CENTRO DE FOTOGRAFIA ISLA DE TENERIFE
From the 6th to the 30 of September 2007

Our vision of Cuban photography is still remarkably influenced by the iconic portraits of Che Guevara and the great exploit of epic photography. Due to political and historic reasons, the Cuban photographic production not linked with the social reality of the Revolution did not arouse any interest for many years. In the first place, the documentary religious photography has not been promoted by artistic institutions, causing an enormous lack of repercussion on the audience. On the other side, the formal opening of Cuban Photography to more “conceptual” tendencies did not occur until the 80‘s, which permitted the development of new approaches to the religious themes.

However, the selection presented by the Photography centre “Isla de Tenerife” in the rooms of the Circulo de Bellas Artes, attempted to emphasize the individual interpretation of every single artist on the collective spiritual memory of the nation that has been called “Latino-Africana” by its leader Fidel Castro. The historic references and the interweaved artistic correspondences showed the complete connection between Cuban photography and the religious theme. The fantastic iconography of the Afrocubans religions and its relation with the multiple aspects of the Cuban photographic tradition, suggested to take a careful look at those young Cuban artists in order to find out new perceptions within “The other side of the soul”.

With Moritz Neumuller as commissioner, and the collaboration of the Fototeca de Cuba/Museo Nacional de Fotografia de la Habana , the exhibition included pictures by Pedro Abascal, Juan Carlos Alóm, Jorge Luis Álvarez Pupo, Raúl Cañibano, Elio Delgado, Ricardo Elías Kattia García, LyN (Liudmila Velasco y Nelson R. de Arellano), Humberto Mayol, Ramón Pacheco, René Peña, Marta María Pérez Bravo y Sandra Ramos. Their work confirmed the presence of various perspectives on the spiritual theme in Cuban contemporary art, from documentary to conceptual photography, form portraits to the use of video or digital photography. The result was a wide description of the different tendencies in Cuban artistic and cultural creation.

This first exhibition focused on the relation between sincretist religions and contemporary photography had a strong impact on its first location, the Fototeca de Cuba (Museo Nacional de Fotografía de La Habana ), but also on the itineraries in Europe . The Kornhausforum Bern welcomed the exhibition in 2005 and formed part of the Mes de la Fotografía de Bratislava en 2006.

“El otro lado del alma” also contained a catalogue of 100 pages, with an introduction by Natalia Bolivar ( the most respected anthropologist in cuba), a text by the independent commissioner Moritz Neomuller, an essay by Eugenio Valdés Figueroa, (Cuban commissioner), and a text by Magaly Espinosan (Cuban art critic). Edition Oehrli 2005