“One of the greatest successes of the cuban film poster exists in having opted for forms and reflections that make it unique, at least in the cinematographic message and its poetic patina.” Antonio Garcia-Rayo

“¡Mira Cuba! Exhibition” presents the most important to date staged in Italy on the Cuban graphics in the years following the Revolution, ie from 1959 to the present in the Exhibition Spaces of via Bertossi. By quality and completeness, the exhibition commissioned by the Municipality of Pordenone.

The exhibition brings together more than 220 artworks, among posters and original sketches, with numerous copies considered unique and others which are part of public and private collections across Europe and America. The exhibition aligns the masterpieces of an era of communication, the most significant works of all the great graphics in those decades, names that are part of a myth.

The curators of the iMira Cuba Exhibition are Luigino Bardellotto, Simona Biolcati Rinaldi and Ivo Boscariol. All the photos are copyright of Luigino Bardelloto.

Date: from 28/09/2013 to 12/01/2014

Exhibition spaces via Bertossi, via Bertossi 9, Pordenone



Links:

http://cartelcubano.org/#miracuba-section

http://www.artemodernapordenone.it/mostre/mira-cuba

www.miracuba.it

https://www.facebook.com/events/575903975778173/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Here is a selection of movie, political and social cuban posters from the ¡Mira Cuba! exhibition.

POLITICS

“Through the process of screen printing and offset the artists have gotten posters whose shape and color scale includes artistic value in the essential aspect – the message. This is done using various techniques in which the relationship between photography (high contrast, reduced to lines or sunburns), graphics and text improves the visual reading and the presence of the message. Through the visual simplification, the symbolic meaning and their elevation they opened new avenues for the poetic language of posters, understood as an effective political means.” (Richard Frick)

Che

1973

68,5 x48, 5 cm. offset

Olivio Martinez Viera

Villa Clara, Cuba, 1941

Poster created for the day of Guerrillero Heroico, in memory of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, known as “Che Guevara” or simply “el Che”, mortally wounded and captured on 8 October 1967. Cuba is particularly emotionally attached to this important figure of the revolutionary guerrilla, writer and Argentine doctor. Guevara was a member of the July 26 Movement (created for the liberation of the island from the Batista dictatorship) and, after the success of the Cuban revolution, he took a role in the new government, the second in importance only to Fidel Castro.

Olivio Martinez , studied painting and sculpture at the School of Visual Arts of Villa Clara. He began to work on posters and graphics in general at the end of 1961 at the ICAIC, Havana. He then went to work at the COR-DOR and all’OSPAAAL, focusing his artistic production almost exclusively on political and social issues. Among the main prizes: selection during the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution, 1969; UNEAC recognition for the political manifesto of the revolution, 1983; prize UNEAC “Eduardo Muñoz Bachs”, 2008.

SOCIAL

“We worked by hand, with the help of photographs and character of a service provided by the laboratories of ‘Cuba y Sol della Em­pre­sa de Artes Gráficas’, photocopying alphabets from catalogs printing and cutting and sticking letter by letter to build some text … Or when the weather did not allow any of it, was created exclusively by the graph you drew … “ (Olivio Martinez)

Black power

1969

55×32 cm. offset

Alfredo Rostgaard

Guantanamo, Cuba, 1943

Havana, Cuba, 2004

Poster created to highlight the dell’OSPAAAL solidarity with the Black Power movement. This was a slogan born in the United States and was used by people descended from black populations of Africa. It had its heyday in the late sixties and early seventies supporting the creation of political and cultural institutions to promote the interests of the black community.

Alfredo Rostgaard studied at the art school Jose Joaquin Tejada of Santiago de Cuba. In his career he has collaborated with the most important organs of Cuban graphic (ICAIC, OSPAAAL, Casa de las Americas), allowing it to become one of the most prolific authors of the island. In his work we can trace echoes of figurative painting and pop approach, often ironic, his personal experience as a caricaturist. Arrived in Havana in 1965 when he began working for the ICAIC and in 1966 he became artistic director dell’OSPAAAL. From 1975 he worked for the UNEAC, the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists.

