News

The Cleveland Institute of Art launches The Cuba Project, a program featuring five contemporary, multi-generational Cuban artists who will teach as artists-in-residence at the college. The project begins with a fall Symposium at CIA on Thursday October 13 at 5:30pm.

The Symposium features the project’s first visiting artist Osmeivy Ortega, along with artist Alejandro Aguilera, and Alejandro de la Fuente a University of Pittsburgh history and Latin American studies professor and author of A Nation for All: Race Inequality and Politics in Twentieth Century Cuba. The Symposium takes place at CIA’s Aitken Auditorium and is free and open to the public. Symposium details are at cia.edu/cubaproject.

Through The Cuba Project, and this fall Symposium, the community will be introduced to an important Cuban perspective on art and culture, and participate in discussions on Cuban social issues. The project is funded mostly through the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion Program, with additional funding from CIA.

“We’re delighted to host these influential artists and be a part of this very important cultural exchange. CIA and the Cleveland community are privileged to experience Cuban art and culture right in our classrooms and community and we are grateful to the Cleveland Foundation for making this project possible, ” said CIA President and CEO, Grafton J. Nunes.

The artists were chosen to participate in the program by CIA professors, David Hart, Saul Ostrow, and Charles Tucker, while on a trip to Cuba funded by the Cleveland Foundation grant. There, the professors interviewed 44 Cuban artists to identify mid-career and emerging artists with a record of socially responsive work, the desire and qualifications to teach in a school of art and design, and the ability to engage with the community and local institutions.

“Our interviews revealed that Cuban artists distinguish themselves by generation. It’s the inter-generational aspect of this project that makes this particular Cuban cultural exchange program unique,” said David Hart, associate professor of art history at CIA. “We learned that younger artists tend to respond to Cuban culture and social conditions somewhat differently than older, more established artists whose careers were established in the 1980s and 1990s.” Hart and CIA Assistant Professor Lane Cooper serve as directors of the project.

Printmaker Ortega will arrive on October 7 and leaves on December 2. Installation artist and sculptor Abel Barroso will visit from October 15 through December 10. In spring 2012 painter and video artist Alex Hernández will be in residence from January 9 to March 5. The collaborative team of Meira Marrero (artist and art historian) and José Ángel (painter and installation artist) will at CIA from February 2 to March 30.

The artwork of the artists-in-residence also is on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA Cleveland, now through December 31. A spring semester symposium is scheduled for Sat., Feb. 11, 2012 at CIA.

Learn more at cia.edu/cubaproject and clevelandfoundation.org.