Mayra
Alpízar Linares (Lemons, Matanzas, 1956) with
works as Ochún and Yemayá, believe tapestries in which
she gives a personal vision of these deities of the
vault yoruba. [<A>]
Mayra has used in its work the technique of the application
and in that sense, she is the first Cuban artist that
makes it with such aesthetic, formal and conceptual
budgets. In other works, the conceptual proposal absorbs,
but the apoyatura continues in interpretation signs
and accessible decoding, like it happens in strong
Plate (1993).
Manuel Moinelo Piñeiro (Matanzas,
1941) he has a long trajectory as painter and designer.
Their painting is characterized by a drawing of loose
line, a motley policromía and the recreation of mythological
and real characters, with a poetic one frank.
Perla
María Pinedo (Matanzas,
1950) expressed in many of their works (painting,
ceramic, mixed technique, facilities, performances),
their personal interpretation of the fork of religions
in Cuba. In the
group of their work, the collections presented in
the personal Exhibitions My Roots and Tribute to the
ancestros", they showed a special lyricism, when linking
Christ's representation with the orishas, or their
interpretation of important sacramental or popular
acts linked to different traditions, always linking
characteristic elements of the city of Matanzas with
the representation of the deities. (My Roots were
a personal exhibition carried out in 1992, with guardianship,
design and assembly made by Rolando Estévez Jordán
and Catalog in charge of Ercilia Argüelles Miret,
with the participation of the Grupo Afrocuba and of
the Choir of the Centro Kairós in the Gallery of Art
of Matanzas. "Tribute to the ancestros was a collective
exhibition carried out in the Gallery of Art of Matanzas
in December of 1995, with guardianship of Ercilia
Argüelles Miret, a homage to the Project of the UNESCO
For the slave's route" that included works of Elpidio
Guerra, Manuel Moinelo, Perla M. Pinedo, Zenén Calero
and Rogelio Mesa).
In the series of works where the
reference to a Christ matancero is the topic, they
stand out Jesus' birth, where the arcane yorubas substitutes
Kings Magos: and Eleguá offers this way the Redeemer
the roads, the day and the night; Yemayá, the sea;
Ochún, the sun; endowing to the recently born with
all the gifts. In The Christ of the pumpkins, a history
is illustrated in the one that Ochún is dazzled with
the beauty and purity of the Nazareno and it leaves
the sweet water of the river to offer him honey of
bees and pumpkins. In Christ and the Orichas, Jesus
evangelizes the Orichas and he listens and he learns
with them, in a process of reciprocal conversion.
Christ in the window is a work in the one which, Jesus
Christ is in his house matancera, looking at the bay
from the window, in a resolved day-to-dayness with
details as the averaged papers of the song Longina
of Miguel Matamoros, to his feet or the image of the
Sacred Heart in the wall. Their work Yemayá (1997),
in their invocation like Yemayá Olokun, it is dedicated
to the bay of Matanzas, where traditionally was carried
out a ceremony for this deity. In Obbatalá (1997),
in their invocation like Obbatalá Allaguná, it has
recreated the rites: the plate of meringue that is
among the adimú (7) characteristic of this Orisha,
as well as the white and red flags, the flourished
branch of white paradise, the necklace with white
and red bills and the iroke or white iroko.
Juan
Carlos Urría Fagundo, painter (Jovellanos, Matanzas,
1977), graduate of the Provincial School of plastic
arts in June of 2000, it based their Thesis of Degree
on the Afro-Cuban thing. The artist wrote:
"The thematic that I approach in these works is the
result of an intense fact on the learned Cuban sincréticos.
My approach to the Afro-Cuban world is very respectful
and not from the believer's optics, but of the reverent
observer that is nurtured of the mystic and the tradition
of this world to catch the image in the square. The
myth and the faith: an indissoluble relationship the
same as to highlight the bonds between deity and believer,
they are the objectives layouts in this work. My proposal
consists of nine squares in those that it becomes
common in almost all them the use of the drums batá
like element (...), as symbol in my work and not alone
for the importance that you/they acquire these inside
the vault Yoruba, but also for the communication between
the orishas and the humans."
