SILENT SHOUT @ VIRGINIA MILLER GALLERY

Silent Shout: Voices in Cuban Abstraction, 1950 -2013

            Nine Cuban artists are featured in The Silent Shout: Voices in Cuban Abstraction, 1950-2013, opening 6-10 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1^st, at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in downtown Coral Gables.  Three of the artists are being exhibited in Greater Miami for the first time.

According to Rafael DiazCasas, one of the show’s three curators, “The Silent Shout is the first historical exhibition outside Cuba that includes a variety of Cuban artists of different generations working in abstraction.”

Abstract art was not sanctioned by the Fidel Castro regime and thus was not promoted in any of the country’s major venues until 1997, during the VI Havana Biennial, when the exhibition Pinturas del Silencio featured abstract works “to an extent that had not been achieved since the exhibition Expresionismo Abstracto at Galeria Habana, in 1963,” DiazCasas said.

“The Silent Shout is not a survey exhibition, but rather the product of a curatorial vision taking Pinturas del Silencio as its departure, a continuation of the themes, attitudes and ideas explored in that landmark show,” he noted.

One of the curators of Pinturas del Silencio—José Angel Vincench—is an artist whose work is included in The Silent Shout as well as being one of its three curators. The third curator of The Silent Shout, Janet Batet, wrote the catalog essay for the 1997 exhibition and co-authored, with Rafael DiazCasas, the essay for the catalog for The Silent Shout.

Other artists whose paintings are included in The Silent Shout are Hugo Consuegra, Sandú Darié, Carlos García, Luis Enrique López, Raúl Martínez, Pedro de Oraá, José Rosabal, and Loló Soldevilla.

“Since the 1950s, abstraction has been viewed by Cuban-born artists as an artistic form and movement closely associated with ideals of social engagement,” DiazCasas explained. “The Silent Shout is the first show since Pinturas del Silencio to explore those ideals through works taken from a range of the most significant Cuban abstract artists of the past 60 years. 

“This is the first time since 1961 that the works of Darié, Soldevilla, Oraá and Rosabal have been exhibited together, so this is a reunion of a significant part of the “10 Pintores Concretos” group. Also it is the first time that the works of Rosabal, Carlos García and Luis Enrique López have been shown in Miami. 

“Darié, Loló, Oraá and Rosabal were members of ‘10 Pintores Concretos;’ Consuegra and Raul Martinez members of ‘Los Once.’ The work of Carlos Garcia built on the avenues opened by Los Once, while Luis Enrique Lopez furthered 10 Pintores Concretos’ language, which uses form as a goal of walking away from any type of representation. Enrique Lopez’s formal approach to the playfulness of light, and the adaptation of the human eye to its perception, is a lucid insight on the social unconscious of today’s Cuban society. 

“Vincench’s appropriation of abstraction is more radical because he uses pure forms to comment upon his social concerns, recent Cuban political history and daily life,” DiazCasas concluded.

The Silent Shout is the latest in a series of ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Gallery exhibitions over the past 40 years that have been the first of their kind in the nation or region (see virginiamiller.com).  Located in the heart of the Coral Gables business district at 169 Madeira Ave., the gallery is open Monday-Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and by appointmenton Saturdays and evenings. 

(via Rafael DiazCasas)