Carlos Garaicoa, Balazos y puerta (Shots and Door), detail, 1997–2000
A
perture, an essential element in the practice of
analog photography, refers to the opening of the
lens that regulates the amount of light that enters
the camera and inscribes an image on the film. “Apertura,”
the equivalent term in Spanish, also means a transition of
something from being closed or fixed to a state of openness.
When used figuratively, the term describes a sudden desire
to embrace change, to accept new ideologies and cultures.
Reflecting upon the traditional use of photography, Apertura:
Photography in Cuba Today explores the way photography
is currently used, understood, and experienced in a culture
often portrayed as isolated both politically and geographically. New Cuban photography opens up the imagination,
both in terms of what it can now do as a medium, and in its
capacity to envision new cultural and political possibilities
in a place that feels as though it has been frozen in time.
This exhibition brings together photography-based
installations, digital photomontage, and “intervened photography” by eight contemporary Cuban artists to examine
how photography has changed on the island over the last
two decades, and to show how it creates meaning in light
of technological, philosophical, and aesthetic changes. The
premise of the exhibition is that, in contrast to the highly
stylized documentary photography we tend to associate
with the early days of the Cuban Revolution, the new
Cuban photography aims to shape reality by creating a new
language through the combination of expressive artifacts.
Now, the printed image plays only a part in a complex,
multilayered discursive practice. Through combinations of
different images and media and through the displacement
of photographic techniques to other senses and materials,
new Cuban photography-based art creates an imaginary
space of aesthetic openness against what is perceived to be
a stagnant political reality.
The Cuban Revolution, which saw itself as creating
a new, more just society, largely constructed its utopian
image on the basis of photography. Soon after they seized
power in 1959, Fidel Castro along with Che Guevara and
other guerrilla fighters became the exclusive clients of
photographers who had had successful careers in advertising in the 1950s. Their carefully constructed images drew
on advertising conventions and techniques that emphasized
the youthful, irreverent heroism of the new leaders. Showcasing the casual style and the aggressive masculinity of
the guerrilla fighters, Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez (known as
Korda) (1928–2001), Osvaldo Salas (1914–1992), and Raúl
Corrales (1925–2006) created an alluring visual archive of
the early 1960s. Combining a euphoric tone with an intimate gaze, their images have had a profound influence on
how contemporary artists see Cuba photographically. Even
though enthusiasm for the Revolution itself has critically
diminished over the years, those photographers created
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