FLOWERS, LIES AND REVOLUTION: CONTEMPORARY CUBAN ART

Flowers, Lies and Revolution surveys some themes that emerge in contemporary Cuban art, as revealed in three private collections in Lincoln, Nebraska. What a landlocked state and a sea locked nation share are the desires, comforts, and complexities of the other. This exhibition celebrates the transnational scope and vision witnessed in the breadth and focus of the three local collections: those of Karen and Robert Duncan, Kathy and Marc LeBaron, and Lisa and Tom Smith. The collections represent the dominant trends of a new generation of Cuban artists that emerged in the last 30 years. Their work continues a tradition of testing the limits of artistic freedom in Cuban society-a critical practice consistent with the Cuban Revolution in 1959, but which fell under intense state scrutiny in the 1970s. In recent decades artists have worked with increasing self-reflection in responding to life in Cuba. They have explored new representational strategies with which to frame their aesthetically and conceptual responses. The art they produce is less concerned with the standpoint of the collective-an earlier, revolutionary interest-than with the individual\u27s response to the collective-a later, laissez faire interest. The island\u27s contemporary art reveals an increasing sensitivity to individualism in its critical responses to Cuban society