El otro lado del alma

Centro de Fotografía Isla de Tenerife. Avenida de San Sebastián, 8. Santa Cruz de Tenerife

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 only since then permitted the development of new approaches to the religious themes.
However, this selection of photographs presented at the Photography centre “Isla de Tenerife” and at Circulo de Bellas Artes, attempts 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 show the connection between Cuban photography and Spirituality. The fantastic iconography of the Afrocuban religions and its relation with the multiple aspects of the Cuban photographic tradition suggest to take a careful look at those young Cuban artists in order to find out new perceptions within “The other side of the soul”. 

Curator: Moritz Neumüller
Collaborators: Fototeca de Cuba / Museo Nacional de Fotografía de La Habana
Artists: 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.