Building a Feminist Archive: Cuban Women Photographers in the US

WOPHA / 09.09.2019

Exhibition: Building a Feminist Archive: Cuban Women Photographers in the US curated by Aldeide Delgado

On view: November 20^th – December 21^st, 2019

Opening: Friday, December 6^th, 2019 | 6pm-10pm

Location: Bailey Contemporary Arts. 41 NE 1st St. Pompano Beach, FL 33060

(Pompano Beach – October 7, 2019) Bailey Contemporary Arts (BaCA) presents Building a Feminist Archive: Cuban Women Photographers in the US; an exhibition that features nine women artists whose works in photography provide a glimpse into diverse histories of migration, community, activism, and resistance. Archives have traditionally functioned as repositories that legitimize a patriarchal construction of history. These spaces have been confined to institutions with very restrictive access where only a few have the privilege of interpreting its documents. How can the framework of feminism help to explore and reconstruct historical narratives?

This exhibition is presented as part of the launching activities of Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA), an emerging organization dedicated to research, promotion, support, and education on the role of women, and those identified as women, in photography. It is curated by Aldeide Delgado, art historian and curator whose project Catalog of Cuban Women Photographers collates, for the first time, the works of Cuban women photographers from the 19th century to the present.

Photography played a fundamental role in the feminist art movement of the late 1960s, in large part because of its accessibility and its direct engagement of political and social issues. By using photography, women artists found a powerful tool to deconstruct the male gaze and to bring private themes into public discussion. Also, photography was a non-traditional medium- a recent one in comparison to painting and sculpture- that expanded the definition of fine arts and incorporated diverse artistic possibilities.

Building a Feminist Archive: Cuban Women Photographers in the US shows the varied contributions of Cuban women artists living and working in the United States since the seventies when the concept of a collective “Latino” identity became crucial. These artists started to attend art schools and found themselves inspired by and responding to the social movements of their time. They created new images of their communities and examined pluricultural experiences challenging the notion of being exclusively Cuban or American. This show reveals artwork rarely seen or exhibited, and at the same time promotes reflection on the social, cultural and political identities of Cuban Women Artists in the United States within the current discussion of Latinx art.

Featured Artists

Aurora de Armendi, Carlotta Boettcher, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Coco Fusco, Nereida García Ferraz, Silvia Lizama, Yali Romagoza, Gladys Triana, and Juana Valdés.

Related Public Programming

Join us for a walkthrough of the exhibition and a conversation with artists Nereida García Ferraz (Outreach Program PAMM), Silvia Lizama (Chair of Departement of Fine Arts at Barry University) and the curator of Building a Feminist Archive: Cuban Women Photographers in the US.

Thursday, December 18^th, 2019 | 6pm

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