BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:NingEventWidget-v1 VERSION:2.0 METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York X-LIC-LOCATION:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:19700308T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:19701101T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:668279:Event:304073 DTSTAMP:20120531T124538Z SUMMARY:Queloides/Keloids Race and Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art. DESCRIPTION:After decades of official silence, discussions of “raceâ €ť and racism have become prominent in contemporary Cuba. Since the ea rly 1990s, numerous cultural actors—musicians, writers, painters, pe rformers, and academics—began to do something that was previously un thinkable: they began to denounce the persistence of racial discrimina tion in Cuban socialist society. These intellectuals have articulated the concerns of the Afro-Cuban youth, a population group that came to age in the early 1990s, precisely at the time that the socialist welfa re state began to unravel. They have constituted a loose Afro-Cuban cu ltural movement that is using cultural spaces to raise uncomfortable q uestions about the persistence of racism in Cuba. Culture has become t he space where a democratic future can be imagined and debated within the island.\n\nQueloides/Keloids is an art exhibit that seeks to contr ibute to current debates about the persistence of racism in contempora ry Cuba and elsewhere in the world. The exhibit will be hosted at the Centro Wifredo Lam in Havana (April 16 - May 31, 2010), then transferr ed to the Mattress Factory (October 8, 2010 - February 27, 2011). The twelve artists invited to participate are renowned for their critical work on issues of race, discrimination, and identity. Several of them collaborated in three important exhibits in Havana between 1997 and 19 99 (titled “Keloids I”, “Keloids II”, and “Neither Musicians nor Athletes”). The last two were curated by the late Cuban art cri tic Ariel Ribeaux. All these exhibits dealt with issues of race and ra cism in contemporary Cuba, issues that had been taboo in public debate s in the island for decades. “Keloids” are wound-induced, patholog ical scars. Although any wound may result in keloids, many people in C uba believe that the black skin is particularly susceptible to them. T hus the title evokes the persistence of racial stereotypes, on the one hand, and the traumatic process of dealing with racism, discriminatio n, and centuries of cultural conflict, on the other hand. Queloides/Ke loids includes several art forms--paintings, photographs, installation s, sculptures, videos--and offers novel ways to ridicule and to disman tle the so-called racial differences.\n\nParticipant Organizations:\n\ nThe Wifredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art in Havana, Cuba, will host the opening of the exhibition in April 2010. The Center is a cultural institution dedicated to the study, research and promotion of contemp orary visual arts from developing countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean. It is the organizer of the Havana Biennial. It was founded in 1983 as an homage to the great Cuban artist Wifredo La m (1902 - 1982). The Center is housed in an eighteenth-century buildin g, which was formerly the residence of the Counts of Peñalver. Locate d on Cathedral Square in Old Havana, the building has offices, spaciou s galleries, a library, a video library and areas for other cultural a ctivities.\n\nThe Mattress Factory is a museum of contemporary art, fo unded in 1977, that provides a place and complete support for artists to take risks and explore new ideas. The museum’s primary concern is to enable each artist to exercise the creative process with as much f reedom and support as possible. For emerging artists, this is often th e catalyst that propels their work into the national limelight; and fo r well-established artists, a Mattress Factory residency provides the support they need to refresh their vision or take their work in new di rections.\n\nI\n\nFor more information visit http://www.brooklynartpro ject.com/events/queloideskeloids-race-and DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20100426T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20110201T190000 CATEGORIES:exhibition LOCATION:Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Havana, April 16 - May 31, 2010 Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, October 8, 2010 - February 27, 2011 WEBSITE:http://www.queloides-exhibit.com URL:http://www.queloides-exhibit.com CONTACT: ORGANIZER:Mattress Factory ATTACH;FMTTYPE="image/jpeg":http://api.ning.com/files/s7lA2YwuLonE5Wz8 z3UgM5qRMKYr3gY5f0oX2vCd-BPpQI3hfKH*qrp3MGMWlDj*-WP56NBW7GCwcblrE1Al6x 868wjhGc34/1_BLOOD_copy.jpg ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED;RSVP=TRUE;CN="Armando Marino":http://www.brooklynartproject.com/profile/armandomarino END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR