Agent and Publisher for Pettegrew, Caleb and the Artists of Cuba Oriente

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An interesting take on the current state of the Cuban art market outside of Cuba from Daily Campello Art News:

“The collectors are taking advantage of a little-known exception to the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba: It is legal for Americans to buy Cuban art.” –Wall Street Journal

This suggestion and idea is simple, and has been proven recently by the super hot rise of Chinese artists: when a closed society is opened up a little, its top artists see a substantial rise in exposure and thus in demand, and of course, in prices!

And it makes sense (if you buy art as an investment strategy rather than love of art).

Generally speaking, when an artist is in certain major collections around the world, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Tate in London, and other such giants of the museum world, it attracts a certain level of collector interest, and it is almost always associated with a certain price range.

And there are many contemporary Cuban artists whose work has been in those and many other important museums around the world for a very long time, and whose work continues to attract curatorial, critical and savvy collector interest, but because of their lack of exposure to the American market in general (often created by their closed societies), their price range is not in par with their colleagues from other nations in the same level.

Read the whole blog entry, Aqui Estamos.

Afro-Cuban artist Wifredo Lam’s art is on exhibit at the Salvador Dali Museum in St Petersburg, Florida through January 11, 2009. The show displays Lam’s groundbreaking work with pieces from 1927 through 1972.
Lam, a contemporary of Dali’s, allowed his work to be influenced by his Chinese, African, and Spanish heritage, as well as by 20th century European painting. The second half of his career was heavily influenced by African forms and religion. His work gained international acclaim by the 1940’s, and its fusion of African, Caribbean and European themes remains influential to this day.
Salvador Dali Museum of Art, 1000 Third St. S, St. Petersburg; ongoing thru Jan. 11. Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, extended hours on Thursday to 8 p.m. and Friday to 6:30 p.m.; noon to 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Admission: adults $15, seniors $13.50, students 10 and older $10, and children 5 to 9. $4. (727) 823-3767.

YENDI TOMÁS ESTRADA CANCINO
b. (1978–) Manzanillo, Cuba
Graduate: School of Visual Arts, Holguin
Now residing in Santiago de Cuba
YENDI demonstrates an obvious reverence for Rembrandt, whose spirit infuses many of his paintings. His work can be found in many private collections in Cuba and abroad.
Yendi has exhibited extensively throughout Cuba including a Solo exhibition at the prestigious “Galería Oriente” in Santiago de Cuba, 2003.

Untitled Oil on Canvas (51″x70″)-Available

“Melancolia” Oil on Canvas (46″x34″) -Available

Santiago de Cuba is a lovely city nestled between the sea and the mountains, between blue and green. In order to understand that city and its artists, to its singular geological and architectural characteristics we must add a strong personality and a luminous, colorful, extroverted, noisy and welcoming setting.
Antonio Ferrer Cabello sings to the city and its residents. Portraying the former, he rejoices in improbable but real spaces, in the reddish tone of its locally made roof tiles, in the hundred-year-old balconies, in the cobblestones worn down by the incessant comings and goings of its inhabitants and curious visitors on steep, narrow streets.

He captures the city’s soul like no one else, beyond all visible forms. Gazing at his canvases, we forget that painting is two-dimensional as we “penetrate” those idealized panoramas, where it’s always noon and everything seems to doze in the stupor of the siesta. But that sun doesn’t burn us. That’s how pleasant Ferrer’s Santiago is.
In this regard, Jorge Hidalgo comments:
There are some of Ferrer’s cityscapes that I call “rooftop landscapes,” because clearly he has painted them from his studio or some high point, and they are impressive. This is something that no other painter has achieved, not even the golden watercolorists, as I call Hernández Giro, Bofill and others who – although they are masters – have not portrayed that Santiago de Cuba that Ferrer captures from the rooftops.
And Julia Valdés adds:
No one else is as adept in capturing our city’s luminosity and brilliant color in those landscapes, and from the viewpoint of composition, the city’s architecture and the contours of the land. His stroke is dynamic and I would say that his most recent phase is more daring than the previous ones, and his palette much richer.…
Ferrer Cabello creates Caribbean images. Feverishly devoted to them, he has delved into an iconographic world which is ever richer and more diverse, in constant evolution. The men and women are inserted in the city as if it were a huge, colorful fan. In careful detail, he explores the possibilities offered by his surroundings. Nothing escapes the master’s palette: carnival, the Cubans’ joy and love of crowds. He has given us a vast collection of portraits of conspicuous characters from Santiago de Cuba and other latitudes, as well as affectionate views of the countryside. Ferrer seems to feel a constant need to reveal life itself. He is a man in his 90s who is born each day, creating scenes full of images that are significant, among other reasons, for their documentary value.
His works are like windows opening onto the world, helping us to shape our values and ultimately our consciousness. This master has the constant need to find the essential nature of the reality surrounding us, often by delving into its narrative content. Ferrer presents us with his own universe, which seems to be inexhaustible.

