Ackland Art Museum explores Cuban Politics & Culture through Cinema Posters

Written by Carolyn Allmendinger Sunday, 17 April 2011 22:07

CHAPEL HILL, NC – The Ackland Art Museum presents the special exhibition Almost Now: Cuban Art, Cinema, and Politics in the 1960s and 1970s (August 29 – December 6, 2009), offered in conjunction with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute for the Study of the Americas’ presentation The Cuban Revolution at 50: Art and Cinema. Featuring sixteen Cuban cinema posters (and a signed and numbered print of Alberto Korda’s iconic photograph of Che Guevara) recently given to the Ackland by eminent art historian, collector, and Carolina alumnus David Craven.

Almost Now examines the central role that artists, filmmakers, and film audiences have played in Cuban cultural and political discourse since the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

During the 1960s and 1970s, both printmaking and filmmaking flourished in Cuba, and the cinema poster became the artistic medium of the moment. Some of the most prominent Cuban artists of this time are represented in Almost Now, including René Portocarrero, Raúl Martínez, and Alfredo Rostgaard.

The posters seen in Almost Now announce films of varied genre and subject, including feature films, shorts, and documentaries about literary, social, and political topics. For example, Cartas del Parque is an adaptation of stories by author Gabriel García Márquez, Hasta la Victoria siempre honors Che Guevara on the occasion of his death, and Por Primera Vez shows audiences in rural communities watching Charlie Chaplin’s classic film Modern Times for the first time.

Today, these images continue to challenge preconceptions about Cuban identity and culture. Craven, now professor of art history at the University of New Mexico, says they had the same power when he first encountered them in Cuba twenty-five years ago. “I was struck with how the art there contradicted almost everything said about it in the US,” he says.

“This generous gift greatly increases the Ackland’s capacity to enrich the artistic, academic, and cultural fabric of the University,” says Carolyn Allmendinger, director of academic programs at the Ackland, and curator of the exhibition. “Especially exciting is the potential this exhibition has to weave together so many different initiatives and units across campus.”

Almost Now participates in a group of programs at UNC-Chapel Hill that focus on Cuban history, art, and cinema. In November, the Institute for the Study of the Americas presents The Cuban Revolution at 50: Art and Cinema, a series of lectures by scholars at local and national universities, and screenings of more recent Cuban films. Louis A. Pérez, Jr., director of the Institute and the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill, has been described by Craven as one of the nation’s leading scholars of Cuban history and was cited as influential in his selection of the Ackland as the recipient of his collection. The inaugural lecture in the series, scheduled for November 1, 2009, will bring Craven to UNC-Chapel Hill. Craven will also speak as the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Art’s 2009 Riggins lecturer. Together with the Ackland, the Institute for the Study of the Americas will screen films in their collection that correspond to posters in Almost Now.

The Ackland Art Museum is located on the historic campus of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an academic unit of the University, the Ackland serves broad local, state, and national constituencies. The Ackland Collection consists of more than 15,500 works of art, featuring significant collections of European masterworks, twentieth-century and contemporary art, North Carolina’s premier collections of Asian art and works of art on paper (drawings, prints, and photographs), as well as African art and North Carolina pottery and folk art.

Location and Hours The Ackland Art Museum is located at 101 South Columbia Street, near the intersection with East Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Admission is always free. Hours are Wednesday through Saturday 10AM – 5PM, Sunday 1PM – 5PM, and until 9PM on the second Friday of every month. More information available at 919.966.5736 or www.ackland.org.

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