Havana, Nov 8 - After 15 years away from Cuban galleries, artist Michel Mirabal will inaugurate the exhibit "You Don't Know Me" today at the Luz y Oficio Provincial Center for Plastic Arts and Design in this capital.
Approximately 50 pieces, including two-dimensional and three-dimensional works as well as everyday objects transformed into symbolic representations, coexist in the space located in the historic center of the city, where the artist reveals his talent across different visual art mediums.
It is not easy to find such a multifaceted artist in Cuba, with an exhibition free of prejudices where trends do not differentiate themselves from one another, expressed Nelson Herrera Ysla, the curator of the exhibit alongside Andrés Santana, during a pre-opening press conference.
"You Don't Know Me" is organized into three levels, featuring pieces such as "Rebellion," "The Assault," "Escaping," "The Challenge," "How Do You See Yourself?," "Dependents," and "Day by Day," all of which engage in dialogue with the Cuban context, incorporating elements like machetes, balloons, pressure cookers, or an 18th-century carriage.
I believe that "You Don't Know Me" will set a precedent for how to construct a curatorial narrative and how that narrative is organized around a museographic fabric that validates those same starting theses, added curator Santana.
I am sure you were not familiar with this type of work; I wanted to show that I do many more things, as there are 14 series over 30 years of my career, shared the artist, known as "The Painter of Flags" for his famous eponymous series.
With several solo and group exhibitions abroad, upon the opportunity to showcase his talent in Cuba after 15 years, he paused two international projects.
I believe that the homeland always deserves to be prioritized, added the artist, originally from the Cayo Hueso neighborhood in the Centro Habana municipality.
The exhibition will be open to the public from 6:00 PM local time until January 15, 2026, and will function as a community project with debates, parallel activities, and meetings with students of artistic education; at the end of the exhibition, a catalog will be presented detailing the process of creating the show.
