Waiting List, Mestna Galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Curated by Yuneikis Villalonga, Elvis Fuentes and Glexis Novoa

Time and transition in Contemporary Cuban Art
On View at Mestna Galerija Ljubljana
December 18, 2006 – January 15, 2007
Press Preview: Monday, December 18
11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Ljubljana, Slovenia – December 6, 2006 –- Leading cultural institution Mestna Galerija Ljubljana will present Waiting List: Time and transition in Contemporary Cuban Art, the first exhibition of Cuban art held in Slovenia, from December 18, 2006 until January 15, 2007. Organized by Mestna Galerija Ljubljana, and curated by Elvis Fuentes (New York) and Yuneikys Villalonga (Havana) with Glexis Novoa (Miami) acting as guest curator, this exhibition showcases the work of over 40 artists and groups that have contributed to the Cuban Art Renaissance since the 1980s. A special section of Cuban Performance Art of 1980s will feature documentation and objects utilized by artists in their works and never before shown in Europe.
This grouping of diverse and multi-media works — by Cuban artists from the island and abroad working in photography, installation, video, painting, sculpture, and other media — addresses the idea of time as a key subject in Contemporary Cuban Art. Productive journeys and leisure, aging and decaying, boredom and stress are particularly expressed through the personal experiences of the artists within the context of the Revolution, as well as the migration experience. “The Revolution has been a symbolic intervention on Cuban Time. In return, time has shaped discourses of and on the Cuban Revolution… They (artists) have metaphorically recorded some of the tensions in the cultural, social and political landscape of the past two decades”, said curators. Other recurring themes within the works are the role of art in society, as well as the position of the artist as an agent of change or mere spectator; and both the loss and gains of the historical process that they all have lived in. 
Among artists are performer Leandro Soto and conceptualist Gustavo Pérez Monzón, protagonists of the groundbreaking exhibition Volumen I (1981), a turning point in Cuban art. Also are María Magdalena Campos Pons, Carlos Rodríguez Cárdenas, Glexis Novoa, Segundo Planes, and Lázaro Saavedra, included in the exhibition Kuba O.K. (1990) held at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, which opened a door for Cuban art in Europe. Antonio Eligio Fernández (Tonel), Arturo Cuenca, Juan-Sí González, José A. Toirac, Tania Bruguera, and groups like Art.De., Arte Calle, La Campana, and Provisional complete the selection of 1980s with the famous Baseball Game (1989), in which artists, critics and curators, tired of official censorship, devoted to the Cuba’s national pastime. 
Saavedra and René Francisco Rodríguez were the link between this innovative generation and the next, as they taught at the Higher Institute of Art and were instrumental in the endurance of experimentation and in the foundation of groups ENEMA and DUPP. Among younger artists are Carlos Garaicoa, Raúl Cordero, Yoan Capote, Beverly Mojena, El Soca & Fabian and others. Waiting List also presents Ernesto Oroza’s collection of functional objects produced by ordinary people during the deepest economic crisis in recent Cuban history, the so-called Special Period of 1990s. Tony Labat, César Trasobares, Coco Fusco and Ernesto Pujol form a strong counterpart of this innovative spirit in the art of Cuban exile.

Pavel Acosta, Aglutinador, Glenda León Arévalo, Ritual Art.De, José Ángel Vincench Barrera, Saidel Brito, Tania Bruguera, Arte Calle, Yoan Capote, Nilo Castillo, Carlos Rodríguez Cárdenas, Raúl Cordero, Arturo Cuenca, Fernando Rodríguez and Francisco de la Cal, Ángel Delgado, Felipe Dulzaides, ENEMA, Sandra A. Ceballos & Espacio, El Soca & Fabian, Antonio Eligio Fernández (Tonel), Abel Francis, Coco Fusco, Carlos Garaicoa, Juan-Sí González, Lázaro A. Saavedra González, Tony Labat, Alejandro López, José Luis Alonso Mateo, Aldo Damián Menéndez, Beverly Mojena, Antonio Núńez, Liudmila Velasco & Nelson, Glexis Novoa, Abel Oliva, Ernesto Oroza, Alain Pino, Segundo Planes, La Campana María Magdalena Campos Pons, Provisional, Ernesto Pujol, Rigoberto Quintana, Ramírez, René Francisco Rodríguez, Joel Rojas, Leandro Soto, José A. Toirac, César Trasobares, Harold Vázquez