Seven North and Arte De Cuba are proud to introduce Cuban artist Harry Ruiz Moreno.

Currently showing at the Goddard Center for the Arts, in Ardmore, OK, Harry’s works have generated tremendous interest and brisk sales.

"Our Masks, Our Selves" Harry Ruiz Moreno

Oil on Canvas, (43″x63″)

Born in Holguín, Cuba, 1973. Studies: 1984-1992: He attended Professional Holguin Art School “El Alba” at the same time he was receiving private lessons from another Holguin born artist: Cosme Proenza (a world-known painter graduated from Kiev Beaux Arts Institute.) Main Personal Exhibitions: 1992: Graduation Thesis. Moncada show room. Holguín,Cuba. 1995: Personal Exhibition. Anonimous Gallery . Panamá 1997: “Everything on Harry”. Graphic Workshop Gallery. Habana, Cuba. 1999: “Deceiving our eyesl”. Internacional Press Center. Habana, Cuba. 2000: “Harry”. Galería Adriano, Milán: Personal Exhibition. Galería Pernik.Holguín, Cuba. 2007: Personal Exhibition. San Lucas Gallery. Chueca, Madrid Collective Exhibitions : 1993: “From the drawing”. La Acacia, Habana, Cuba. 1995: Modern Cuban Art Exhibition . Santiago de Chile. 1996: “Comtemporary Cuban Landscapes”. Anonimous Gallery. Panamá 1998: Cuban Contemporary Art showroom,.Milán, Italia 1999: “Arteba” Fair :Buenos Aires, Argentina 2001: “20-21”. Collective Cuban Contemporary Art Exhibiton. Acacia Gallery Habana, Cuba. 2005: Collective Exhibición. “Encuentros” Gallery, Panamá. His works may be found in many private collections in countries such as Italia, Panamá, Estados Unidos, Puerto Rico, México, Costa Rica, among others. Under Cosme Proenza tutorial, he became a skillful painter, a very virtuoso exponent of the Russian academic school ready to mingle Cuban social speech and tropical spirit with ochre and sepia colors, accurate drawing with loose brush strokes to express a boring state of mind as well as a desire of intellectual freedom. On several of his canvas naïve characters appear just posing themselves as part of an absurd scenario with suspended stones and upside-down flying birds which somehow reflects the uncertainty and chaos that for decades has been dominating Cuban life. Masks serve to depict a double moral society. Houses refers to belongings we left behind when we part, the nostalgia of not recovering our roots, our past. Children and old men together are supposed to express a very short route from birth to death, as if middle age life doesn’t count that much (no plans, no future), while migration seems to be the only and eternal way out. Harry wouldn’t call his work surrealism but something rather closer to nihilism. As he often says he hates painting beautiful things unless absurdity is present. Absurdity is still the most representative characteristic of human nature.

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The Havana Cultura site is an exciting, vivid destination that is, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your bandwidth, all javascript/Flash driven. The site is financed by Havana Club brand rum. who appear to have spared no expense. Visual arts and contemporary music are presented TV magazine-style. Makes us even more anxious for the day that trade relations are liberalized.
The default language is Spanish, but English is one of the other languages offered. Offered, but perhaps ineffectively. We’ll be watching this site.

Cuban Artists Wilfredo Lam and Carlos Luna are featured in two separate exhibits running concurrently at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, Ca. Both exhibits will run until August 31st of this year.

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The National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana, which we won’t be seeing until the policies of the US government toward Cuba are relaxed, is hosting an exhibition of Cuban artists stressing the insularity (which we think can be here translated as “island-ness”) of Cuban art traditions. Certainly political conditions in the second half of the twentieth century have conspired to keep a certain Cuba relatively isolated from daily casual contact with much of the art world’s permutations and fashions. This, we feel, accounts for Cuban arts fresh appeal, as Cuba is allowed to emerge from its largely US-imposed isolation.

So we find ourselves wondering, will Cuban art maintain its character and charm once US collectors are unleashed upon it, or will market forces direct Cuban artists into the blander mainstream? Will commercial success, and it is coming, spoil Cuban art?

And the inevitable liberalization of trade restrictions that will follow? The Miami Herald outlines a little Calle Ocho tour of Cuban art galleries and eateries that may tide you over till you can get friendly with the State Department again.

And don’t forget to check out the great original Cuban paintings and prints we can deliver to your doorstep, no trips to Miami or Havana required. That’s them, just to your right, under “The Art of Cuba” in yellow letters. If you see anything you like, call Lila at 727-894-5266 or email us at sevennorth@gmail.com. We’ll be here, drinking Mojitos.