Ramón Pacheco Salazar (Ranchuelo,
Villa Clara, 1954), autodidactic photographer, with
an important career like fotorreportero; from 1991
comes carrying out several series that conform a rehearsal
titled Coexistences. It is a direct picture of people,
topics, popular, marginal atmospheres, where the topic
of the popular religiosity has also been approached.
Zenén Calero
Medina (Cardinal red, Matanzas, 1955), it is one
of the main designers from Cuba. This artist is a
continuous creator of theatrical and community projects
from her own Shop The Altarpiece located in the city
of Matanzas and before, from the environment of her
design for the Teatro Papalote, he has contributed
with her sceneries, marionettes, altarpieces and special
atrezzos to the setting in scene of the most beautiful
Afro-Cuban myths for children and young, under René
Fernández's general address. Their design for the
work Okín, bird that doesn't live in cage", it is
an example of a devise-aesthetic conceptualization
of the complex symbols of the legend, in function
of the setting in scene.
Rogelio Mesa Ledo (Matanzas, 1963)
it is self taught. Designer, painter, engraver and
extremely skilled artisan, is a luthier: from instruments
of black towns of the Brazil like the berimbao, until
the complexities of a guitar or a lute they have been
undertaken by this artist that is the only one that
has been able to reproduce all the traditional drums
faithfully (calls also foundation drums) of each one
of the Afro-Cuban religions, studied with a lot of
depth and attention. At the moment it projects the
construction of the bríkamo group; for it, he already
attempts the rescue of a xylophone of the group of
instruments of percussion abakuá nonexistent and the
rest of the instruments of percussion of this characterized
series because, for exception, it was allowed them
to be played by women. Rogelio
Mesa, Juan Carlos Urría, next to a dancer and singer
and several folkloric percusionistas of the Group
Dances Hairspring, they have created the Project Iré
Obbara (8) of Community Culture to offer percussion
shops, dances, songs, plastic arts and craft.
The manifestations of the Afro-Cuban
arts, don't only understand to the environment of
the visual arts, because their influence in the music,
the dance, the theater, the literature, continues
being continuous. Generations of descending of those
Africans, we are all according to saying popular that
here the one that doesn't have of congo, has of carabalí",
declaration that you still listen smiling who can
assure their origin of islanders, that is to say,
of natural of the Islas Canarias, while their children
rehearse the resistance slave's songs or the movements
of shoulders with the arms flexionados and the hands
in the armpits that characterize Yemayá Olokun's dance
in their class of the School of Art and the grandmother
keeps the ashes of the vent to make crossings when
thunders and to avoid Santa Bárbara anger.
To assume the plastic wealth of
that Afro-Cuban universe, to insert it in the postmodern
currents of century end, to maintain a relationship
dialógica between these old cultures and the contemporaneidad,
it is part of our identity, showing in the daily thing.
(6)
Moliner Castañeda, Israel:
Matanzas, Wild and Fences. Matanzas Nro. have 13 Pp.
81. Matanzas, 1988.
(7) Adimú: they
are offerings that are made to the deities to guarantee
that the well or well-being takes place totally in
case the one will go (prediction) it is incomplete
or kotoyalé, or to hurry and to guarantee its arrival
when the one will go it is complete or yalé. Taken
of Dilogún of Yrmino Valdés Garriz, Ediciones Unión,
UNEAC, Havana, 1997. Pp. 113.
(8) I will go
it is all the good one that it exists in the religion. Obbara is among the orishas, the poorest,
to who Obbatalá made rich, because he/she offered
pumpkin for all and they rejected her. As Obbara it
was poor, it accepted it... and the pumpkin was full
with gold. I will go Obbara it is formed by Moral
Alexis O'Farrill: Percusionista, director of the Group
of Percussion of Danza Espiral: Osmel Thorny Alvarez:
Popular Percusionista and folclórico of the Group
of Percussion of Danza Espiral. Companion and Professor
of Percussion of the Escuela Prov. of Art; Juan Carlos
Urría Fagundo: Painter. Graduate of the Professional
School of plastic arts Roberto Diago from Matanzas;
Yaíma Pelladito of the Miracles: Dancer, percusionista
and singer; Rogelio Herrera Oviedo: Folkloric Percusionista
and guitarist and Rogelio Mesa Ledo.
