We are dedicated to sharing our collection with the public through exhibitions and loans.  Sometime in the future, we aspire to create a permanent exhibition platform, such as a museum or cultural center. It would be our dream to share, in a public setting, our passion about Cuba, its complexity, rich culture and history, as documented through the eyes of sensational Cuban artists.

In his works, Esterio Segura blends the socio-political, historical, economic and religious factors that deepen the complexity of everyday life in Cuba, while also exploring the physical and metaphorical boundaries of the island and of human existence itself, both biological and psychological. In this sense, a recurring image in his oeuvre is the “crossbreeding” of winged or finned animals, the human body and other organic elements, with man-made structures, artifacts and devices like bridges, funnels, mills, chimneys, and most specially, cars, airplanes, submarines, bicycles and other machinery conceived as means of transportation and discovery.

The Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida will explore the contributions of Pedro Pablo Oliva, one of Cuba’s most renowned living artists, in a new exhibition, The Art of Pedro Pablo Oliva, opening March 2. This exhibition of five works on loan from two private Florida collections honors Oliva who is known for his fantastical and provocative paintings, drawings and sculptures that reflect Cuba’s social, cultural and political life. 

Discover the fantastical and provocative art of Cuban native, Pedro Pablo Oliva, at the Harn Museum of Art. This exhibit will be on display in the Harn Grandchildren Foyer.

New Exhibit at the Cade Museum Salutes Best of Cuban Ingenuity

History has forced Cubans to become the masters of invention. Their dilemma began in the early 1960s when the U.S. imposed a trade embargo on Cuba and soon after severed all diplomatic ties with its island neighbor. Then, in 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union slashed Cuban imports by 80 percent, creating an even greater scarcity of everyday goods and products.

When in the Face of Scarcity Cuban Ingenuity Becomes Art

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The Cade Museum of Creativity and Invention of North Florida exhibits a sample of objects redesigned by Cubans to replace their basic needs.

By Maggie Duffy

BEAUTIFUL AND EERIE: HISTORIES

A must-see exhibition of the work of a prolific contemporary Cuban artist is on display at the University of Tampa’s Scarfone/Hartley Gallery. “Pedro Pablo Oliva’s Cuba: Histories” features paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by this visionary artist from the 1970s through today. 

​Pedro Pablo Oliva's Art Exhibition 

Bajo el título Pedro Pablo Oliva's Cuba: HiStories, la Galería Scarfone / Hartley de la Universidad de Tampa en los Estados Unidos, acoge hasta el 12 de diciembre, la primera muestra monográfica del Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas de Cuba en 2006, Pedro Pablo Oliva.

The Florida Aquarium unveiled a one-of-a-kind art sculpture today to honor former Aquarium Executive Director and CEO Thom Stork.  The 7-foot tall stainless steel sculpture features a life size stork wearing a bowtie, a Thom Stork trademark.

I was humbled to be able to take part in the unveiling of an incredible statue honoring my father at the Florida Aquarium this week in Tampa. The Aquarium commissioned artist Yeins Gomez for the project and the result took my breath away... a beautiful metal bow-tie wearing Stork standing above his three little Storks calling to mind his three grandchildren. Mr. Gomez was able to capture so much of my father’s spirit and our Stork proudly stands outside near the Children’s play area of the Aquarium.

Inmersiones Estratégicas: Primera Escala presenta obras nuevas de artistas que representan a siete países de América Latina y se divide en tres categorías: Artista Consagrado, el artista argentino Horacio Zabala; Artistas de Media Carrera—Magdalena Atria (Chile) y Lázaro Saavedra (Cuba); y Artistas Emergentes—Fredman Barahona (Nicaragua), Gala Berger (Argentina), Víctor del Moral (México), Rubén D´Hers (Venezuela), Laura Huertas Millán (Colombia) y Daniela Serna Gallego (Colombia).

Sobre la propuesta, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, fundadora de CIFO, señala: “Estamos muy contentos de poder colaborar con el MET-Quito en la presentación de ‘Inmersiones Estratégicas: Primera Escala’, y esperamos que esta iniciativa nos permita desarrollar fuertes vínculos con la comunidad artística de Quito y expandirlos aún más allá”.

