MONTEBRAVO: 10TH ANNIVERSARY
September 9 – October 24, 2009
Ten years ago it seemed impossible that a small non-profit could open a gallery to show nothing but art from Cuba and survive more than one year. The Center for Cuban Studies had legitimacy: several years before it had organized a suit against the U.S. Treasury Department to make the importation of original art from Cuba legal, and with the help of lawyer Michael Krinsky and the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, the Center and fellow plaintiffs had won. But the Center had no investment money.
Nonetheless, the organization decided to bite the bullet, both as a way to survive and as a way to help Cuban artists in desperate need of materials and assistance. In July 1999, it put together a Los Angeles fundraiser and art sale at the Conga Room with the sponsorship of some well-known friends, many of whom had visited Cuba in recent years (Harry Belafonte, Francis Coppola, Benicio del Toro, Danny Glover, Jack Lemmon, Sidney Lumet, Cheech Marin, Jack Nicholson, Gregory Peck, Sydney Pollack, Bonnie Raitt, Alice Walker and Paula Weinstein among others). With the $50,000 raised at the fundraiser, the Center opened its gallery on the first floor of the three-story brownstone it occupied on West 23rd street, on September 8, 1999. Since then the Cuban Art Space has presented 75 exhibits on and off site, most in the Art Space itself. In 2008, the Center was forced to move into smaller quarters and decided to retain its gallery space as its primary outreach program. The Montebravo exhibit opening in September will be the ninth exhibit in the new space on 29th street.
Montebravo (José de Jesús García Montesbravo), 55, is a self-taught painter from Cienfuegos, a city three and a half hours southeast of Havana. He painted as a youngster but only started doing art seriously in 1980 when he was 27. He taught geography in secondary schools for 19 years before becoming a full time artist. As with many Cuban artists, a welcoming spiritual tent hangs over all of his paintings, drawings and prints and though not trained, his works are informed by his in-depth knowledge of both African religions and art history. Known most for his series based on the Santería “orishas,” with broad-skirted “infantas” representing both the colors and the sense of the saints, in recent years Montebravo has added his series of “gallos” (roosters) and “escenas fantásticas” (fantasy scenes). In this show, he has even begun to combine the series as in “Yemayá Caribeña” where the figures of his “Escena” series surround the orisha Yemayá, all in an electric vibrating blue.
The show consists of 20 works on canvas and an equal number of works on paper. An additional portfolio of works on paper from the Center’s collection will also be available.
Montebravo has been invited to New York but the last word from Cienfuegos is that the Center’s lead time for inviting the artist (two months) is not sufficient for the three months now required by the bureaucracies of the U.S. and Cuban governments. Still, this is an advance: the Bush Administration gave virtually NO artist visas between 2003 and 2008.
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