Extraños Juegos.

Pedro Pablo Oliva

Published in September, 2018

​

Extraños Juegos (Strange Games) is the first major compilation of the work of Cuban artist Pedro Pablo Oliva (Pinar del Río,1949). This book, among others to come, is the result of two years of archival investigation by a team of collaborators led by editorial coordinator Silva Oliva and is one of the projects designed to celebrate the artist’s 70th birthday in 2019 and the half-century of his graduation at the National Arts School of Cubanacan in 2020. This long-awaited volume constitutes a door finally open to four decades (1974-1913) of feverish creative endeavor by someone considered by many a cult master and one of the most transcendental Cuban artist of all times. The impressive gallery of paintings, drawings, illustrations, sketches, and sculptures in Extraños Juegos is accompanied by photographs of the artist working in some of his studios. The book also contains an enlightening introduction and an anthology of texts by prestigious Cuban critics and curators, especially complemented by a selection of the artists own “confessions”, which he has made in the course of the years pinpointing crucial elements in his life and key motifs of inspiration that have impacted his work. As a whole, these texts offer a broad, in-depth understanding of the richness, diversity, and complexity of a body of work fundamental in Cuban and Latin American art. Extraños Juegos is therefore an excellently-made collection book, by virtue of its de-luxe manufacturing and its inestimable documental value as a reference for investigators, historians, curators, critics, and collectors alike. Texts by Héctor Antón Castillo, Jorge de La Fuente, David Mateo, Nelson Herrera Ysla, Hortensia Montero, Amalina Bomnin, Ramón Fernández Cala, Dagoberto Valdés and Pedro Pablo Oliva / Presentation of the book by David Horta.