A great number of events featuring Cuban art are taking place in New Orleans under the generic ¡Si Cuba! name. ¡Si Cuba! is a city-wide Celebration of Cuban art, music and culture. The events are co-organized by New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), Tulane University, and other art organizations.

From January through April, sixteen venues in New Orleans will showcase paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, and installations by well known Cuban artists such as Luis Cruz Azaceta, Angel Delgado, and Carlos Estévez. There will be lectures and symposiums on Cuban art, as well as book signings and music concerts.

Some of the highlights of the "¡Si Cuba!" events are:

The solo exhibition Luis Cruz Azaceta: Swimming to Havana will feature a suite of new paintings, all from 2009. The phrase "Swimming to Havana" proposes the impossible as no unassisted human is capable of traversing ninety miles across the Caribbean Sea from Cuba to Florida, and vice versa. Yet, it is a journey said to have taken place countless of times in the minds of Cubans wishing to reach the United States, and Cuban immigrants dreaming of returning home. In his suite of new paintings, Azaceta invites viewers to undertake their own imaginative journeys through his imagery. These paintings explore the idea of "crossing over" in myriad ways: between abstraction and figuration, between geometric and organic forms, between Cuban and American culture, and between the historically linked cities of New Orleans and Havana.

About Luis Cruz Azaceta:

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1942, Luis Cruz Azaceta immigrated to New York at age eighteen. Since 1992, he has lived in New Orleans. Azaceta’s work has been exhibited at major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of many grants including the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Luis Cruz Azaceta: Swimming to Havana is organized by Miranda Lash, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition will be on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art from December 18, 2009 through March 28, 2010.

Polaridad Complementaria: Recent Works from Cuba is one of the biggest ¡Si Cuba! events. It is a show organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University. Opening at both venues on January 16, the show features more than 50 works by 27 Cuban artists working in various media. The paintings, sculptures, drawings, photography, video and installation art selected for this show highlight the latest trends in contemporary Cuban art. Among the participating artists are Abel Barroso, Aimeé García, Yoan Capote, Roberto Fabelo and René Peña. The exhibition will be on view from January 16 through March 14.

Three exhibitions by Cuban-born Southern Artists will show a site-specific installation by Jose Bedia, ceramic pieces by Mario Petrirena; and color photographs by Jorge Otero. The exhibition will take place at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art beginning with January 14 through April 11.

Jose Bedia exhibits a site-specific drawing done on a wall in the Museum. He uses a personal, pan-humanist language informed by the religious, mythical and magical symbols of primitive cultures to explore concepts of identity and place in his large-scale drawings.

Jorge Otero presents Un-restored Miami, an exhibition of color photographs of Miami in the early 1980s, when the city's faded glamour retained a poignant beauty.

Mario Petrirena’s Soul House exhibition includes his sculptural clay pieces, repeating motifs of the human head and the archetypical form of a pitched-roof house, to address issues of abandonment and whether the home or body holds the soul.

Other !Si Cuba! Events:

Inside/Outside by Angel Delgado

New works by Cuban artist Angel Delgado

January 5 - February 20

Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans

Soliloquy, by Carlos Estévez

An exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Havana-born artist Carlos Estévez.

January 7 - March 7

Taylor Bercier Fine Art Gallery

Cuba in the 1930s, by Paul Ninas

Drawings from the notebooks of the "Dean of New Orleans Artists," Paul Ninas, from his time in Cuba and the Caribbean in the 1930s.

January 9 - January 30

LeMieux Galleries

Cuba, Now!

Images from writer/photographer Richard Fleming’s book, Walking to Guantanamo; screening of Uprising – Drums, Voice of Resistance with filmmaker, William Sabourin O’Reilly.

January 9 - February 7

Antenna Gallery

Luis Cruz Azaceta

Mixed-media painting, drawings, and sculpture by Cuban-American artist Luis Cruz Azaceta.

January 9 - February 27

Arthur Roger Gallery

Fragment of Journeys, by José Bedia

Paintings, drawings, and installation shown in conjunction with the artist’s exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

January 9 - March 3

Artist Reception: Friday, January 15, 6 - 8pm

Heriard-Cimino Gallery

Cuba Now, Cuba Then

Cuba Now – photographs by Richard Sexton; Cuba Then – photographs by William Henry Jackson and E.O. Goldbeck.

January 9 - February 28

A Gallery For Fine Photography

Mario Petrirena Installation

An installation in conjunction with the Mario Petrirena show at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

January 14 - April 11

Contemporary Arts Center

See Cuba: A Century of Images from the Latin American Library, 1859-1959

Photographs, drawings, and unique ephemeral materials documenting the urban landscape and popular culture of Havana, Cuba from 1859 to 1959. January 16 - June 16

Sat, Jan 16, 5 - 6pm Opening and copa de champaña

The Latin American Library Tulane University

Louisiana and Cuba: Multiple Perspectives

An exhibition of maps, documents, and the photography of Michael P. Smith illustrating the cultural, political, and economic connections that have historically linked Louisiana and Cuba.

January 19 - April 17

The Historic New Orleans Collection

Cuban Art Symposium

Collecting Cuban Art

Collecting Cuban Art is a symposium hosted by the Newcomb Art Gallery, New Orleans Museum of Art, Cuban & Caribbean Studies Institute, and Tulane Center for Scholars, January 28 - 29.

January 28, 6pm - The Cuban Art Symposium keynote address by noted critic, curator, and art historian Gerardo Mosquera will take place at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

January 29

2pm: Lecture by contemporary Cuban artist Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernández Rodríguez) on recent Cuban art will take place at Tulane University, in the Woldenberg Art Center’s Freeman Auditorium

3 - 5pm: Panel with speakers Gerardo Mosquera, Adolfo V. Nodal, Ricardo Viera, Holly Block, Sandy Levinson, Daniel Cameron, and Tonel will take place at the Tulane University, in the Woldenberg Art Center’s Freeman Auditorium.

Cuba - Still an Island? Lecture on Cuban Art and Globalization

Miranda Lash, NOMA’s curator of modern and contemporary art will discuss recent breakthroughs and persistent obstacles in connecting Cuba artists and art institutions with the outside world.

February 3, 6 - 8 pm

Freeman Auditorium in the Woldenberg Art Center at Tulane University

The Art of Luis Cruz Azaceta

A lecture by Alejandro Anreus, professor of art history at William Patterson University, New Jersey, author of Azaceta’s monograph.

February 24, 6-8 pm

Freeman Auditorium in the Woldenberg Art Center at Tulane University

For information visit www.sicubaneworleans.com.