The Thing is Black

A room full of apparently opaque black images will be unveiled at an Havana gallery next month. On close encounter, a faint luminosity will appear on the canvases as you move around them. The shadowy presence of an image will eventually reveal itself, like a developing print awash with darkroom chemicals.
Artist Raúl Castro Camacho, known as Memo, launches his show Penumbras, ‘La cosa está negra’ (The thing is black) at Galería 23 y 12, Calle 23 y 12, Vedado, Havana (tel 7 831 1810) on September 9th until October 1st.
It’s a clever play on words – and concept. As well as the rich black palette of the artist’s canvases, where silhouettes only emerge in a certain light, the show’s title refers to ‘things’ such as the difficulties of carrying out daily tasks, known as ‘la lucha’ (the fight) in today’s Cuba.
The series of 10 paintings includes a silhouette of Fidel Castro climbing down from a tank at the US-backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 – a copy of an iconic photograph taken at the time. Within weeks of the failed attack, Castro declared Cuba and his Revolution, Socialist, and a curious memorial, a small brass pantheon of Cuba’s protagonists of the 1959 Revolution, is wrapped at head height on an exterior corner of the gallery – the exact corner where Fidel Castro made his 1961 announcement on Calles 23 and 12.
Other paintings in the series depict key cultural symbols such as the Revolution Plaza and a monumental statue of Cuba’s national hero José Martí; Elpidio Valdés, a cartoon hero of the Independence wars against Spain (created by director Juan Padrón); and an aeroplane in flight. They are all images imbued with a conversation about Cuba’s history, culture, migration and the ideal Revolutionary.