Alex Castro and Camilo Guevara (sons of Fidel and Che); the photographers Ernesto Fernández and Mario García Joya; the writer Miguel Barnet; the musicians Kelvis Ochoa and Roberto Fonseca; the artists Carlos Quintana, Fabelo and Rachel Valdez; and supermodel Januaria were all in attendance at the opening of the Michael Dweck exhibition, Habana Libre, at the Fototeca Museum in Cuba.
“As the first contemporary artist to be invited by the Cuban government to host a solo museum show, and also being one of the most celebrated artists in the history of Cuba’s largest photography museum, Fototeca de Cuba, Dweck made sure to please. Unlike the book’s original images, which were exhibited in the US, Europe and Tokyo using black-and-white silver gelatin paper, the exhibit’s large-scale photographs were printed on Kraft paper using a wax-based toner technique that Dweck developed specifically for this show.
As I’ve been given the honor of being the first American contemporary artist invited to exhibit in Cuba, I felt I had to present something even more special as a show of gratitude,” Dweck said. “For me, the warmth and depth of the paper honors the beauty of Cuba’s past, the heat of the people and a broad reflection of their spirit, their future, and their potential. Day-in and day-out, Cubans are preserving much more than the metal of old cars, they’re preserving a lost way of life and I wanted to honor that in a small way.”
Michael Dweck
