Artists and Scholars
Tania Bruguera
Tania Bruguera is a Senior Lecturer In Media & Performance, Theater, Dance & Media, Affiliate Of Art, Film, And Visual Studies and Faculty Member of the Cuba Studies Program at Harvard University. She and her team continue work at INSTAR, an Institute for Civic Education--a space to use art for social change. Focused on Art as Activism, she is an Artivist, whose public performances are efforts against worldwide social injustice that includes immigration reform. Since 2015, her international exhibits and performances include London Tate Modern, Milano PAC, Sidney Biennale, and Vienna’s Festwochen.
Jose Toirac
In 2018, Jose Toirac received Cuba’s highest recognition for artists, the National Art Award. His Mare Magnum, Mare Nostrum project won the prestigious Curatorship and Distinction in the Arts twice. Since 2014, Toirac’s artwork has been exhibited in Miami’s Pan American Arts Projects. Waiting for the Right Time, was featured there in 2019. Major international Cuban art exhibitions in Havana, Paris, Brussels, Toronto, New York, Miami, and others have included Toirac’s artwork.
Jose Vincench
Jose Vincench’s art continues to be influenced by socio-political contexts and using art as a platform to legitimize ideas. Vincench says, “I see...Art as an author on how to live, something in the singular that becomes plural with the richness of the author’s universe.”
Geandy Pavon
Geandy Pavon continues to explore power ideologies, totalitarianism, and iconoclasm in his artwork, notably in his Empire and Wrinkle Portraits series. Although his exhibits are numerous, Pavon is best known for 2010-2012 Nemesis project, when Pavon projected images of renowned dissidents and political prisoners on embassy and consulate walls.
Juan-Sí González
Juan-Sí González—an interdisciplinary artist—chooses different media to depict his ideas. In 1987 he co-founded artists’ rights Group Art-De and launched interactive performances in Havana streets and created underground videos. Supported by Amnesty International, he left Cuba as a political refugee in 1993. Awarded Individual Artist Excellence Fellowships and residencies, González’s artwork was included in major Biennials, Photography Centers, and Cuban art books, notably Dangerous Moves.
Elvis Fuentes
Originally from Cabaiguan, Cuba, Elvis Fuentes is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History from Rutgers University. A professor at Bronx Community College and Lehman College in New York, Fuentes is an independent art curator and scholar. Known for distinguished curatorial work in New York, San Juan, and Havana museums, Fuentes was also Artistic Director of Circa Puerto.
Rachel Weiss
As a professor at the prestigious School of Art Institute of Chicago, Rachel Weiss has served as an educator and a writer and curator of art projects throughout her professional career. Weiss has published widely in the US, Europe, Latin America, Australia, and Asia, primarily on the topic of Contemporary Art for magazines, journals, and newspapers. In addition, she contributed to the film, Activismo: Art & Dissidence in Cuba as a respected scholar on Cuban art history and the prominent artists producing change.
Luis Manual Otero Alcántara
The Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara received the Prince Claus Impact Award on September 6, 2022, a distinction given by the Dutch fund of the same name to artists with relevant work and advocacy in the community. Based in Amsterdam, an international and independent jury of artists and curators made the selection. Manuel is one of six recipients of this year's award. He was selected "for his extremely accessible, honest, and non-elitist artistic practice and his tireless fight for freedom of expression in Cuba. His stand against censorship and political authority was also considered." The jury referred to the artist's repression and the international solidarity that has motivated his position.
