Originally conceived as an exhibit of "El gallo" (the rooster) in contemporary Cuban art, this exhibit of more than 40 Cuban artists gradually morphed into a broader concept. The original notion of the rooster came from the omnipresence of this barnyard animal in Cuban painting, and while one could say that all the roosters were simply imitative of the roosters done by the great Cuban painter Mariano, we think the real question is why the rooster? because it seemed a constant, in both the work of self-taught artists and even in the work of cutting edge trained artists. Why the "gallo"? What is it about the rooster that seems to so entrance the Cuban artist?

For those familiar with Cuban culture, fixation on gallos seems completely appropriate and predictable. The rooster is the cock, the rooster is macho, the rooster, if you will, is CUBA, strutting and proud. Cock fights are an important part of Cuban traditional culture. The rooster’s cry signals the day’s awakening to much of the island’s population. The rooster is hard-working and sexy. The rooster is definitely Cuban. But the rooster is not really urban: roosters seem to appear most often in the work of artists who don’t live in Havana, artists who usually see more roosters in their everyday life. So, what about the city artists? What animals inspire them?

Sure enough, we found many. Some of them are somewhat magical: Carlos del Toro, who lives in Havana, paints creatures that seem half-cat, half-woman, definitely an urban creature. Elias F. Acosta, who lives in Cienfuegos, paints mysterious creatures, part woman, part unknown animal, and cats. Michel Perez, a student at Cuba’s finest art school, the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), found the ant (hormiga) a source of inspiration, as well as the mystical traces of a cat. Sandra Ceballos’ bright red cat sports letters that spell "Sandra" across its body. Kadir Lopez has fashioned a stately rooster out of a kind of fiberglass of his own invention, and also has in the show a paint palette that has turned into a sea creature swimming through watercolor.

Orestes Hernandez, another ISA student, sees dogs as his noble "other," and is represented in the show by a large painting of a black dog against bright yellow flowers. Student Lenier Perez depicts a "red team against a yellow team," with two snarling beasts, one red, one yellow, attacking one another against a background of women’s body parts clipped from magazines, also red and yellow. William Perez, a well-known Cienfuegos sculptor now living in Havana, has lately taken to the rhinoceros, represented in this exhibit by a magnificent drawing. An earlier sculpture shows one dog atop another whose head has been taken off. Zaida del Rio, known for her depiction of bird women, shows a screen print of a bird, a watercolor of two birdwomen, and photographs of herself dressed in bird heads.

Other well-known artists mix and match: A bright red bull and the red, white and blue Cuban flag are shown against almost black museum walls in Joel Jover’s work on paper. Alicia Leal’s screen prints show Che Guevara surrounded by jungle animals and a young woman with a tiger and a bird; an Alfredo Sosabravo print depicts a fish, whose belly is filled with a mermaid, a bird and various objects, another, "Child’s Dream," is filled with wondrous shapes doing impossible things; Manuel Mendive’s prints bring together nature and ghostly shapes that may be birds or somewhat human. Carlos Estevez’ finely wrought watercolors of machines as living organisms include a gigantic orange crab, a fish and a snail-as-home for its persona. Ileana Sanchez Hing’s cats leap, jump and stretch above and around her human figures. And there is much more.

The show’s original concept is wonderfully represented by gallos from a group of Cienfuegos artists: Montebravo’s roosters are everywhere, in the trees, atop the heads of his men and women, atop one another – and all of them have red painted toenails; Cenia Gutierrez’s playful black and white rooster is flirting with his mate while a yellow crescent moon shines down on them; Roger Hechavarria’s watercolor rooster is almost abstract, surrounded by palm trees; Erik Castillo’s pewter rooster is part of a representation of the orisha Ozun; Santiago Quintana’s painting on paper shows the tight relationship between man and rooster. Most spectacular of all is Fidel Reina’s magnificent rooster sculpture made of copper wire and tin.

The one "outsider" artist in the show, Wayacon (Julian Espinosa), whose home is in Remedios, is represented by a large wood sculpture of a cow, a work on paper of a bull mounting a cow (or are they dogs?), and two works on canvas, one of many brightly-colored cats, the other of what looks like a small mouse inside a giant cat. Cows, giant lizards, turtles and fish fill the works of self-taught artist Luis Rodriguez from Santiago de Cuba. Funny spikey animals inhabit the works of the late primitivist Lisita Lintre, from Camagüey.