Radical Conventions: Cuban American Artists in the American Context Panel Discussion
Wednesday, June 8, 2022 5:30pm to 6:30pm
About this Event
Join the conversation with exhibition Curator, Dr. Elizabeth Cerejido, Esperanza Bravo de Varona Chair of the UM Cuban Heritage Collection, and artists Carmelita Tropicana, Nereida García-Ferraz, Tony Labat, and Tony Mendoza as they discuss their practice in the broader context of the American avant-garde of the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as the cultural politics and pressing debates of that pivotal decade.
Radical Conventions is the first major museum presentation to focus on Cuban American art from the 1980s. The exhibition provides a counter-narrative to the prevailing discourse on Cuban American art (which tends to examine this material through the reductive lens of exile and displacement) and locates the cultural formation and artistic practice of its featured artists in nuanced social and political contexts. Radical Conventions also places the works on view in dialogue with the most pressing issues of this pivotal decade: HIV/AIDS, identity politics, culture wars, postmodernism, Mariel, and Reagan-era conservatism.
Radical Conventions is presented in collaboration with the Cuban Heritage Collection of the University of Miami Libraries. The exhibition is made possible due to generous support by the Knight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation, Funding Arts Network, American Alliance of Museums, Florida Department of State Division of Arts & Culture, The Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, The City of Coral Gables, The Cowles Charitable Trust, and the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation.
