FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CUBART: CONTEMPORARY CUBAN ART Preview on March7; Open from March8- 30, 2013 NEW YORK, NY (February 8, 2013)–CUBART: Contemporary Cuban Art is an exhibition inspired by the recent XI Havana Biennial and the enthusiastic interest of American connoisseurs and collectors who traveled to the island to see it. Now, the work of influential Cuban Contemporary artists who participated in the last biennial will be seen in New York, exposing it to a new American audience. Featuring many of Cuba’s most influential contemporary artists, it will be on view from March 7 – 30 at Site/109, a pop-up exhibition space on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. CUBART is being presented by Emilio Calleja—founder of arteaméricas, one of the leading fairs dedicated to showcasing art from Latin America—in collaboration with Robert Borlenghi, president of Miami’s Pan American Art Projects. An overview of contemporary Cuban artistic practices, the exhibition draws attention to the influence of the island’s political climate on artistic statements. Curated by Miami-based curator Irina Leyva-Perez, CUBART will showcase many of Cuba’s leading artists, including Jose Angel Toirac, Abel Barroso, KCHO and Jose Manuel Fors—all of whom were exhibited in the 2012 Biennial. Reflecting the work of that prestigious group, CUBART examines the relationship between visual productions and social imaginaries, as well as expression through cultural and historical references. “Over the years, the Havana Biennial has established a reputation for showing quality exhibitions. The event brings together the most interesting and novel artistic proposals in the region, but particularly those from Cuba,” says Irina Leyva-Perez, the show’s curator. “With CUBART, we hope to continue the dialogue and extend the conversation to incorporate opinions and insights of the New York art world". Leyva-Perez has curated scores of gallery and museum shows over the years, including Pan American Art Projects’ program, exhibitions at the National Gallery of Jamaica and the XXIII Biennial of Sao Paulo, and juried shows in Bolivia, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. CUBART: Contemporary Cuban Art will be open from March 7 –30 at Site/109(109 Norfolk Street, between Rivington and Delancey, New York City). Exhibition hours: Preview – Thursday, March 7: 6–9PM Wednesday–Sunday: 12-6PM Mondays and Tuesdays: Open by appointment (continued) For additional information, please visit http://www.site109.com/cubart/or email [email protected]. ABOUT THE CUBART ARTISTS: ABEL BARROSO Barroso’s recent works focus on the stress and anxiety of people’s migration into and out of Cuba, commenting especially about the connection, or lack thereof, between the so-called first and third worlds. The works –-such as El Pinball del Emigrante (Immigrant’s Pinball Machine), an installation composed of seven pinball machines made of untreated carved wood-- represents the interdependent or symbiotic exchange between both worlds, influenced by the social and economic state of affairs that distinguish each place. The Immigrant’s Pinball Machine becomes a sort of virtual frontier between the first and third worlds. Barroso’s work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collection of several major institutions including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Cuba). JOSE ANGEL TOIRAC CUBARTfeatures paintings from Toirac’s “Gray” and “Alma Pater” Series. The formeruses mass-produced media images of iconic political personalities. At the outset, the paintings bear an almost photorealistic resemblance to the photos on which they are based, but the artist then uses a brush and silver pigment to blur the images, creating more abstracted compositions. In so doing, the works –-such as human memory-- become hazy “snapshots” of history. Alma Pater is a grammatical anomaly (based on the Latin term ‘Alma Mater,’ or nourishing mother) that Toirac uses to “celebrate the importance of the masculine role model.”The paintings depict influential figures (such as Fidel Castro and Gerardo Machado) in Cuban history interacting with children and exposing these public figures’ vulnerabilities.His work examines the way in which history has been distorted and how such powerful and oppressive characters have been re-imagined as cultural icons. Toirac’s work has been exhibited throughout the world – from Arizona to New York, and from Paris to Aachen. His work is in the collections of the Musee des Beaux- Arts de Montreal, Ludwig Forum, Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale among many others. JOSE MANUEL FORS A pioneer of the Cuban contemporary art renaissance and participant in Cuba’s 1981 groundbreaking exhibition Volume 1, Fors uses photography to explore themes of memory and nature. Theimages exude a sense of nostalgiaand yearning and examine the concept of the passage of time and the evocative power of memory.The artist creates images with fragments of old photographs that he has collected to create new visual references. Fors has exhibited internationally from Miami to Santiago de Composetela, Spain and from Los Angeles to Tokyo. