Manuel López Oliva: A great of our times

By: Roxana Consuegra / Photos: Manuel López Oliva

The soul of a city can only be truly felt by making your way through its streets. When walking through Paula Avenue, renamed as Leonor Perez, even the air breathes of history and Cuban culture. Further ahead, when reaching Habana Street, there’s a colonial house from the mid 17th century painted with the same colors as that of Jose Martí (Cuba’s National Hero), just a few blocks away. Only something marvelous could reside in there.

Pepe Menéndez: A lifetime to create

By: Roxana Consuegra / Photos: José Alberto Menéndez

For thirty years design has served as his compass in life and has been his life’s work. A prolific career led by the hand of innovation and the spirit of an artist has been that of renowned Cuban designer José Alberto “Pepe” Menéndez. His portfolio ranges from editorial projects, branding, album covers, books, catalogs and, above all, posters. On various occasions he has curated retrospective expositions on traditional Cuban posters.

NARVÁEZ BOULEVARD: old warehouses, new community projects

By Mercy Ramos, Photo: José Meriño

Considered the first modern urban development on the island, the city of Matanzas is currently focused on rescuing its cultural heritage. All the hard work in doing so becomes clear when visiting the well known Narváez Boulevard. The famous walk has been part of a zone reactivation program for the last couple of years.

Open-hearted

The austerity of formal language and the use of minimal, essential resources make Rafael San Juan’s sculptures an organic and coherent body of work within the contemporary Cuban art scene.

JULIO LARRAMENDI, passionate about image

By Mercy Ramos, Photos: Courtesy of Julio Larramendi

You can’t talk about photography in Cuba without mentioning someone whose work has pushed him to the top of a select group of lens artists.

Alcides Pérez Toledo, Continuous Reinvention

By Beatriz Laffita, Photos: Courtesy of artist

Over many years Alcides Pérez Toledo has made engraving his expressive vehicle par excellence. His confessed passion for etching rests on the many-faceted possibilities of that medium and there isn’t a mystery of the universe that is unknown to him if it has to do with presses, moulds or engraver’s chisels.

Tomás Núñez, Sculpting Paintings

By Beatriz Laffita, Photos: courtesy of artist

To define Tomás Núñez as a sculptor would be to disregard a big part of his creative process. While some of his work definitely classifies as sculpture, other pieces resist definition within established categories. If they had to be classified, the most reasonable description might be to call them works that aim to conquer space.

The Continuous Meditations, on Landscape of Rafael Villares

By Beatriz Laffita

Taking a succinct walk through the history of art or more specifically the history of painting we can see that landscape has passed through various chapters in which its importance to artists has waxed and waned. For centuries it was seen as a mere backdrop, a view ripped to shreds by the genius of true masters who in certain works, without perhaps even meaning to propose it, forged a glorious path that would be tread in the nineteenth century by the Romantics, the Impressionists and the post-Impressionists who brought out the virtues of landscape as both an experiment in form and a channel for the restless angst of the human soul.

Cuban Artists Delighted with New CubaPlus Art Catalogue

By Arianna Battini, Director, Puntozero International Srl. Photos: José Adrián Wilson and Oscar L. Benítez

Cuban artists featured in the Contemporary Art Catalogue produced by CubaPlus Magazine are delighted to have a high quality resource for promoting their work.

Nocturnal, design - art

By Edel Rodríguez (Mola), Photos: Courtesy of artist

Nocturnal is just the name we gave to something that had already been growing organically for quite a time before it got its label. More than a studio, it’s a space for exchange between friends. We are Michele m. Hollands, Giselle Monzón, Edel Rodríguez (Mola), Nelson Ponce and Raúl Valdés (Raupa). Each of us Nocturnals has our own life in the world of design.

Pauyet Project: Two DECADES

Yohany Aguilera Jiménez, Especialista de Imagen y Desarrollo, Filial Ciego de Ávila

The Pauyet project was first founded in 1998 at a time when cutlery was scarce on the market, to help meet demand.

Abstraction in expression

By Roxana Consuegra

On Línea in Vedado, one of Havana's arterial avenues, at its intersection with another main street called Paseo lies a space dedicated to young Cuban art, a conceptual crossroads where the paths of some of the country's most contemporary artists converge.

Alejandro Alfonso, Seeing Through Other Eyes

By Beatriz Laffita

Alejandro Alfonso is a young photographer who fell into the art like may others in his profession out of enjoyment, or more precisely out of an incessant need to scrutinize his surroundings.

Santos Toledo, The art of living in design

By Ana María Ruiz, Photos: Courtesy of artist and Vladimir Molina

“From the streets to the academy” just about sums up the career of Cuban designer Santos Toledo, whose first work was a sales sign at a bodega (corner store) and who is today an important figure on the Cuban arts scene.

A ode for Osvaldo

By Roxana Consuegra Photos courtesy of artist

Incense burning, plumes of smoke unfurling, a cello picks out notes of a baroque melody. This is the distinctive studio of acclaimed Cuban jeweller Osvaldo Castilla Romero. A space where universal energies unite with the spirit of the soul to conceive an art all of its own, bringing forth forms created from the most diverse of materials. Wood, stone, metals, leathers, seeds, even acrylics can be discerned among the elements, treated equally and brought together to create a fusion of body and art. The jeweller argues that “jewellery is for wearing” and this is the basis of his work: pieces for everyday use that transcend the limits of a display cabinet.