Wilfredo Lam @ MOLAA

La Jungla, Wilfredo Lam

Walking through the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes’ modernist building dedicated to Cuban art in Havana, I was moved by the multiple galleries dedicated to the art of Wilfredo Lam, an Afro-Chinese Cuban artist. His abstract and figurative work combines elements of surrealism, cubism, and more traditional forms of santeria imagery often as a critique of society’s treatment of the common man. For the first time in almost 30 years, a large scale retrospective of his work is making the rounds in the United States and is currently on view at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA! A simultaneous exhibition of contemporary Cuban Artist Carlos Luna, who was influenced by Lam’s work, is showing at MOLAA as well. Check it!!

El Gran Mambo, Carlos Luna

Museum of Latin American Art
Long Beach, California
Wilfredo Lam in North America
Until August 31

Photo by Jose Gomez-Sicre Archives

The Afro-Chinese Cuban artist Wifredo Lam (Cuba, b. 1902, Cuba; Paris, d.1982) is the most celebrated artist of the Caribbean region and the first Cuban artist to be recognized as a master among the mid-20th century modern artists.  Associated with Pablo Picasso during the time of Cubism and Andre Breton in the time of surrealism, Lam contributed a non-European Afro-Cuban voice to the evolution of Western art. His visual language is a synthesis of Cubism, Surrealism, “primitivism”, Negritude, Afro-Cuban history and ethnicity and the religious practice of Santería.  Lam was born of a polyglot heritage; his mother was African, indigenous Cuban and Spanish and his father was a Cantonese Chinese businessman. Lam said about himself, “…from childhood I didn’t know the basis of my ethics or my joy… except that I was a cross-breed of many races.” This cross-hybridization is the basis of Lam’s artistic style, more celebrated today than during his lifetime.