"Without Masks: Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art"

Organized by the Museo de Bellas Artes de La Habana and the Watch Hill Foundation, the exhibition titled "Without Masks: Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art" seeks to provoke reflection on the cultural, racial, and religious fabric of Afro-Cuban art, with the intention of contributing to its projection and understanding. The exhibition will include 149 contemporary works by 38 Cuban artists that belong to the Von Christierson Collection. The show will occupy three exhibition rooms of the museum and will remain open to the public until October 2, 2017. The collection was created in 2007 as result of a desire by South-African Von Christenson to explore and study the artistic and cultural connections between Africa and Cuba. This pursuit would eventually get the attention of Cuban art critic, curator and researcher Orlando Hernández, who would curate the private collection with the goal of turning it into a traveling and public exhibition. Without Masks… consists of 450 works by contemporary Cuban artists from the 1960s to this day. It was exhibited for the first time in 2014 at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) in South Africa and at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. On this occasion, the Museo de Bellas Artes de La Habana will become the stage in which to showcase some works by artists like Wifredo Lam, Belkis Ayón, Carlos Garaicoa, Alexis Esquivel, Juan Carlos Alom, José Bedia, Elio Rodríguez, Armando Mariño, Douglas Pérez, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons, among others. For more information visit: http://www.withoutmasks.org/without-masks-contemporary-afro-cuban-art/