A Play of Light, Color & Shadow
12 Photographers, 12 Visions
August 19th, 2022
Digital, Film, Landscape, Urban, Portrait, Documentary, Wildlife, Macro, Street....Photography
"There is a crack in everything/ that’s how the light gets in…"
Leonard Cohen
Photography is that unique experience of walking through the world connected through a lens without distraction from the vanities of the mind, observing the constant fluidity of poetry that the universe offers to us. Walking through the streets, detailing the architecture of everything, nature, observing from afar, (which is nothing more than another way of looking from the inside), people, the movement of life that translates into a play of light and shadows. Being one with the geometry of things.
Gary Anuez, Curator
"A Play of Light, Color & Shadow” primera exhibición del Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas (MoCAA) diseña tres escenarios fundamentales en la concepción de la fotografía. Doce artistas conforman esta legitima transición de lo que hasta hoy había sido conocido como art center y hoy es museo. Adrián Menéndez, Ángel González, Dan Gangeri, Daniel Barroso, Gary Anuez, Giorgio Viera, Humberto Castro, Rubén Arenas, Sebastián Elizondo, Raul Francisco Dorticos, Nestor Arenas y Panol de la Vega, conforman un conglomerado visual -antitético y díscolo- que –en primer lugar- antepone la legitimidad de una exploración visual al deseo mismo de la imagen como finalidad.
En segundo lugar, sorprende en su curaduría el desapego profiláctico que se hace con cierta fotografía auto-referencial, una fotografía que coquetea consigo misma y que muchas veces tiene en el selfie un ejercicio de auto-contemplacion hedonista. Finalmente, “A Play of Light, Color & Shadow” propone un drástico cambio del objeto fotográfico para emplazar su mirada en un ejercicio profundo de meditación y silencio antropológico.
Excerpt from Antonio Correa's essay "Espasmos Ontológicos," 2022
12 Photographers
Adrian Menéndez
Adrian Menéndez is a Cuban-American artist based in Miami. He was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1992. He is a multidisciplinary artist proficient in photography, painting, ceramics, and bronze working amongst other media. He graduated with a Bachelors in Art History and Philosophy at Florida International University (FIU), and currently works as a professional artist in Miami, FL. His film photography is dominated by night shots of areas in and around Miami, that depict objects, buildings and other inanimate subject matter; portraits and urban landscapes.
Angel Gonzalez
Angel Segundo Gonzalez was born in Havana, Cuba on June 1st, 1965. He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana with a BA of Arts in Audiovisual Communications & Media, specializing in cinematography and directing. “Street photography is something that I love, in the sense that I am able to document a moment in time, a place, always trying to find the angle that turns it into a work of art. The world of classic cars particularly catches my attention, and photographing them has become almost an obsession. Cars as cult objects and marvels of design. Photography has allowed me to focus my gaze on the dialogue between the object and its surroundings."
Daniel Barroso
Daniel Barroso is a recreational photographer currently living and working in Miami, FL, he graduated from Miami-Dade College. A longtime lover of film photography, Barroso, along with fellow artist Adrian Menéndez, has overseen the completion of a dark room for their photographic work. Barroso’s series Viertus Haus mainly depicts the people and places present in his daily life; reflecting his own world through his work.
Daniel Jeffrey Gangeri
Daniel Jeffrey Gangeri is a wildlife and landscape photographer. He graduated from Barry University in 2012 with a Master of Science in Educational Leadership. He currently works as the Assistant Principal in Miami Lakes K-8 Center. Gangeri focuses specifically on wildlife, landscape and nature photography, aiming to share the beauty and wonder of the natural world through his photographs. His latest series included action shots of a Belted Kingfisher during its morning feeding routine. “A three-hour pre-sunrise drive later and I was set up in my blind an hour before the sun would peak over the horizon...The clouds rolled in quickly just after sunrise, then the torrential rain began to fall. This would not deter the Kingfisher (or the photographer). The resulting shots truly demonstrate why this little bird is king...”
