The Looking Glass: Artist Immigrants of Washington

This is my latest work and it is heading to the The Looking Glass: Artist Immigrants of Washington show at the Katzen Museum at American University.

The show, curated by Jack Rasmussen, runs June 18–August 14, 2016, and opens to the public with an opening reception (free and open to the public) on June 18 from 6-8PM.

The exhibition celebrates ten artists who left Latin America for many different reasons over the last sixty years – primarily for safety, freedom, and opportunity – and made their homes, and their artistic careers and contributions, in the Washington region. They include Joan Belmar and Juan Downey from Chile, Carolina Mayorga from Colombia, Ric Garcia, Lenny Campello, and Jose Ygnacio Bermudez from Cuba, Muriel Hasbun from El Salvador, Frida Larios from El Salvador/Honduras, Irene Clouthier from Mexico, and Naul Ojeda from Uruguay. They brought with them artistic traditions that took root and bore fruit here in the United States.

As the show focuses on immigrant artists to the DMV, in this piece, the embedded video component plays a video loop (6.5 minutes) covering my life so far, with a special focus on why my family had to leave the brutal world of the Castro Brothers' Workers Paradise in the 1960s. The small boy to the left is me (as a four year old) running around my grandfather's farm just outside of Guantanamo

As I usually do, I've used the "cracks" on the background wall to employing the Navy's Falcon Codes as the first encryptor) double encrypt a background message... more on the show later... You can see the embedded video here.

American University Museum
202-885-1300     
Fax: 202-885-1140
museum@american.edu

4400 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016

Admission Free
Tue-Sun, 11:00-4:00
Fully Accessible
See Directions

"Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God."
Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016.



"Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God."
Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016.

"Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God."
Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016.

"Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God."
Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016.

Obama, Cuba and the curious case of the 53

Part of the deal made by our President with the racist Cuban dictator Raul Castro, included the release of 53 (from the thousands) of Cuban political prisoners held in the Castro Brothers' Workers Paradise.

Most of those 53 have subsequently been re-arrested, some even while the President was in Havana watching a baseball game.

 Now, (Via) Mario Alberto Hernandez Leyva, one of the 53, has also been re-arrested and his present whereabouts are unknown.

Hernandez Leyva was re-arrested in November 2015 for organizing a pot-banging protest ("cacerolazo"). He was handed a new three-year prison sentence for disobedience.

 

In other words, Raul Castro reneged on his deal with President Obama. 

 

Nonetheless, Obama still traveled to Cuba this past March and didn't say a word about Hernandez Leyva.

 

Hernandez Leyva has been transferred to various prisons throughout Cuba, where he has conducted hunger strikes to protest his unjust imprisonment.

 

Most recently, he was transferred from the nefarious Combinado del Este prison to Santa Clara, where we was being held in a punishment cell.

 

 Last week, he was "discretely" transferred once again -- and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Still not a word from the Obama Administration.

Refueling at Sea

Gorgeous work by Walter Brightwell... perhaps the greatest US Navy ship painter of all time?

This is a Navy destroyer refueling at sea... not too many navies in the world can do this (the Russians can't).