ExhibitionSeptember 20, 2019
Kendall Art Center presents Lágrimas Negras
Miami, Florida
Lágrimas negras, a photography exhibition with works by Nadal Antelmo, Willy Castellanos, Rogelio López Marín/Gory, Ana Olema, and Mel Rossitch, curated by Isabel Pérez, is on view at the Miami Dade College’s Kendall Art Center (KAC) between July 19 and August 30, 2019.
The title for the exhibition comes from Miguel Matamoros’ well known bolero, “Lágrimas negras” (Black Tears), already an indication of the kinds of chronicles offered by these artists’ images. In the words of the curator: “Five artists who come together in pursuit of the license granted them by their digital or analog devices to radiate their obsessions, weaving concomitant plots. Speculative maneuvers for the passage of the exemption—be it temporary or definitive—of an illusory region that each of them thought conquered, but can only be spied today from a platform of silence and light.”
Captured in the subjects’ homes, the photos in 100 retratos familiares cubanos (100 Cuban Family Portraits), by Nadal Antelmo/Nadalito (Cárdenas, 1968), provide a prototypical panorama immersed in everyday life. In Regreso a Koyaanisqatsi (Return to Koyaanisqatsi), self-taught art historian, curator and photographer Willy Castellanos (Havana, 1959) tells about his recent explorations of Miami area junkyards. His documentary images, manipulated findings, and reconverted scenes aestheticize an engagement with environmental issues, while words—in the titles of the photographs—give density to the signifiers. Es sólo agua en la lágrima de un extraño (It Is Just Water in A Stranger’s Tear, 1986) or 1836-1936-1984 (1987), by Rogelio López Marín/Gory (Havana, 1953), use poetic texts as the ferment of a journey triggered by mechanisms that are deeply anchored to the border zone between reality and mirage. Ana Olema (Holguín, 1986), presents in turn, among other works, The Longest Night (2019), a sheet collecting fifty-eight advertisements found interspersed with articles published in Miami/Southern Florida on December 31, 1958, covering Fidel Castro’s ascent to power. Also included in the exhibition is Secretos de confesión (Secrets of Confession, 2017), a series in which architect Mel Rossitch (Havana, 1968) delves into the thorny issue of iconicity, placing transparent, bored-through barriers before fugitive and ambiguous images. Not only does she establish a material boundary, but the very shapes we are able to discern invite promiscuous and polysemic decoding.
Lágrimas negras, a photography exhibition with works by Nadal Antelmo, Willy Castellanos, Rogelio López Marín/Gory, Ana Olema, and Mel Rossitch, curated by Isabel Pérez, is on view at the Miami Dade College’s Kendall Art Center (KAC) between July 19 and August 30, 2019.
The title for the exhibition comes from Miguel Matamoros’ well known bolero, “Lágrimas negras” (Black Tears), already an indication of the kinds of chronicles offered by these artists’ images. In the words of the curator: “Five artists who come together in pursuit of the license granted them by their digital or analog devices to radiate their obsessions, weaving concomitant plots. Speculative maneuvers for the passage of the exemption—be it temporary or definitive—of an illusory region that each of them thought conquered, but can only be spied today from a platform of silence and light.”
Captured in the subjects’ homes, the photos in 100 retratos familiares cubanos (100 Cuban Family Portraits), by Nadal Antelmo/Nadalito (Cárdenas, 1968), provide a prototypical panorama immersed in everyday life. In Regreso a Koyaanisqatsi (Return to Koyaanisqatsi), self-taught art historian, curator and photographer Willy Castellanos (Havana, 1959) tells about his recent explorations of Miami area junkyards. His documentary images, manipulated findings, and reconverted scenes aestheticize an engagement with environmental issues, while words—in the titles of the photographs—give density to the signifiers. Es sólo agua en la lágrima de un extraño (It Is Just Water in A Stranger’s Tear, 1986) or 1836-1936-1984 (1987), by Rogelio López Marín/Gory (Havana, 1953), use poetic texts as the ferment of a journey triggered by mechanisms that are deeply anchored to the border zone between reality and mirage. Ana Olema (Holguín, 1986), presents in turn, among other works, The Longest Night (2019), a sheet collecting fifty-eight advertisements found interspersed with articles published in Miami/Southern Florida on December 31, 1958, covering Fidel Castro’s ascent to power. Also included in the exhibition is Secretos de confesión (Secrets of Confession, 2017), a series in which architect Mel Rossitch (Havana, 1968) delves into the thorny issue of iconicity, placing transparent, bored-through barriers before fugitive and ambiguous images. Not only does she establish a material boundary, but the very shapes we are able to discern invite promiscuous and polysemic decoding.
Gallery