Clik

1969

53×33 cm. Screen-printing 2 colors

Félix Beltrán

Havana, Cuba, 1938

Poster created to raise awareness of the Cuban population of the island to a more conscious use of energy resources. This work is part of a series of posters that was regularly commissioned by the national government. The expressive language had to be simple and dry but incisive and understandable to all.

Félix Alberto Beltrán Concepción (Havana, Cuba, 1938) was an important printmaker, painter and illustrator. Between 1956 and 1960 studied at the School of Visual Arts, New School for Social Research and Pratt Graphic Art Center in New York (USA). After starting out as a graphic designer has worked with the major institutions of the island Cuban, later becoming also a lecturer in the capital. He has held exhibitions both personal and collective winning numerous awards. It is currently a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico.

Cuba Venceremos Brigade JOIN IT

1969

99×35 cm. 7-color screen printing

Antonio Fernández Reboiro

Nuevitas (Camagüey), Cuba, 1935

Sugar cane has always represented for the Cuban economy a very important element. This poster serves as incitement to aggregate groups of the Venceremos Brigade made up of volunteers who joined in North America as labor for harvesting in the fields of the island.

Reboiro studied architecture and design at the University of Havana. Before designing posters for the film works of Illustration Magazine Havana and follows the architect Ricardo Porro in the construction of the National School of Art in Cuba in 1964 he began working with the ICAIC, creating posters that belong to the permanent collections of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From 1982 to 1987 he moved to Madrid, he worked for the National Ballet of Spain since 1998 and divides his work as a graphic designer and art director between Madrid and Miami.

CINEMA (CUBA)

“… The urban visuality changed in a radical way. Walking through the city, the pedestrian discovered new images in both the small size of the posters (placed on “umbrellas”, walls, facades, doors) and in the large size of the spaces of posting. A revolutionary that was accepted with joy because it modulates the important and exciting situation that we lived day after day in the country. The posters cinemas contributed to the gradual transformation of popular taste and managed to awaken the interest of all. There was talk of new films screened, of how different and interesting, but also spoke of the new posters made to promote them. “ (Sara Vega)

Cinémathèque de Cuba

76×50 cm. screen printing 3 colors

1961

Rafael Morante Boyerizo

Madrid, Spain, 1931

Poster created to celebrate the birth of the ICAIC ((Instituto Cubano del Arte y la Industria Cinematográfica) in 1959. The image was felt so as to become effective identification of the Institute which was subsequently used for most official communications.

Morante is graphic, artistic director, teacher. Graduated from the Professional School of Advertising, she worked as a copywriter since 1956. It was among the first to deal with the posters ICAIC (1961-1963). It was the artistic director of several journals, Professor of Design at the Higher Institute of Industrial Design of Cuba has received several awards both at home and abroad, the last in 2010, the Prize Eduardo Munoz Bachs UNEAC (L ‘ Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba).

ICAIC tenth aniversary

72×45, 5 cm. 8-color screen printing

1969

Alfredo Rostgaard

Guantanamo, Cuba, 1943

Havana, Cuba, 2004

Poster created to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the birth of the ICAIC (Instituto Cubano del Arte y la Industria Cinematográfica, 1959). The author, thanks to a clever expressive capability worthy of the best pop-art, it makes us reflect on the extraordinary evocative power that is attached to the art of film.

Alfredo Rostgaard studied at the art school Jose Joaquin Tejada of Santiago de Cuba. In his career he has collaborated with the most important organs of Cuban graphic (ICAIC, OSPAAAL, Casa de las Americas), allowing it to become one of the most prolific authors of the island. In his work we can trace echoes of figurative painting and pop approach, often ironic, his personal experience as a caricaturist. Arrived in Havana in 1965 when he began working for the ICAIC and in 1966 he became artistic director dell’OSPAAAL. From 1975 he worked for the UNEAC, the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists.

