Kopeikin Gallery presents a joint exhibition by two gallery artists who photographed Cuba ten years apart. Jeffrey Milstein, Cuba: In The Streets and Simone Lueck, Cuba TV will be on view from July 16th to August 27th 2011.
Jeffrey Milstein
Jeffrey Milstein’s Cuba is a rhythmic, colorful, sophisticated, and intimate isolated island that has long existed in a state of paralysis, immobile in time. Milstein captures and delves deep into the beauty, soul, and the extremes of Cuba’s urban life, the character of its people, the atmosphere of the region, and the country’s visual attractions and landscape. Capturing streetscape and street life in Havana, Cienguegos, Santiago, and Trinidad, these photographs provide a rare glimpse into a place that has remained inaccessible to many in the United States.
Jeffrey Milstein elegant photographs of commercial jetliners have been exhibited internationally. This Fall the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum will open a year long exhibition of his airplane images expected to be viewed by eight million people.
Jeffrey Milstein’s images do more than mirror reality in Cuba. They offer an orientation to its complexities. They present glimpses that factual, realistic, honest, mixed with a breath of lyricism and quotidian simplicity, capturing our attention and allowing us to see the unseen. They get us in touch with the depth of our own inwardness and expand our sympathies not only for the Cuban people but also for humanity.
Nilo Cruz
Simone Lueck
“These sets in Cuba are different. Long umbilical cords snake off to outlets unknown. Knobs so space-age that they couldn’t have ever been functional. A green hue makes each telenovela look like it takes place aboard a submarine. None of it makes sense, it’s all impossible. These rickety old boxes Lueck discovered in plain sight look to be the secret machines powering the entire façade of Cuba.”
Daniel Kraus
Lueck grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota and moved to Los Angeles after receiving an MFA from UC San Diego in 2005. Her work is marked by an interest in looking at a cultural territory colored by notions of identity and performance. She recently completed a body of work featuring older women posing as glamorous movie stars. The Once and Future Queens, which was recently exhibited at the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium as well as at Kopeikin Gallery.
Her Statement…
It happened by chance. In 2000, I tagged along with a good friend on a two-week trip to Cuba. I took my 35mm camera and a bunch of film. The first thing I noticed in Havana was that the city was dark at night. There were no streetlights, porch lights or living-room lamps. It was pitch black except for the faint colorful glow spilling out of open doors everywhere, and it came from the TVs. The light captivated me. For the next two weeks I wandered around, slipping in and out of strangers’ living rooms. Each time I came across an open door and a working TV set, I would ask if I could take a picture of it. The answer was always yes. Nobody seemed to think it was an odd request and it was usually accompanied by a Cuban coffee or rum.
Simone Lueck
On view from July 16th to August 27th, 2011
Kopeikin Gallery
2766 South La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 559-0800
