HB, young and acclaimed art in the same sphere

December is a delight of a month and not only because of the farewell and welcome festivities for the next year. For art lovers, there is an accumulation of visualities for full delight, even for given manifestations.

Among many, we will soon enjoy the Havana’s New Latin American Cinema Festival, the International Crafts Fair, among others. Right now, the Habana, Servando, La Acacia, La Nave and Sarrá Building art galleries, all belonging to the Génesis Company, are all topping the list of any art follower.

The fifth edition of HB. Exhibition of Contemporary Cuban Art, inaugurated a few days ago, is the example of a dialogue between renowned artists and new generations, artists who live on the island and others who do not.

Visiting some venues allows you to enjoy and explore a sea of interpretations of pieces as diverse as sculptures, installations, canvases, some created with conventional methods, but others with the ingenuity of innovation.

CubaSí had the pleasure of speaking with some of the young artists who exhibit in Servando art gallery, located on the central corner of 23 and 10 Streets, each of the interviewees showed us once again that art is as infinite as the creative capacity of men.

For Alberto Domínguez, author of a striking work based on tensioners and a metal hand that pulls it from one end, “the event is key as it brings together artists from several generations within the Cuban art. Sharing space with more experienced artists, in turn, legitimizes your work, in addition to being a great time for younger artists to gain public recognition and be known in art galleries.”

Domínguez explained to us that HB has a commercial status, similar to a fair, a characteristic that has been designed since the first edition. This year, it has the particularity of hosting several projects in different galleries.

Regarding his proposal, he commented that “his art piece dialogues from the economic relations between the human body and space, built from the average height scale of 1.70 and 1.85 m.”

He told us that it is a work that addresses the limit between men and tension. "It has the peculiarity of being interactive. The public passes through and whoever can go over that measure in some way has to lower their head to avoid being hit."

“Although I always leave my creations open to the public's imaginary construction, this one with its title: Llega, pero no te pases (Do what you need to do, but do not cross the line), is a beautiful metaphor that tells us about how we are related to our context based on the concepts of ergonomics as a design resource,” added Alberto Domínguez.

Others interviewed were a pair of twins who, although they do not believe they have so much in common in their art, besides the blood fact, their studies at the San Alejandro Academy and the Higher Institute of Art, the reuse of materials and their love for art makes them an inseparable relationship.

For Greta Reyna, new member in the Servando art gallery, it is a good opportunity to participate in this exhibition with her work Broken Interior #9, Broken Object #44 and Broken Object #45, all of which have been intervened, with a pedestal covered with wallpaper from the 70s.

Her creative concept goes towards reuse, recycling and “working from the broken object in every sense. The paintings are made on printed fabrics, in a game with geometric shapes that could simulate broken things or breaks in any space.”

“I like to install in the space with pedestals. Here, we have one covered with wallpaper to simultaneously break a little with the canonical of the conventional white pedestal. I love creating small domestic spaces that can transmit to the viewer memories of homes, family events,” noted the artist.

On the other hand, her sister Gabriela Reyna, author of the untitled work, from the Solo Polvo series, made with makeup and cleanser wipes, considers it pertinent to share space with artists of her generation.

She told us she loves to work from the feminine world, the universe of women, sensitivity or sensuality with unconventional materials, as is the case of the use of materials that generally fall into disuse such as makeup.

For Gabriela, the common thread between her and her sister “is born from intimacy. Greta from the familiar, with the edges of memory and home, and I from the intimate, in my position as a woman.”

Our last interviewee, Gabriel Cisneros, who previously held the personal exhibition The Conjurer, in the same art gallery, is attending HB with the sculpture The Great Orator, a casting in polyester resin and fiberglass.

Cisneros tells us that his work is an operation that is broken down into the same dynamics that he showed in the sculptures in the exhibition a couple of weeks ago. “I appropriate the commemorative sculpture from the late 19th century to show it in a different way.”

“What do I do? I work with the busts. I cut out the sculpture and replicate it twice to create new images that evoke other senses. Of course, the viewer will spin his own story around the work.”

“As we are used to seeing commemorative statuary in a certain way with its own codes and people are trained to interpret them, my intention is to twist those mechanisms, so the senses that bind the piece are others.”

“I don't like to universalize meanings, perhaps the version of my work is not the most interesting, but I like that people surprise me with what they interpret and sometimes those versions are more complex and beautiful than the one I have formed about the piece itself.”

Cisneros pointed out that “HB is an event that has caught the attention of artists with more established careers, which is and will be very healthy and important for us, the youngest growing artists.”

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff