On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami

On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami features approximately seventy works by fifty Cuban artists of multiple generations, including María Magdalena Campos-Pons (currently a professor at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University), Yoan Capote, Los Carpinteros, Teresita Fernández, and Zilia Sánchez. Through paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos, and installations drawn from one of the largest public collections of Cuban art in the United States, the exhibition inspires dialogue regarding the physical, social, and political landscape of the island and its diaspora.

Works in the exhibition demonstrate how artists can weave political commentary into their practices, providing insight into the sophistication of creative expression in an authoritarian system. The horizon line functions as a motif and symbol of personal desire, existential longing, or geographical containment throughout the exhibition—while always visible, it remains perpetually distant and unattainable.

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Organized by Pérez Art Museum Miami

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Against a blue sea-like background filed with round black circles with white center dots, a small man, wide eyed and mouth agape, sits in a small vessel. His arms raised in surrender, he appears surrounded by shapes resembling sharp objects.

Luis Cruz Azaceta. Caught, 1993. Acrylic on paper, 48 x 42 1/2 inches. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Jorge M. Pérez

The name Raul Phillips Guggenheim and the Spanish word Revolico fill the canvas with angular three-dimensional block letters in palette of rust, black, brown, and mustard against an orange background.

Glexis Novoa. Revolico, 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Jorge M. Pérez

This circular painting features a black background with a simplistic stick figure made of white lines with three cross shapes at his shoulders and chest and a blue interior color. The words

José Bedia. The Poor Bewildered Cuban on Arriving in a Strange Land, 2000. Acrylic on canvas, 94 in. diameter. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Jorge M. Pérez

Scores of colorful flowers of all sizes stand erect in a sea-like environment. Larger red, yellow and black flowers command attention. There are small trumpetlike protrusions from many flowers and also situated among the flowers.

Tomás Esson. ORÁCULO, 2017. Oil on canvas, 120 x 228 in. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez

Stretched, blackened body of water overlooking the hazy, cloud filled horizon.

Yoan Capote. Island (see-escape), 2010. Oil, nails, and fishhooks on jute mounted on plywood, 106 x 315 x 4 in. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez. Photo: Oriol Tarridas

There are three sections of this painting, all consisting of close-ups of colorful flowers. The first panel shows flowers in reds, oranges, pinks and yellows with lush petals, the second panel is more simplistic flowers with black centers, the third is a closeup of a realistic purple flower.

María Magdalena Campos-Pons. Butterfly Eyes (for Breonna Taylor), 2021. Mixed media, watercolor, ink, gouache, and digital print on archival paper. Collection of the Speed Art Museum, Louisville. Image courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco

In shades of gray, a small oval emerges from a larger egg colored oval slightly wider than tall. It is bisected by a thin indention bisecting the oval from top to bottom seemingly cutting it in half. A horizontal protrusion rises the smaller oval.

Zilia Sánchez. Untitled, from the series Erotic Topology, 1970. Acrylic on canvas, 72 3/4 x 97 3/4 in. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez. Photo: Oriol Tarridas

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Exhibition panels

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Resources

Gallery Guide

On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Guía de la Galería

On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Audio Tour

On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Mire Detenidamente

En el horizonte: Arte Cubano Contemporáneo del Pérez Art Museum Miami

Look Closely Guide

On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Family Activities

On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Curriculum Sheet

On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Pérez Art Museum Miami

On the Horizon at the Frist Art Museum

World Christian Broadcasting

Sandra Ramos discusses her work at the Frist Art Museum

On the Horizon Spotlights Individual Expressions Against Tyranny

Nashville Scene

Sensual, Innovative Works by Zilia Sánchez Are Unexpectedly Moving

Nashville Scene