2003 saw a lot of Cuban art shows in the Greater Washington area and I think 2004 will see an avalanche. As the travel restrictions to Cuba are tightened, I suspect that the interest in Cuban artists will rise, and then when Olga Viso's retrospective of Ana Mendieta opens at the Hirshhorn Museum from October 14, 2004 - January 2, 2005, it will be the shot that will really start a nationwide avalanche.

Next month we have our own Cuban exhibition at the Georgetown gallery, by three spectacular Cuban photographers: Marta Maria Perez Bravo, Cirenaica Moreira and Elsa Mora. The show opens (and there will be a reception for the artists) on Friday, February 8 from 6-9 pm.

Although the works of these photographers have been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions worldwide -- including shows at the Los Angeles County Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, Bronx Museum in New York, Museo del Barrio in New York, St. Louis Art Museum, Fridericianum Museum in Germany, Telhai Museum in Israel, Museum of the Americas in Denver, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Pori Art Museum in Finland, Cuevas Museum in Mexico City, Alejandro Otero Museum in Venezuela, Fries Museum in Holland, Photography Museum in Colombia, Camilo Gil Museum in Mexico, Daros Museum in Switzerland, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art in New York, Mucsamock Museum in Budapest, Lima Art Museum in Peru and the Monterrey Metropolitan Museum in Mexico -- this exhibition, (with the exception of Elsa Mora) will be their first ever exhibition in Washington, DC.

Marta Maria Perez Bravo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1959 and studied at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts from which she graduated in 1979. She then studied and received her postgraduate education at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) also in Havana, from which she graduated in 1984. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, including in several international biennials and she has had more than one hundred solo and group shows in museums and galleries around the world. She is considered by many to be the leading Cuban photographer of her generation. Her photographs, which nearly always employ her body as the model, focus on the secret rituals, dualities, images and stories of the secret “Santeria” religion of Cuba’s former slaves. She currently lives in Monterrey, Mexico, where she is on a teaching exchange program.

Cirenaica Moreira was born in Havana in 1969 and graduated from ISA in 1992. Formally trained as an actress, Moreira’s work begins with a complex and intelligent tableau that she builds around the center character of her own image. Coupled with Cuban proverbs and sayings, they deliver sharp, intelligent criticism that touches many taboo subjects of Cuban society, such as sex, racism, emigration and freedom as they freeze a moment where the actress becomes the subject of the photograph. She currently lives in Havana, Cuba.

Elsa Mora was born in Holguin, Cuba in 1972, where she attended the Vocational School of Art and graduated in 1986. She then attended the Professional School of Visual Arts in Camagüey, Cuba, from where she graduated in 1990. Mora has exhibited her work worldwide and has been a visiting artist and visiting faculty to many American Universities and Schools, including The Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Institute of Boston. Her work often uses her own image to deliver cutting commentary on issues such as loss of freedoms and racism. For this exhibition Mora will show her most recent work, which was part of the collateral exhibition at the recent VIII Havana Biennial. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

I am really excited about hosting this exhibition and hope that you can all come and see it.