Ciro Quintana (Havana, 1964) is one of the cardinal artists within the second wave of the so-called Cuban Renaissance or New Cuban Art. His work, along with that of Ana Albertina Delgado, Adriano Buergo, Ermi Taño and Lázaro Saavedra, shook the artistic and social panorama of Cuba in 1986 when the iconoclastic group Puré -characterized as by kitsch, junk art, confusion between boundaries of artistic individualities and, above all, the treatment of themes directly associated with the daily and popular life of Havana at the time- broke in into Havana cultural scene. Although short-lived (the group finally disintegrated in 1987 to give way to the development of the personal poetics of its members), the impact of Puré and its bold collective actions implied a milestone in contemporary Cuban art and, consequently, in the further development of each one of the members of the group.
By Janet Batet
Ciro Quintana (b. Havana, Cuba, 1965). Founder of Puré Group, Quintana is one of the most iconic Cuban artists of the 80s. Throughout his career, his work has been exhibited at solo and group exhibitions in Cuba, the United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Peru, Venezuela, among other countries. Recent shows include: 'Resilience The Other Cuba' (Minneapolis, 2015), 'Pulse Art Fair' (New York, 2016). His work is part of major collections such as, Peter Ludwig Collection (Cologne, Germany), Ludwig Forum for international Art, National Museum of Fine Art Havana,Cuba,,Museum of Modern Art ,Santo Domingo, Museum of Moder ART, Fort Lauderdale, Pori Taiden Museum ,Finland, Leipzig Museum (Germany), Lowe Art Museum (Miami), Ella Cisneros Fontanals Collection (Miami), The Mosquera Collection (Miami), María Luisa Lobo Collection (Miami), Jorge Reynardus Collection (New York and Sarasota), and Nina Menocal Collection (Mexico)
Artist Statement
The Art of making Art about Art & Life
From the very beginning my work was a 'search for a system into which I could fit everything with a language apt to express what I wanted to say while including the viewer in the whole process', this my sound like a statement by any artist but in my case becomes quite a specific statement ,my system use the comic strip, the art history legacy, the pulp art, the scenes from an old movies, the icons from the pop culture, the parody and the use of the traditional realistic representations just some cases is just an instrument to blind the viewer and trapper the same into the travel of the narrative of the language of the painting,
The iconic series 'Crónicas de un artista cubano' (Chronicles of a Cuban Artist), in which I has been working since 2015, is one of the most prolific series in all my carrier as a visual artist, Making use of the carnavalization, with this series I try to guides the viewer behind the stage, showing the swings of the contemporary Cuban art as a diasporic entity. For this, I uses the most dissimilar symbols: Greco-Latin mythology, Renaissance painting, Flemish Baroque, Pop art, American comics, and well-rooted icons in Cuban culture such as bear, caiman, Flamingos, wolf, snake, deer, and the image of the Republic, summarized in the Phrygian cap, among many others.
My artistic production, paintings on canvas, drawing, collage, bricolage and installations, is understandable, above all as hypnosis by images, reality, in this cases is an unreachable fiction, forever controlled by images; art, a pretext for the spectacular(re)production of effects, of images, of signs.
