Havana, Sep 13 (EFE).- Glass, tiles, photographs and oil paintings, among other materials, come together to create social themes and dreams in the exhibition of young Cuban art MalaYerba 2024, which opens its doors this Friday in a gallery in Havana.
The exhibition brings together the 29 finalist works of the MalaYerba 2024 visual arts competition, an initiative of the state platform Fondo de Arte Joven (FAJ) dedicated to the promotion of emerging art in Cuba.
The curator of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Corina Matamoros, highlighted at the opening of the exhibition the opportunity that this initiative offers to young talents emerging from the island’s art schools so that they can “exhibit their works, connect and confront” the public.
In this second edition of the competition, 82 works were presented in various media by the same number of artists from different regions of the country, including professionals, self-taught artists and art students.
The awards
At the opening of the exhibition, the FAJ, together with the Fundación Los Carbonell/NG Art Gallery (based in Panama), partner and manager of the visual arts modality of the project, announced the works of the artists who deserved the four prizes and two mentions awarded by a jury of specialists.
The Grand Prize of the competition went to Airel Suárez, for her piece ‘Palimpsesto’, in which she reflects through tiles and manipulated photographs “the social change that Cuba has experienced” in the last six decades, she explained to EFE.
The tiles are “an ordinary element of a period, a symbolism,” added the artist, who will hold a solo exhibition in Panama next year.
Another of the winners, Miguel Reyes, won first prize with ‘Show number 65’, a large-format painting, using a mixed technique of oil on canvas, in which this 30-year-old graduate of fine arts points out that he painted several circus tents with his usual striped fabric to address “a social issue that has a strong charge.”
Karla Betancourt, a sculptor who considers herself a “textile artist,” received the second award for Ajuste de cuentas, a work she defines as “installational,” she says, because it brings together a unique necklace of glass beads woven on a loom, a photo and an artist’s book.
They are joined by the recent graduate Daniel Antón, who was the Grand Prize winner of the competition in 2023 with a sculpture, and this time he presented an oil painting that earned him a place in the selection that is shown in the Salón Blanco gallery, located in the former Convent of San Francisco de Asís.
Last August, Antón, 25, installed his personal exhibition La pereza me sabe a gloria in this same space with the support of the FAJ. It was inspired by the residual landscape generated by human apathy and was part of his graduation exercise at the University of the Arts.
(c) EFE Agency
