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September Issue
2009
Ackland Art
Museum in Chapel Hill, NC, Offers Exhibit Focused on Cuban Culture
The
Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, NC, is presenting the exhibition,
Almost Now: Cuban Art, Cinema, and Politics in the 1960s and
1970s, on view through Dec. 6, 2009, offered in conjunction
with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Institute
for the Study of the Americas' presentation The Cuban Revolution
at 50: Art and Cinema.
Featuring sixteen Cuban cinema posters (and a signed and numbered
print of Alberto Korda's iconic photograph of Che Guevara) recently
given to the Ackland by eminent art historian, collector, and
Carolina alumnus David Craven, Almost Now examines the
central role that artists, filmmakers, and film audiences have
played in Cuban cultural and political discourse since the Cuban
Revolution in 1959.
During the 1960s and
1970s, both printmaking and filmmaking flourished in Cuba, and
the cinema poster became the artistic medium of the moment. Some
of the most prominent Cuban artists of this time are represented
in the exhibition, including René Portocarrero, Raúl
Martínez, and Alfredo Rostgaard.
The posters seen in Almost Now announce films of varied
genre and subject, including feature films, shorts, and documentaries
about literary, social, and political topics. For example, Cartas
del Parque is an adaptation of stories by author Gabriel García
Márquez, Hasta la Victoria Siempre honors Che Guevara
on the occasion of his death, and Por Primera Vez shows audiences
in rural communities watching Charlie Chaplin's classic film Modern
Times for the first time.
Today, these images continue to challenge preconceptions about
Cuban identity and culture. Craven, now professor of art history
at the University of New Mexico, says they had the same power
when he first encountered them in Cuba twenty-five years ago.
"I was struck with how the art there contradicted almost
everything said about it in the US," he says.
"This generous gift greatly increases the Ackland's capacity
to enrich the artistic, academic, and cultural fabric of the University,"
says Carolyn Allmendinger, director of academic programs at the
Ackland, and curator of the exhibition. "Especially exciting
is the potential this exhibition has to weave together so many
different initiatives and units across campus."
Almost Now participates in a group of programs at UNC-Chapel
Hill that focus on Cuban history, art, and cinema. In November,
the Institute for the Study of the Americas presents The Cuban
Revolution at 50: Art and Cinema, a series of lectures by
scholars at local and national universities, and screenings of
more recent Cuban films. Louis A. Pérez, Jr., director
of the Institute and the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of history
at UNC-Chapel Hill, has been described by Craven as one of the
nation's leading scholars of Cuban history and was cited as influential
in his selection of the Ackland as the recipient of his collection.
The inaugural lecture in the series, scheduled for Nov. 1, 2009,
will bring Craven to UNC-Chapel Hill. Craven will also speak as
the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Art's 2009 Riggins lecturer.
Together with the Ackland, the Institute for the Study of the
Americas will screen films in their collection that correspond
to posters in Almost Now.
The Ackland Art Museum is located on the historic campus of The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an academic unit
of the University, the Ackland serves broad local, state, and
national constituencies. The Ackland Collection consists of more
than 15,500 works of art, featuring significant collections of
European masterworks, twentieth-century and contemporary art,
North Carolina's premier collections of Asian art and works of
art on paper (drawings, prints, and photographs), as well as African
art and North Carolina pottery and folk art.
More further information check our NC Institutional Gallery
listings, call the Museum at 919/966-5736 or visit (www.ackland.org).
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