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Fundacion Museo de Bellas Artes (Caracas, Venezuela)among others. KCHO (ALEXIS LEYVA MACHADO) KCHO, born Alexis Leyva Machado, firstappeared on the Cuban scene in 1991 at the MNBA for the “Artist of the Month.”The early 90s was marked by a strong migration of Cubans to America – a theme central to KCHO’s work. His sculpturesoften depict the perilous aspects of Cuban migration across the sea and incorporate overt references to the journey. His drawings and sculptures often depict heavily worked images depicting inner tubes, oars, and boats. According to Leyva-Perez, “the aggressive and sketch-like lines are allusive to the difficulties involved in the process”. KCHO, perhaps the most internationally recognized artist participating in CUBART, exhibited at the Kwang-Ju Biennial (Korea) where his work won the Grand Prix. He was also awarded the Prize for the Promotion of Arts granted by UNESCO. Since that first exhibition he has had more than 90 solo exhibitions and 200 group exhibitions in 35 countries around the globe. LUIS ENRIQUE CAMEJO Camejo’s cityscape paintings reflect the renewed interest in realism in painting; however, while many artists would choose landscape or still life as their subject matter, Camejo opts to create monochromatic canvases that have an ephemeral or ghostly quality. The dripping and blurring techniques employed by Camejo are evocative of the speed of an automobile – of contemporary city life while simultaneouslyhighlighting the relationships between man, environment and time. Camejo has exhibited extensively in Cuba, in Miami and The Hague (Netherlands). J. ROBERTO DIAGO Diago’s works combine painting, collage and mixed media techniques and explore his identity of both a Cuban and a man of African descent. His abstracted portraits of blackened faces are at once primitive yet refined. The recipient of numerous national and international awards, Diago has frequently exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions throughout Cuba, North and South America and Europe. In 1997 his work was shown at the Venice Biennial. PEDRO PABLO OLIVA Oliva’s fantastical and cartoonlike compositions address social problems and injustices and, more specifically, comments on the Cuban political arena. The oversize triptych El inconcluso milagro del pan y los peces, (The Unfinished Business of the Miracle of Bread and Fish) portrays Castro and the Pope side by side against a frenetic backdrop - is his commentary on the controversial visit. His compositions recall the works of Marc Chagall, Eduardo Abela and, to an extent, Matta. Oliva has received the Prize of Painting at the National Salon of UNEAC and his work has been exhibited in Colombia, Mexico, Panama Spain, Sweden and the United States. ALEXANDER ARRECHEA Arrechea, the only artist exhibiting in CUBART not currently living in Cuba, initially became known as part of the art collective Los Carpinteros. In 2003, after nine years with the collective, Arrechea left to begin a solo career. His work- often monumental in scale- reveals his profound interest in the exploration of both public and domestic spaces and his fascination with concepts of power and its network of hierarchies, surveillance, and control. The viewer’s participation is integral to the meaning of the work. Arrechea has exhibited internationally and has had shows at Magnan Metz Gallery (New York), Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, (Paris), the Museum of Art and Design (New York) The Bronx Museum of Art (Bronx, NY), among others. His work has been selected for the 2013 Park Avenue Mall Project. SANDRA RAMOS Sandra Ramos continually transforms herself through her work. Using self-portraits to make emotionally charged statements, the artist often depicts herself as a “red- uniformed ‘niña pionera’” (pioneer girl). The compositions selected for exhibition in CUBART seem playful, yet have a deeply unsettling aura about them. Ramos has had solo shows around the world in cities such as Mexico DF, Tokyo, Miami, Santiago de Compestela, among others. Her work is in the collections of Lehigh University Museum (Philadelphia), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The Museum of Modern Art (New York) and Grafik Museum Stiftung Scharainer (Bad Steben). Media contact: Helen Allen/Meryl Cooper Allen/Cooper Enterprises 212-260-8100 [email protected] .