David Horta (Pinar del Río, Cuba, 1973) is a Havana-based independent art curator, critic, consultant, and lecturer. Horta graduated in education sciences, with a focus on English language and literature, and his postgraduate studies range from cinema theory and critics, film writing, and direction and production for TV, to art valuation and marketing, and art conservation.
Horta started a solo career as a freelance curator, critic, and consultant in 2011. Before that, he worked in several cultural institutions in his home province, Pinar del Río, like the regional Council of Fine Arts (specialist, 2001-2004); the Tiburcio Lorenzo Arts Academy (lecturer in aesthetics and art history, 2007-2010); the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hermanos Saíz University (lecturer in art history, Cuban cinema and aesthetics of documentary filmmaking, in careers like social communication, cultural studies and journalism); the arts and literature magazine La Gaveta (editor in chief, 2004-2007); and the Casa-Taller Pedro Pablo Oliva cultural foundation (chief art projects developer and curator of the Tiempos Modernos Film Archive, 2008-2011).
Horta was awarded the Prize for Critical Writing and the Prize for Curatorial Achievement at the 20th-anniversary edition of the 20 de Octubre Salon of Visual Arts in Pinar del Río (2003), for Agujeros Negros, his first solo curatorial project and the accompanying essay. He has since written about art, cinema and culture in several publications in Spanish and English, among them Noticias de Arte Cubano, Cauce, La Gaveta, Convivencia, EnFoco, Portal del Cine Latinoamericano y Caribeño, and ArtOnCuba, among others. The Dubai-based Canvas magazine commissioned Horta to review the 2016 edition of Art Basel-Miami.
David Horta’s most recent involvement in projects on Cuban art include Utopías y Disidencias (Curator. Pedro Pablo Oliva’s Arts Studios. Pinar del Río-Havana, 2014-2015); Tragaluces (Curator. MAPRI, 2015); Growing up in Neverland (Curator. Scarfone/Hartley Gallery, University of Tampa, 2016); Oye cómo va (Co-curator. Dunedin Fine Arts Center, 2017); Pedro Pablo Oliva’s Cuba. HiStories (Co-curator. University of Tampa, 2018).
Horta is co-founder and producer of La Concretera Producciones, a non-for-profit educational and creative platform aimed at fostering independent filmmaking, focused on video, documentary and experimental cinema made by young, emerging Cuban creators; he is guest curator and member of the technical council and collection board of the Museo de Arte Pinar del Río (MAPRI) and guest curator in the art studios of Cuban artist Pedro Pablo Oliva; he has also worked or works in collaboration with several specialized cultural and education agencies as independent advisor and lecturer, among them Cuba Educational Travels, CubArtEdu, Havana Strategies, and Insight Cuba.
David Horta is currently involved in several projects, among them the investigations Había otra vez. El Arte de la Historia, on the use of archival material and tools of anthropological and historiographic research applied to art making, and Vivir en la idea o ¿cómo ser “absolutamente modernos”?, investigation on the 1940-1950s interrupted project of modernization in architecture and urban design in his hometown Pinar del Río, as well as Yo no soy un hombre puro, a monographic book on Cuban master Pedro Pablo Oliva’s lifetime work.
