The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC, and the Contemporary Art Gallery have collaborated to produce an important group exhibition of contemporary Cuban art, New Art from Cuba: Utopian Territories. The exhibition will be staged at seven Vancouver venues. Besides the Belkin Art Gallery and the CAG, participating art galleries include: the Charles H. Scott Gallery at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, ACCESS, OR Gallery, Artspeak Gallery and Western Front. There are 23 artists participating, 8 of whom are coming to Vancouver to supervise the installation of their work and to celebrate their openings on March 21-22, 1997.

Contemporary Cuban art is undergoing an extraordinary renaissance led by a young generation of artists mostly in their twenties (Cuba is a country with a much larger youth demographic than Canada or the USA). The artists comment on the richness and contradictions of Cuban life, as well as politics and culture, at a time when Cuba is at a crossroads in its history. The work is exuberant and often humorous.

The exhibition has been curated by Cuban curators Eugenio Valdés and Juan Molina, and Canadian curators Scott Watson and Keith Wallace. It is the result of two years of research and planning. Many Canadians now travel to Cuba’s beaches. This large multi-venue exhibition is an opportunity to see how Cubans see the situation in Cuba through the eyes of contemporary art.