OnCuba Information introduced a brand new exhibition by up-and-coming Cuban graphic designer Alejo Cañer, “Escupir la cara” [Spit in the face]: “To enter the cosmos conceived within the thoughts of this graphic designer, who is simply 21 years outdated, you need to undergo a small hall the place two rows of posters are displayed, all equally irreverent and provocative, within the cultural hotbed that’s the Cuban Artwork Manufacturing unit [Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC)].”
For Cuban illustrator Alejo Cañer (Cienfuegos, 2001) few issues are as “explosive” as combining intercourse and politics, each create “a universe” like his, which may be appreciated in Havana, from this Thursday by way of January, by way of the exhibition “Escupir la cara.”
To enter the cosmos conceived within the thoughts of this graphic designer, solely 21 years outdated, you need to undergo a small hall the place two rows of posters are displayed, all equally irreverent and provocative, within the cultural hotbed that’s the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC).
In one in every of them, a person—muscular, good-looking, sporting lipstick and shorts—carries on his shoulders one other man who reveals his biceps and a tattoo of the nationwide emblem on his naked chest. Behind each is the phrase: “Navy service”.
For an area of some meters, there’s every little thing: from a ‘pop artwork’ illustration of Cuban nationwide hero Antonio Maceo and one in every of Kim Kardashian sporting a shirt from the state Federation of Cuban Ladies to a unadorned boy in excessive heels hugging the leg of a police agent and yelling: “Oye policía, pinga” [Hey police, dick.]
The posters current a mixture of vivid colours—at instances, electrical—images with revolutionary iconography, snippets of every day life, and a “cuir” (queer, in English: not heterosexual) aesthetic that captivates the viewer. [. . .]
NORMALIZING WHAT’S ‘CUIR’ [QUEER]
The primary message of the exhibition, in response to Cañer, is to “normalize” what for a very long time was—and in lots of instances continues to be—labeled as “improper conduct” [conductas inapropiadas], and on the identical time, to make “what’s completely different be inserted between what’s politically right and what’s right from the state’s perspective.”
This recreation between the sexual and the political, he factors out, walks alongside a thorny path that often results in censorship, both due to the quirky theme or due to irreverence in the direction of the institution. [. . .]
Excerpts translated by Ivette Romero. For the unique, in Spanish, see https://oncubanews.com/cultura/artes-visuales/escupir-la-cara-una-expo-de-alejo-caner/