Sammlung: Luciano Méndez

Konzipiert im Laufe von zwei Jahrzehnten, Die Luciano Méndez Contemporary Cuban Art Collection has become a recognized reference both within Cuba and abroad. Ihr Wert liegt nicht nur in der Vielfalt der Werke und Künstler, die sie versammelt, sondern im kuratorischen Blick, der sie zusammenbringt.

Heute, mit mehr als 800 funktioniert von über 60 Künstler, Die Sammlung bietet eine vielfältige Karte der Anliegen, Obsessionen, und poetische Gesten, die die visuelle Produktion in Kuba prägen. Es reicht von den 1970er Jahren bis heute und umfasst die Malerei, Skulptur, Fotografie, Videokunst, video installation, and other media, consolidating itself as a plural and representative archive that also sheds light on key moments in the historiography of Cuban art.

The thematic lines explored by the collection make it possible to identify some of the persistent conceptual nuclei within the island’s creative panorama. Identity and memory, explorations of religiosity, the tensions between heritage and modernity, and the use of humor and satire as critical tools coexist with reflections on migration and diaspora, the insular condition, the dynamics of landscape and territory, corporeal inquiries, and investigations into abstraction and metaphysics.

The catalogue includes works by renowned figures such as Manuel Mendive, Roberto-Märchen, Tomas Sanchez, Alfredo Sosabravo, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Moisés Finalé, and José Bedia, alongside mid-career artists and emerging voices like Alejandro Gómez Cangas, Yasiel Elizagaray, Daniela Águila, Douglas Pérez Castro, Luis Enrique Camejo, William Acosta, José Manuel Fors, unter anderem.

The collection has been featured in more than twenty exhibitions, both in Cuba and internationally. Each exhibition has also served as an opportunity to foster study and reflection on the paths that Cuban art has taken and continues to forge. Because this is not merely a private collection: it is a living, evolving project that understands art as both testimony and an essential language for narrating the nuances and contradictions of its time.