The Cuban American Phototheque of Miami Presents Ivan Canas' Artist Talk Next Saturday February 15 at 7 pm with Ileana Fuentes and Willy Castellanos

The Cuban American Phototheque will hold an Artist Talk next Saturday, February 15 at 7 p.m., the occasion of the current exhibition Ivan Canas: A Retrospective. Cuban Art specialist Ileana Fuentes and Willy Castellanos will be talking with artist Ivan Cañas providing diverse viewpoints about the photographer's work and his role in the Cuban Art made in and outside the island. The photographer will be available to answer the public questions and share his memories with the audience.

The Cuban born photographer Ivan Canas began his professional career in the 60s, but the protagonists of his personal work were never the leaders of the so called Cuban Revolution that produced thousands of images published all around the world. Although the photographer took with expertise the images requested by the editors of the magazine he worked on, the creator kept always some film to satisfy his personal vision of the everyday life in Cuba.

Canas documented the ordinary individuals and their surroundings with a direct style of communication that bonded the photographer with the persons in front of his camera. Ivan operated in a very simple- almost naïve- approach, where the characters looked directly into the lens, in a method that avoided any photographic trick. He managed to synthesize in two photo-books the character, personality, and soul of the Cubans during the tumultuous time from the'60s to the '80s, which images we present in this exhibition.

Ivan Canas, b.Havana, Cuba, 1946
Earned a degree in Journalism and became a photographer for Cuba International magazine from 1968 to 1980. His photographs were part of Salon 70 in Havana and have been exhibited in Cuba, Mexico, the United States, Italy, France, Switzerland and Hungary among other countries. He has earned several national awards. Cañas lives and works in Miami.

Ileana Fuentes, b. Havana, 1948
Came to the United States in Operation Pedro Pan (14,076 children who arrived in the U.S. from Cuba between 1960 and 1962). Graduated from Fordham Jesuit University in New York with a degree in History, her specialties are Cuban culture of migration, women's history, gender and women's leadership, and Cuba . Lived in New York and New Jersey for 33 years, was co - director of the Cuban Cultural Center of the Unveiling Cuba Journal , and director of the Office of Hispanic Arts at Rutgers University. Was the director of Outside Cuba / Out of Cuba, - arts and literature of the Cuban exile community project -between 1985 and 1989. In 1991 Ileana was appointed by Governor James Florio to the Commission for a Free Cuba State of New Jersey. She moved to Miami in 1995 to lead the now - missing Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture , and today is consulting of the current Cuban Museum, scheduled to open soon. Fuentes has founded several organizations to advocate for the rights of Cuban women since 2004 and heads the Red Feminista Cubana. Guest columnist for El Nuevo Herald and regular contributor Tumiamiblog, she is co -author of "Outside Cuba / Out of Cuba: Cuban Contemporary Artists," and "Dengue epidemic Secret Fidel Castro," and author of "Cuba without caudillos: A feminist approach to 21st century."

Guillermo "Willy" Castellanos, b.havana, 1959
Is an art historian, photographer and curator who graduated from the University of Havana and did pioneering research on the nude in Cuban photography in the late 1980s to mid-1990s. He is co-founder of the Miami-based Aluna Art Foundation along with Adriana Herrera since 2012.