Maria Lau

Ancestor Search (from the "71" series), 2004

digital print on vinyl

The artist uses a technique of in-camera double exposure to aesthetically document her personal quest to recover her Chinese-Cuban ancestry and to reunite with lost, living relatives. The title Ancestor Search translates the Chinese characters superimposed over the image of her Chinese grandfather's passport—a pivotal piece motivating her investigation. The strong presence of the Chinese in Cuba is evidenced in a variety of social clubs such as Say Jo [on view in the exhibition], which were formed in places such as Havana's Chinatown.

Rodriguez Calero

Prisionero de Todas Las Guerras, 2006

acrollage painting

The title translates as Prisoner of All Wars. The painting gives a face, however torn, to victims of torture in times of war. As a meditation on torture, this work is a timely call to reassess our nation's commitment to human decency in the face of recent sanctions for torturing captives in the "war on terror." 

Jesus Rivera

No Piedras Al Techo Ajeno, 2006

steel, ceramic, and glass

The title refers to the saying that if you live in a glass house, you shouldn't throw stones. The house, with its spikes and blades, becomes the symbol of something having gone wrong—an allusion to domestic violence as much as to national violence. The glass roof is a symbol of hypocrisy at home. 
 

Julio Nazario

Purple Heart, 1997

photoetching and ink on paper

The four medals [three more on view in the exhibition] are the artist's own, earned for service in Vietnam in the late 1960s. Together they comprise a reflection and reassessment of his wartime experience. Nazario spattered the images with red ink to mark the spilling of blood, which, he felt, war medals only obscure in adornment. The rhetoric of heroicism, which attends every medal, is here interrupted by the symbol of inhumanity. The immediate imperative for the artist is to refuse an unreflective stance in the face of ongoing wars.