The Artes de Cuba festival couldn’t possibly do justice to the creative life of contemporary Cuba without including the work of visual artists. (...) Likely to be a crowd favorite: Esterio Segura’s “Hybrid of a Chrysler,” a composite work made by adding metal wings to a 1953 car. It recalls not just one of the island’s most popular tourist images — the oversize American cars from the middle of the last century still used as taxis — but also its isolation, both self-imposed and imposed upon it. The work was seen at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and will be on view on the River Terrace. —   

In celebration of Havana's iconic cars, Esterio Segura, whose Hybrid of a Chrysler, recently featured at the 57th edition of the Venice Biennale will be on display on the River Terrace.

The artist himself calls this work “a provocation to fly, an invitation [for Cubans] to the magic of moving beyond the limit of the waters of the island, to realize their own dreams in a symbol of success— the American limousine as an object of worship and idolatry, a sex symbol, a symbol of power.”

“Hybrid of Chrysler,” a 2016 sculpture by Cuban artist Esterio Segura, is now on view at the prestigious 57th Venice Biennale art fair. It is among the work of fifteen Cuban artists included in the fair’s Cuba Pavilion, at the Palazzo Loredan, Campo Santo Stefano, San Marco. Comprising sculpted airplane wings and a genuine 1953 Chrysler limousine, the sculpture was shipped by sea —in parts, from both Havana and Tampa— to the Biennale with the sponsorship of the Tampa-based Cuban Arts Group and the logistics management of Art Engineering.

Born in Santiago de Cuba in 1970, and known for works that combine poetry with imaginative power, Esterio Segura has shown in the U.S., Europe, and South America, in addition to Cuba. "Hybrid of Chrysler" has been described as expressing “the beauty of the resistance” and “excessive creativity,” making imaginative use of the minimal resources available on an Island whose streets are traveled by almendrones—the vintage American automobiles that serve as taxis.

In 2015, the Dunedin Fine Arts Center's auxiliary group, the Sterling Society, assembled a trip as part of the People to People Cultural Exchange program with the idea of procuring an exhibit down the road.

Its Oye Como Va exhibit showcases paintings, sculptures, prints and animations from Cuban artists.”It’s just so topical with the renewed relations with Cuba and hopefully our continued renewed relationship,” curator Catherine Bergmann said. “It’s an opportunity to reunite with our neighbors to the south.”The exhibit is more than a year in the making. A group from the arts center, including Bergmann, traveled to Cuba in November 2015 with the idea of one day having a Cuban art exhibit.

Wild Noise/Ruido Salvaje” is an exploration of contemporary Cuban art from the 1970s to the present that looks at how Cuban artists both on the island and abroad have grappled with issues of identity, community, and the urban experience.

Exhibition Walk-Through: Wild Noise/Ruido Salvaje at the Bronx Museum 

Last Friday, Wild Noise/Ruido Salvaje opened at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Originally planned as the second half of an exhibition exchange with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, the show ran into a series of setbacks.

Among the obstacles was a concern on the part of the Cubans that state-owned art sent to the United States would be subject to seizure, in response to legal claims by Cubans in the US whose property in Cuba had been taken after the Revolution.

Yoan Capote is quoted in the wall text by his painting as saying, “The sea, for me and for a lot of Cubans, was like a wall, more an image of isolation than a beautiful place. I grew up with a frustration about the limitation and an obsession about crossing the sea.” This idea situates the title of this survey of contemporary Cuban art, Complicated Beauty, currently on view at the Tampa Museum of Art, organized in collaboration with the Bronx Museum of the Arts—the sea, a paradigm of beauty, is complicated when it becomes a barrier or an obstacle.

Striking about "Complicated Beauty: Contemporary Cuban Art" at the Tampa Museum of Art is its tone. For all of the exhibition's variety and appeal, even lightheartedness in a few examples, somberness pervades as the artists take a clear-eyed view of life and times in contemporary Cuba.

Big, red, and soaring overhead, you may recognize his work instantly from Complicated Beauty: Contemporary Cuban Art at the Tampa Museum of Art that ended this past February. Now Esterio Segura’s “Goodbye My Love” will find a permanent home here.

Tampa International Airport is getting seven new planes. But not the kind you would first expect.

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The red model planes, with wingspans ranging from 10 to 16 feet, will be suspended from the ceiling in Airside F as the latest public art project approved in the airport's big redevelopment project.

Interview with David Horta And Lázaro Saavedra about "Growing Up in Neverland"

TV coverage at the opening of Growing Up in Neverland