The present selection of photographs by Roger Ballen suggests the inner reality of the human being in connection with nature, especially with animals. From an aesthetic perspective, Ballen’s images achieve great relevance in the current global context of environmental crises. Ballen reveals a universe bounded by sanity and madness, loneliness and false happiness. How do you get to the place where there is no return where an animal is colonized? What is left of nature? At the end of the day life is wound up with wires everywhere and we spend much of it trying to untie the rope.
Roger Ballen – Artist
Maylin Pérez -Curator

The meeting was attended by approximately thirty artists from different disciplines and nationalities, residing in Panama. Due to the relevance of the topic in the international arena, it was decided to extend the call to artists from other countries.
This project aims to reflect on the role of the museum from the individual experience of each participating artist through the creation of a work of free format, technique or style motivated by the museum as an object of study and the emotional connections that are derived from this relationship. Works were received in different formats such as video art, photography, collage, digital animation and performance, among others.

More info https://www.bienalsursedevirtual.org/

Within a professional team, Pérez curated exhibitions, advised private collectors and designed international connection programs in collaboration with art fairs, biennials, museums, auctions and others important events. Among the exhibits she curated are: El Espejo Opaco de Gaugin (Rachel Mozman, New York), Jamboree´s last night (Armando Seijo, Spain), Lo fotográfico: Mutaciones cronotópicas (Viviana Zargón, Argentina and Fernando Otero, Peru) and Apropiaciones (Juan Ricardo Mejía, Colombia).

The photographs that make up this project correspond, mainly, to the events that occurred after the signing of Torrijos-Carter Trades, the 1984 presidential campaign, the mass demonstrations after the death of Hugo Spadafora in 1985, the civil protests of 1987, 1988 and 1989, the return of the exiles, the repressions by the riot police, the presidential campaign of 1989, and the invasion of December 20 of that same year. In 2013, the photographer Marcos Guerra, in charge of documenting Ricardo Arias Calderón’s political campaigns, donated to Mr. Ricardo and Teresita Yániz de Arias, his wife, approximately seven thousand negatives documenting the first political campaigns after the 1968 Military Coup, occurred in 1984 and 1989. Other photographs that are part of the project come from the personal archives of some photographers of the time such as José Ángel Murillo, Héctor Endara Hill and Alcides Rodríguez; and of various public and private collections whose owners have guarded for several decades, thus preserving the historical memory of the country.

More info www.fotografiaypolitica.com
Design and development by Virtualart Pty

How does one interpret and expose the scenario of urbanism of the city through art, individual / collective memory, history and the challenges of human beings ?. The Biennial of Havana 2019 is the ideal event for artists to analyze and show their vision of architecture, urbanism and its traces thus becoming an “artistic laboratory” that explores the concept of the city we inhabit. The proposal redefines and exposes the theme of the city, memory and human relationships through multidisciplinary works: photography, installation, design, performance and audiovisual.

A visual approach to the photography of Nuria López Torres can emancipate various interpretations of her work. With a documentary accent and a subtle anthropological approach, twenty pieces are exhibited in medium format. The theme of homosexuality in Cuba has been disarticulated by different artistic manifestations: from cinema to literature, theater and the visual arts in general; however, it continues to be a sociocultural theme that enriches other views from art as discourse.
The characters have not been found by the camera, but they waited, from their surroundings, for the appearance of the curious stranger, the stranger who questions himself and asks himself questions, the artist who becomes an accomplice of another reality. The family, the friends, the sexual, the sensual, the others who come and join the party, the body language and the reflection, are (un) covered in their naked reality. There is an intention to say without the need to speak.
The story is portrayed in a harmonious balance of planes, lights and shadows. An homosexual community in Cuba indicates permanence: They all exist! It is as simple as it is complicated at the same time, because the conceptual argument is not afraid to disobey the “normal”: I am what you see.

This project was inaugurated in 2013 with the general direction of the prominent Cuban musician X Alfonso. For a year Pérez worked as curator and sales manager of the FotoFac gallery together with the photographer Enrique Rottenberg, Cristina Erofeeva and Nelson Ramírez de Arellano. It was an amazing experience holding exhibitions, developing projects, organising events for collectors and participating in different educational activities.
Photos by Nelson Ramírez de Arellano