Peripheries: A series of exhibitions that examines the limits of what defines Contemporary Cuban Art

In Cuba, on the other hand, the recognition of visual arts created by individuals on the margins has historically remained in the hands of private initiatives, scattered throughout the the island. The following is not intended to cover or systemize these initiatives, but rather only offer a brief attempt to shed some light on the temporality of Naïf Art, Art Brut and Outsider Art in Cuba since the first half of the 20th century. In order to contextualize Peripheries, a series of exhibitions that Thomas Nickles Project inaugurates with the work of Samuel Riera, a pioneer in the vindication of Art Brut in Cuba, without himself being a practitioner of the genre. With Peripheries, we aspire to expand the limits of, or at least examine, what defines contemporary Cuban art, the territories in which it is produced and what comes to be exhibited or promoted. From a lost provincial town to a sprawling Soviet-style public housing development in Alamar, a seaside district in the eastern part of Havana, we believe that in the remote region of the peripheries and in those spaces on the edges culture also happens.

Timeline of Art Naïf, Art Brut and Outsider Art in Cuba

-        Samuel Feijóo, writer, researcher and folklorist, carried out solid work in the mid-20th century from the 1940s to the early 1980s to rescue and raise the visibility of Cuban popular culture. Feijóo created in Cienfuegos, together with Mateo Torriente, the Academia del Bejuco (the forerunner of the artistic and literary movement Tarea al Sur) and led the Group of Drawers and Popular Painters of Las Villas, later called Grupo Signos. There he brought together self-taught creators from Villa Clara and Cienfuegos, with works of naïve imagery, notable fantasy and overflowing inventiveness. In his search for identity, he focused on popular themes, based on Cuban nature, myths, legends and peasant customs. He was a collaborator and friend of Dr. Bernabé Ordaz, with whom he organized creative workshops with patients at the Havana Psychiatric Hospital, for whom he curated several exhibitions in the gallery and corridors of the hospital. Thanks to his friendship and exchange with Jean Dubuffet, in 1983 he held a group show at the Musée d'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland, entitled Art Inventif á Cuba. Feijóo recognized the points on which the Las Villas movement coincided with Art Brut, but he also insisted on establishing differences between the two. He always maintained the intention of showing the movement as a project that was the bearer of popular culture in Cuba, and he vigorously defended its stylistic originality and folkloric singularity.

-        Similarly, José Seoane Gallo, writer, ethnologist, collector and scholar of the visual arts, worked from the late 1950s to the early 1960s with a group of artists from Santa Clara without academic training, most of whom later joined the Group of Popular Drawers and Painters of La Villas. Seoane also approached his work with these artists from a purely popular perspective, and even encouraged them to work within the parameters of Naïf Art.

-        It was from 1940 onwards that a number of naïve artists became known in Cuba, with names such as Uver Solís and Ruperto Jay Matamoros standing out. But it was not until the 1970 Salon in Santiago de Cuba that many others emerged. These Salons continue to take place sporadically in Cuba, hardly achieving a pivotal place on the map of contemporary visual arts.

-        In 1991, Sandra Ceballos and Ezequiel Suárez curated an exhibition with a selection of marginal and marginalized artists who exhibited their works alongside other creators legitimized by the art system in Cuba. They titled this exhibition, "Masters of Cuban painting." Art critic and historian Orlando Hernández[1] wrote the catalogue text for the exhibition, which was hosted by the Centro de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Luz y Oficios in Havana. In it the works were grouped together without isolation or differentiation.

-        This exhibition was the precursor of several concepts that remain at the core of Espacio Aglutinador, an independent art space, founded in 1994 by Ceballos in her home. "AGLUTINADOR" aims to show and disseminate the work of all types of Cuban artists - whether living or dead, residing inside or outside Cuba, young or old, known or unknown, promoted or almost forgotten, modest or pedantic - as long as they have an unquestionable quality, and above all that necessary dose of honesty and uneasiness in the face of the creation of true art. An artist-run gallery open is an especially extraordinary feat in a country where the state maintains a monopoly on cultural management.

-        In 2012, Samuel Riera, who graduated from San Alejandro Academy where he also taught graphic arts for 16 years, opened Riera Studio. A year later, he began to work on the Art Brut Project Cuba, the first space focused exclusively on the research and promotion of Art Brut and Outsider Art in Cuba. Derbis Campos, a graduate in Biochemistry from the University of Havana, joined the project in its early years, and began creating art and photography. Regarding his objectives for the Art Brut Project Cuba, Riera commented: "I did it with the intention of establishing a platform that would bring together artists and visions that were outside the prevailing cultural margin. We don't intend to establish canons or currents, but to help make visible the work of many creators who for different conditions and misfortunes are not of interest to the cultural system."[2] With a decade of work, Art Brut Project Cuba maintains an active program of workshops, residencies, exhibitions, a Documentation Center and the most complete collection of Cuban Art Brut and Outsider Art.

-        In July 2013, the first private museum in Cuba, "MAM: Museo de Arte Maníaco," was inaugurated in Havana, based in Espacio Aglutinador. Its founders explained its rationale in the following manner : "the term manic art responds to a more comprehensive intention than its precursor Art Brut created by Jean Dubuffet, since we consider manic art to be any work that has been produced by any artist, whether an art school graduate or not, who is under psychological pressure (those who present with slight psychopathologies to severe mental dysfunctions, as well as artists with severe addictions to different narcotics and toxic substances that have lacerated and modified their self-esteem, behavior and therefore distorted their perception of the SELF and the environment in which they live) and who express it shamelessly."[3]

The following artists have been part of Thomas Nickles Project since 2016.

They work at the limits, or outside of what is considered the mainstream of contemporary Cuban art.