Gary Anuez
Gary Anuez is a teacher, photographer and education director. He was born on July 29th, 1968 in the Isle of Pines, Cuba. He graduated from the National Academy of Art, Havana Cuba (E.N.A) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in Sculpture and Drawing at the Institute of Fine Art in Havana, Cuba. Since arriving in the US, he became a Certified Art Teacher in the state of Florida, founded the B.W Art Studio, and Co-Founder of the Miami Lakes Art Academy. He currently works as an art teacher at Miami Lakes K-8 Center in Miami, FL., and as the Education Director of the Fine Arts Ceramic Center in Miami, FL. “Photography is that unique experience of walking through the world connected through a lens without distraction from the vanities of the mind, detailing the movement of life that translates into a play of light ad shadows.”
Giorgio Viera
Giorgio Viera was born in Havana, Cuba in 1972. He studied and majored in photography at the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana. While working for the local newspaper as a photographer, he discovered the corners of an unknown city--and country, where the marginalized existed. Through his work, Viera seeks to simultaneously relate and involve his viewer with the environment of the destitute--the forgotten ones. Although this is a constant subject in his art, he never abandons the poetic nature of everyday life that reality offers. But his vision is not aggressive, rather moving, making the audience turn to observe universes that are sometimes ignored, and therefore, become alien to.
Humberto Castro
Humberto Castro is a multimedia artist who specializes in painting, drawing, ceramics, installations, as well as photography and video art. He was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1957. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro and the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana, Cuba. Humberto Castro’s work is internationally acclaimed as important examples of Latin American art in the United States. His street photography concentrates in particular on the architecture, objects and daily life of people in Cuba.
Nestor Arenas
Néstor Arenas is contemporary visual artist and photographer. He was born in Holguín, Cuba in 1964. An arena graduated from the Higher Institute of Art in Havana in 1990, and has widely exhibited his work at solo and collective exhibitions throughout the U.S., Cuba, Spain and China. Recent exhibitions include, the 12th Havana Biennial (2015); “Lego-paintings” (Lyle O’Reitzel Gallery, Miami, 2010); Arteaméricas Art Fair (Miami, 2009 and 2010), and the Shanghai Art Fair (China, 2010). His work is part of several private and public collections such as, Forrest Capital (Miami), The Mosquera Collection (Miami), the Jorge Reynardus Collection (New York and Sarasota), Leigh University (Pennsylvania), and the Universidad de Valencia (University of Valencia, Spain), amongst others.
Panol de la Vega
Panol de la Vega, born Arnaldo Vega, is a professional photographer currently living and working in Miami, FL. He graduated from the University of the Arts in Havana, Cuba, in 1995 before continuing his education at the Moscow School of Film and the New York Institute of Photography in the United States. His work includes street photography, portraits, architecture and landscapes, taken in both Russia and the United States.
Raul Francisco Dorticos
Raul Francisco Dorticos was born in Havana, Cuba in 1968. Although originally a musician, Francisco currently works as a professional photographer, who began to develop his own photographs in a make-shift dark room in the back of his apartment. His series depicts photographs of his subjects in the water and represents his original style and technique. His figures are capriciously distorted in the water...There is a great force and movement in his work, which seems almost painterly. “People lower their guard in the water, they feel invisible and relaxed, the least they suspect is that someone is watching their every move...waiting for the right moment to freeze them in their gestures.” The use of overlapping subjects to create movement is characteristic of his work.
Ruben Arenas
Ruben Arenas was born in Spain in 1999; he is the son of notable Cuban artist Nestor Arenas. He began to dabble in digital photography during high school, using it to source images to edit for digital collages and school projects. Arenas attended New World School of the Arts for a short time before applying to Miami-Dade College to major in film photography. He has since then been enamored by the medium, and its countless variables in picture taking, and the stages of processing photographs. His series of photographs were taken at his place of work, which to him is “…an enjoyable space to photograph.” Subjects with heavy clutter characterize his work, elements of “ghost artifacts” or the use of motion blur, and low exposure speeds to compliment weak, artificial interior light.
Sebastian Elizondo
Sebastian Elizondo is a professional photographer with forty years of experience and work. While he was born in France, much of his career was carried out between Havana, Cuba and Buenos Aires, Argentina. His series CEMENT artistically depicts the disaster generated by this industry. “CEMENT is practically the source of all the development in the cities we inhabit. That raw material arises from cement factories allowing a large portion of humanity to have where to live and a place to work. It is also one of the industries that generate more toxins poisoning the environment, mostly carbon dioxide.”
The works belong to a wider project where the artist reflects on the large waste generated by huge machineries.
