Events
The Years Before: Havana 1945-1958
Constantino Arias
September 17 - October 16, 2010
PRESS RELEASE
Saturday, May 22, 2010 - 2 - 6 pm
Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 7 - 10 pm
Luis Alberto Perez COPPERI, one of the two artists in our current show, "PRIVATE LANGUAGE," received his visa the day after the opening of the exhibit! So of course we want you, our members and supporters, to come meet him and help us celebrate the fact that once again visas are being given to Cuban artists! He will be with us for two weeks, from May 16-30.
On Saturday, May 22, we'll have a meet and greet for Copperi. He will be at the Center from 2 to 6 pm to meet and talk with you about his art. We'll have some of our famous rum punch and you can talk with this wonderful young artist from Cienfuegos about his art, his life in Cuba as an artist, and whatever else interests you.
Thursday, May 27, we'll have a farewell reception for Copperi, from 7 to 10 pm with drinks and refreshments.
Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 8 pm
Eso que anda / Van Van Fever (2010)
A new feature length documentary about Cuba's most popular dance orchestra, celebrating 40 years under the direction of the phenomenal Juan Formell - with the participation of one million Cubans who cheered on Los Van Van during their most recent national tour throughout the island. Interviews with Formell and other original members of Los Van Van make for a moving, exciting and danceable film.
Put on your dancing shoes!
Ian Padrón will be here from Havana to introduce the film and for a Q & A afterward.
DRINKS AND REFRESHMENTS. $100 CCS Members, $125 Non-Members
Limited to 50 persons!
Thursday, April 8, 2010 from 7 - 9 pm
An illustrated talk and book signing by CATHRYN GRIFFITH for her book
HAVANA REVISTED: AN ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE.
Cathryn Griffith's book can be ordered from the Center at member's price, $40 plus $4 postage/handling.
Artist and photographer Cathryn Griffith examines Havana's most important buildings and public spaces by juxtaposing old tourist post cards with her recent photographs. It will be released by W. W. Norton in April 2010. This lavishly illustrated book, with a foreword by Eusebio Leal, city historian of Havana, beautifully documents the history, preservation, and present uses of Havana's most important buildings and urban spaces. Eleven renowned architects, historians. scholars, preservationists, and urban planners in Cuba and the U.S. provide a rigorous examination of Havana old and new that provokes exploration of the ways we look at all cities. These authoritative policy makers and thinkers raise issues of how the most important city in Spanish colonial America developed and changed over several centuries and the extent to which it is being restored and preserved today. More than 350 illustrations juxtapose historical colored postcard images of Havana with recent digital color photographs of the same views. The imagery, based on years of exhaustive research and investigation, draws from Cathryn Griffith's collection of more than 600 postcards of Havana from 1900 to 1930, more than 3,000 photographs taken there during multiple trips since April 2003, and extensive interviews with experts in Havana and the U.S..
CATHRYN GRIFFITH, a graduate of Wellesley College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, lives in Boston where she develops and manages industrial real estate. Since her first journey to Havana in 2003, she has made more than a dozen working trips there to photograph, in the process acquiring a broad range of contacts with scholars and historians in both Cuba and the U.S. Her postcard collection was the Inspiration for this book. A student of French culture and language, Griffith has written and lectured about the Musee d'Orsay and has also photographed in France. China, Tibet, along the Silk Road, and in New England.
Cuba Uncovered, at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck NJ, 20 Puffin Way, through April 19, 2010
Displayed is a selection of rarely seen works in many different media by renowned and emergent Cuban artists, including José Rodriguez Fuster, Adrian Rumbaut, Jorge Perugorria, William Pérez, Jairo Castellanos, Mabel Poblet, Manuel Mendive, Agustin Bejarano, Hector Velez Martinez, Alicia Leal, Montebravo and others. All are on loan from the Cuban Art Space of the Center for Cuban Studies in New York. Sandra Levinson spoke at the opening on Feb. 19. On April 2, well-known NJ artist Ben Jones, together with Bob Guild of Marazul Tours and Ann Sparanese will speak at the exhibit.
Free and open to the public. Tel. 201. 836-3499. This exhibit runs through April 19. Regular gallery hours are Mon-Fri, 1-5 p.m. or by appointment.
January 18 - February 26, 2010
The CCS Cuban Art Space exhibit "Household Saints: African Spirituality in Cuban Art and Culture" was shown at the University of Rhode Island Feinstein Providence Campus Gallery
80 Washington Street, Providence RI
Hours: Mon-Thurs 9-9, Friday and Saturday, 9-4
The opening reception was held on February 2, from 5-7 pm with a talk by Sandra Levinson, Executive Director, Center for Cuban Studies and an altar presentation by local santero Steve Quintana.
The works shown come from the Collections of the Center for Cuban Studies, Shelley & Donald Rubin and Joan Pearlman. http://www.uri.edu/prov/missionvision/urbanarts/currentgallery.html
February 3 and 4, 5-7, there will be additional programs. Further information: 212.242.0559
December 9, 2009
On Wednesday, December 9, we gave our Carlotta Award to Pablo Armando Fernández, who honors the tradition of poets by contributing to spiritual survival from slavery to the present and for his valiant efforts to maintain U.S. and Cuban cultural bonds.
Program
Pablo Armando Fernandez, Saul Landau (Carlotta recipient) and Sandra Levinson, CCS Executive Director
awarding the Carlotta and gift of a painting by Elio Vilva of Pablo's orisha, Obatalá
Havana Central at the West End
Photo: (c) tonysavino.com