CINEMA (ITALIAN)

“In the apparent hardiness of the final product appeared in the hand of the specialist, the character of the director, the differences in schools of expression, an endless range of possibilities. Trends coming from politics to art, such as socialist realism, along with truly artistic achievements, such as expressionism, formal experimentation, the ‘ Art nouveau ol ‘ Art Deco , the lettrism, the irony … You were interpreting the character of the event to advertise or look for a more intricate, not to mention entertaining possibilities, everything was in place in the manifestos of new sign.

He was born a different communication, there arose a feeling more alert and receptive insightful in the manifesto that was a challenge and a dialogue, and especially a beauty which he enjoyed and shared.” (Reynaldo Gonzales)

Besos robados

76×51 cm

Screen printing 3 colors

Rene Cardenas Azcuy



Havana, Cuba, 1939

Considered one of the 10 most famous poster in the world, an icon of an era, a masterpiece of world cinema. An exceptional ability to synthesize emphasized by the use of the color red as an interpretation of the title of the film.

Paul René Cardenas Azcuy studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro and attended the University of Havana Psychology. He worked from 1964 to 1983 as a graphic all’ICAIC. During his career he has focused mainly on the use of black and white, based on photographic images reworked. His research focuses on the wide variety of human expressions, portrayed also stressed the psychological and dramatic.

CINEMA (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry)

“Place in a new way the image function sales and service which was to have a poster created to advertise a performance film, the poster created in Cuba since that time gave rise to a veritable revolution in the field of view and plastic solutions to which availed themselves of its builders. The sudden transition from the typical promotional poster – the cowboy with a smoking gun or the beautiful girl eyed vampire – that of a perfectly free artistic interpretation of a work of art shaped into another work of art, that is to say in printed poster almost always with us serigra methods, proved to be the most innovative and free territory of Cuban propaganda of the time, as well as was conceived (or should be conceived) in a country that was part of the socialist system.” (Leonardo Padura Fuentes)

Harakiri

73,5 x48 cm

Screen printing 2 colors

Antonio Fernández Reboiro

Nuevitas (Camagüey), Cuba, 1935

The scarcity of available resources for the realization of the manifest forced the author to create a work by a few colors but incisive. The sign of the tear, typical of extreme action dell’HARAKIRI, here is stylized and colored red (reminiscent of blood) and is mated to a circle of the same color to symbolize the Japanese flag.

Reboiro studied architecture and design at the University of Havana. Before designing posters for the film works of Illustration Magazine Havana and follows the architect Ricardo Porro in the construction of the National School of Art in Cuba in 1964 he began working with the ICAIC, creating posters that belong to the permanent collections of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From 1982 to 1987 he moved to Madrid, he worked for the National Ballet of Spain since 1998 and divides his work as a graphic designer and art director between Madrid and Miami.

YOUNG ARTISTS

“And what we have in common, besides all dall’ISDI come and have between 25 and 47 years? The first thing to say is that we are passionate about the art of the poster. The profess a kind of veneration which includes – of course – a great respect for those who made the poster a Cuban point of reference … We also shared attachment to the traditional screen printing as a technique widely used in Cuba Since the runs are quite small, screen printing makes production more efficient and allows a final product that satisfies us … Finally, with regard to the visual language, the new generation uses the illustration that most of photography and continued to have recourse to the visual surprise or irony. We are different, but, perhaps to be so close to each other, the similarities begin to become evident. Already facing the creators newest. They will bring new aesthetic and it is likely that we will come challenged. It is the eternal generational relay race.” (Pepe Menéndez)

4ta Muestra de cine y videode the AHS

1990

78×55 cm

Screen printing 4 colors

Naked

Naked create this poster by the will evidently citations to a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing negative effects on the economy of Cuba. The population of Havana, believing that the poster of the event was an ad for a food distribution, created long queues spontaneous near the area that needed the arrival of law enforcement to be dispersed.

Naked was an artistic collaboration consists of Edward Marin (1965) and Vladimir Llaguno 1963). They debuted in the field of graphics in full “Especial Period”, in the 90s, a period of extreme economic hardship for Cuba, caused by the effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the lack of aid from Russia. Later both artists have embarked on careers autonomous, becoming among the best and most representative exponents of the new generation of graphics Cubans.

