(ART)XIOMAS - CUBAAHORA: THE NEXT GENERATION to Open This June at Art Museum of the Americas

Washington, D.C. -- The OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas presents (Art)xiomas - CUBAAHORA: the Next Generation, a contemporary Cuban art exhibition organized with the Embassy of Spain in Washington DC. This exhibition is curated by art historian Gabriela García Azcuy. (Art)xiomas is part of AMA's celebration of the birth centennial of its founding director, Cuban-born José Gómez Sicre.

With this project, the OAS aims to bring nations together through art and culture, beyond historical ties and political nuances, looking to a new horizon, as so many contemporary artists in Cuba are doing. These artists are favoring fresh aesthetics while recognizing historical contexts. Exhibition participants, most of whom are in their 30's, are all graduates of Cuba's prestigious University of the Arts.

(Art)xiomas was conceived to be an evolving project, malleable to new participants across a series of stagings at museums and cultural institutions throughout the Western Hemisphere, allowing the exhibitions to mutate as they travel, assuming fresh voices in dialogue with one another as well as with audiences. The first edition of (Art)xiomas took place at the Spanish Cultural Center in Miami in November 2015.

The OAS AMA will be presenting a larger, site-specific edition featuring 15 artists: Adriana Arronte, Ariamna Contino, Adrian Fernandez, Alex Hernandez, Frank Mujica, Osmeivy Ortega, Jorge Otero, Mabel Poblet, Lisandra Ramirez, Adislen Reyes, Roger Toledo, Gustavo del Valle, and recently added participants Josuhe Pagliery, Grethell Rasúa and Harold Garcia. This edition of (Art)xiomas includes 23 installations, video, photography, sculpture, painting, performance, and other works. 11 of the 15 artists will be present for installation.

Participating artists exercise autonomy amid an environment where patronizing approaches towards culture have been the norm. Artists reconcile their independently managed studios and work with government cultural organizations and international galleries and institutions. (Art)xiomas artists have largely abandoned normative conceptual approaches and utopian statements, loading their work with intimately individual languages. (Art)xiomas artists continue to revise the tradition of contemporary Cuban art and the value and importance of technique. The works to be exhibited at AMA are strongly influenced by design. The exhibition reflects artists who are undoubtedly Cuban but also representative of an era of cultural globalization and the international arena.

A half-century ago, another fresh-faced Cuban impassioned by the arts planted the seeds of what is today considered among world's finest collections of modern and contemporary Latin American and Caribbean art. José Gómez-Sicre took the reins of the OAS's art program, thrusting himself head-on into the rapidly expanding Latin American art world, bringing young and emerging talent to the OAS's budding exhibition space. AMA will be celebrating the centennial of Gómez-Sicre's birth throughout 2016, honoring his contribution to the legacy of art of the Hemisphere, as well as that of his home country of Cuba.

In addition to the exhibit, on September 15, 2016 AMA will host a symposium that will seek to juxtapose Gómez-Sicre's promotion of Cuban art and the efforts scholars, modern and contemporary art museums and other institutions, both in Cuba and the United States, are making to support of contemporary Cuban art.

The OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas is part of the Organization of American States and its Secretariat for Hemispheric Affairs. AMA's work is based on the principle that the arts are transformative for individuals and communities. AMA promotes the core values of the OAS by providing a space for cultural expression, creativity, and learning, highlighting themes such as democracy, development, human rights, justice, freedom of expression, and innovation. AMA's work advances the inter-American agenda, drawing on the arts to showcase a constructive vision of the future of the Americas via local and hemispheric cultural exchange. This is achieved by showcasing cutting-edge exhibits of artists whose output creatively combine aesthetics with topical social and political issues.

For more information on AMA, visit AMAmuseum.org.

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