proof that the knowledge that can be achieved in life is equally limited. Precisely in the digital age, the multitude of social networks, the increasing accessibility to information Perera seems to warn us that this is a race in vain: the amplitude of references, objects and events beyond the primal support of pages bonded by a staple or cover. Now the texts are the sum of previous speeches, a dynamic universe of scenarios and narratives so multicultural that overflows any environment that tries to contain it. Ibid. is a sober exhibition in his museum proposal and with...

I have always believed that there is some determinism or caprice in childhood memories that are jealously guarded in mind. Especially when it comes to images and names that, still in adulthood, remain paradigms of what nation, or autochthonous things mean. Fernando Reyna's personality is related to such events: observer, communicative, methodical and rational. Reyna is immersed in the investigation of human being within the social sphere, metaphysical exercise that leads him to a chronic of different contemporary phenomena as a way to respond, from his role as an artist, a universal question: who are we? Hence his production favors experimentation with language. Whether from the styles unification of the twentieth century avant-garde, work with scale and typography, and the use of the notorious character of various objects and spaces that bring him to the ready made implementation; his solutions are supported by the benefits of each demonstration. The painting, because tradition is still useful to question the present and conceptualism because of its provocative and destabilizing nature, essentially serving as the element that makes a review from within the institutional system. Precisely at this level is where the artist is interested in getting his thoughts about human being, present...

Italian Desiderio Sansi and Cuban José Balboa went throughout Cuba to make a movie, on a bike that is almost a relic, one Russian “Ural” from World War II. Balboa and Desiderio left Havana in May this year with the intention to register and connect the various cultural projects that they were finding in their path. These artists, turned- filmmakers also proposed to discuss core issues such as dissection of art schools and centralization in San Alejandro. Thus, art centers, cultural centers, galleries and alternative projects were documented on camera. The result of the journey was the docudrama Ahora sí llegó, with the collaboration of the National Council of Plastic Arts and the Center for the Development of Visual Arts. The film was shot with a digital camera and the film's soundtrack was provided by Descemer Bueno, Edesio Alejandro and theme El mecanico by Osmani Garcia. This December 10 on the grounds of the University of the Arts (ISA) an interactive installation involving the iconographic motif throughout the film: The Ural. The installation also includes projections of still photographs and film of the same short sequences where the musicians will give a concert with the songs that make the score...

The Cuban artist Eduardo Ponjuán (Pinar del Río, 1956), was awarded this year's National Arts Award for his lifetime achievement as a creator. Graduated from the National School of Art in 1978 and ISA 1983, Ponjuán has over thirty solo and group exhibitions. Conceptualism is perhaps the main feature in Ponjuán production. The idea behind the whole from a part that ends in a drawing to installation. Reflection on the nature of artistic production, the work and its meaning are essential when approaching his creations. Eduardo Ponjuán works are in the collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana and at the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, as well as in the collections of Peter Ludwig Forum (Aachen, Germany), Jürgen Harten, Dusseldorf, and Nina Menocal, Mexico, DF. He has won several awards throughout his career: First Prize of Provincial Exhibition of Fine Arts in his native Pinar del Río, the shared Prize City Hall, First Prize Salon Award and the First Prize of Collage in Malta Biennale. The National Arts Award, awarded by the National Council of Plastic Arts, was presented for the first time in 1994 and is awarded annually to a Cuban visual artist, living and...

Cuba's history can be written from dissimilar views. But all would include impressive anecdotes, some more gray than others. In our so-called Special Period in Peace Time, one of the most depressing aspects of social life was - apart from everyday life-urban transport. In this framework, the subway project remained in that, a sketch, and the called metro bus or "camels" began to populate in the cities, a buses that were the Sahara reduced to a few square meters where passengers were transported. Transportation and urban life are precisely the themes that animate the productions of two artists: Guillermo Ramirez Malberti, the "other Guille" and Ernesto Menendez Domecq. I know Ernesto Domecq´s work since few years ago. What led me to write for the first time was to know his persistent passion for drawing. A young man making some pieces with a level of realism and impeccable technique was a rarity in our art scene. Shortly afterwards he extended his work to the digital interaction as a way to engage the public in his creations. From Malberti I knew more about his work in the cinema than his artistic production, but I was able to get close to some of...

Barely after entering into the hall of the Havana’s Mella theater the public must go through a set of plants and timbers set as an arch way. It is a natural threshold that serves as a prelude to an encounter with El Monte by the leading researcher and Cuban anthropologist Lydia Cabrera. It is not here the physical book, but is deployed in dance steps, lights, music and color. Recognized as the Bible of Afro-Cuban religions and myths, the work served as an inspiration to choreographer Rosario Cardenas to create a new piece under her concept of Combinatory Dance. The name of this movement technique comes from Mathematics; Combinatorial Analysis specifically in their formulas includes combination, permutation and variation. However, in this setting without abandoning its choreography concept becomes more vigorous, more sensual, and even sexual. No longer there is Piñera ancestral voice, but the word on the lips of her dancers to illustrate the different mountain woods or sounds from so entangled places. El Monte is deployed to its fullest extent and diversity of life. It is taken by them and become metaphors, symbols and states like the doodle and trance, respectively. The choreography is based on original music...

The group led by Sarah Maria Cruz returned with this touching play to its natural stage: Havana, after a successful tour of 14 countries, mainly in Europe.

Carlos Manuel Guzman Hernandez or as he is known Carlos Guzman (Havana, 1970) is, above all, an artist. Whether in drawings, paintings or even three-dimensional artifacts his ability to breathe life into dream worlds is found. ssues like isolation and loneliness of the individuals become recurring subjects in his work and they have been present since 1989, just after graduating from San Alejandro Academy, he began working at the Psychiatric Hospital of Havana. His experience during the making of his tem paper would accompany him forever.

The first full-length film by young producer and scriptwriter Carlos Lechuga was released in the Yara movie theatre in Havana. As part of International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema, Melaza (Molasses), competes in the Debut category.

The 2004 National Plastic Arts Award Roberto Fabelo presents his exhibition of year’s end in the Havana Gallery. Under the title “No somos animales” the exhibition was inaugurated with the attendance of outstanding personalities of the plastic arts such as: Flora Fong, Ever Fonseca and the caricaturist René de la Nuez, among others.