REBOIRO– Reboiro Monographic

Antonio Fernández Reboiro

Nuevitas (Camagüey), Cuba, 1935

“The Cubans realize posters to promote the culture in a society that does not try to treat culture as a set of goods, events and objects designed, consciously or not, for their commercial exploitation. Thus, the same project of cultural promotion becomes paradoxical, if not free. And, indeed, many of these posters do not meet in reality no need to practice […]. They are luxury items, made ultimately for the sake of art. With much greater frequency, a poster created by Antonio all’ICAIC Reboiro or Eduardo Bachs is the advent of a new work of art, rather than a cultural advertising in the familiar sense of the term.” (Susan Sontag and Dugald Stermer)

Moby Dick

1968

76×50, 5 cm

8-color screen printing

Antonio Fernández Reboiro

Nuevitas (Camagüey), Cuba, 1935

In the heyday of the psychedelic graphics Cubans were not immune from the use of bold colors and bold graphic compositions. A unique amalgam of signs and colors to compose the shape of the whale diving into the sea.

Reboiro studied architecture and design at the University of Havana. Before designing posters for the film works of Illustration Magazine Havana and follows the architect Ricardo Porro in the construction of the National School of Art in Cuba in 1964 he began working with the ICAIC, creating posters that belong to the permanent collections of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From 1982 to 1987 he moved to Madrid, he worked for the National Ballet of Spain since 1998 and divides his work as a graphic designer and art director between Madrid and Miami.

BACHS – Bachs Monographic

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs

Valencia, Spain 1937 – La Habana, Cuba, 2001

“There is a quiet way to be a great one. That gesture of nobility may in fact smooth out some perceptions, leave what we call about the occult, but only for a while ‘. Presenting himself as a mere illustrator, Eduardo Muñoz Bachs has had the courage to start a myth, whose evolutions keep their uncanny resonance to this day. We will remain friends of those figures who, in his posters, they look at us with eyes of unusual depth, their nerve tracts, their colorful creole.” (Rogelio Riveron)

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, a designer, illustrator and self-taught painter. He began working in advertising in the 50’s until 1961, the year in which he made the first film poster for the film “Historias de la Revolución.” From that moment will focus on the creation of posters becoming the most prolific and original author of Cuban graphic. All his work is recognizable by the personal style that breaks the traditional rules of graphic language. His approach to drawing, coloring and dall’espressivo characterized by irony of the characters depicted, is unique and immediately identifiable.

Semana Graphic Design

2001

71×45, 5 cm

6 color screen printing

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs

Valencia, Spain, 1937

La Habana, Cuba, 2001

Last work created by Bachs. Celebrates the encounter between the new and old generation of graphics Cubans during the week of graphic design in Havana. The whole thing is a metaphor represented by the mouse (the mouse, the tool of contemporary graphic) with a tail in the shape of the brush (the middle of the old generation).

Por Primera vez

1968

71×45, 5 cm

Screen printing 15 colors

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs

Valencia, Spain, 1937

La Habana, Cuba, 2001

The portrait of Charlie Chaplin, a true icon of the silent cinema and recurring element in the work of Bachs, is incorporated into a colorful and soothing sounds vaguely psychedelic, typical of the period. This work, as frequently in Bachs, is characterized by a high number of colors (15). The difficulty of the poster embodiment resides in the fact that to produce a poster in screen printing each color must be applied without deburring and without overlapping the other. Furthermore, color scheme used, requires 24 hours of drying.

Cinemovil ICAIC

71×47 cm

7-color screen printing

1969

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs

Valencia, Spain, 1937

The film culture was widespread in Cuba thanks to cinemas hawkers who could reach the most remote places on the island. This poster was designed to advertise this nation-wide who saw in the cinema a means of cultural and social progress.

The above texts are copied and translated by Maria Papaefstathiou, from the original website: http://cartelcubano.org/#miracuba-section and the online catalogue: http://g.cartelcubano.org/