June: 9th Digital Art Exhibit
By Estrella Díaz

With the awarding of the prizes on Monday, June 18 at 6 p.m., the 9th Digital Art Exhibit will be inaugurated.  On this occasion the Exhibit will focus on national art, which means that it has been designed to evaluate, analyze and recapitulate on what is being done in Cuba in this manifestation of visual arts.  

Together with the awarding of the prizes (first, second and third in the categories of Printing Work and Audiovisual Work) a show will be inaugurated at the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Center, the institution that sponsors the event every year, with the winning pieces, a selection by the jury and samples of the works submitted to the Exhibit.

On Tuesday the 19th at 5 p.m. the Exhibition Hall at the 23 and 12 Movie Theater will open its doors for SHOT, an exhibit that includes photos by students from the San Alejandro Art Academy, an emblematic institution that is bent on maintaining a wide spectrum of creative possibilities that range from conventional techniques to the most experimental ones.

On that same day, but one hour later (6 p.m.), at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC)’s Cultural Center the exhibit CLIC from El Salvador will be inaugurated.  The show stems from the close links of exchange and collaboration between the Pablo Center and that Salvadoran Institution that has also organized for some years a Digital Art Exhibit.  The winners of the latest edition of CLIC’s Exhibit have traveled to Havana to participate in the Cuban event.

On Wednesday, June 20, at 5 p.m., at the Martínez Villena Hall in Main Square, in the heart of Old Havana’s Historical Core, the anthological show by artists from the Las Tunas Digital Art Exhibit will open to the public so that the capital may appreciate what is done in that province of eastern Cuba.

Conexión interna (Internal Connection), considered one of the most awaited moments of the Exhibit, is conformed by bidimensional pieces and videos by Eduardo Moltó and Orlando García (Project Siamese), Ernesto Piña, Fernando Pendás, Juan William Borrego, Katia Hernández, Enrique Smith and Ángel Alonso.  The latter is also the curator. Conexión interna will be inaugurated at the Spanish-American Cultural Center on Thursday the 21st, at 5 p.m., and will include pieces of these prominent artists that have won prizes, mentions or have been members of the jury in previous editions of the Digital Art Exhibit.

Also at the Screening Room of ICAIC’s Cultural Center (Tuesday the 19h through Friday the 22nd), there will be a show of videos from the Digital Art Exhibits. 

As usual, this 9th edition of the Exhibit will include the Colloquium (June 19-20), a sort of “theoretical corpus” or appropriate moment for the exchange of ideas, concepts and discussion, from the point of view of the creator, on the different roads of international and Cuban digital art.  The Colloquium, which will be held at the Stained Glass Room (Oficios on Muralla Street) will have several special speeches, such as the one by critic and professor Jorge Bermúdez (Design and Digital Art) and the one by designer Héctor Villaverde in relation to ICOGRADA’s International Congress, which will be held in October, 2007 at Havana’s Palace of Conventions with the main theme on Design and Culture.

During the Colloquium a meeting will be held with this year’s winners and with the artists that participate in Internal Connection; the Memoria bulletin will be presented, dedicated to the 8th Exhibit and the present 9th edition’s web site; details will be offered about Sharing Dreams / Compartiendo sueños 4 project by Cuban and US designers, and there will be a discussion about the teaching of digital art at San Alejandro Academy, among other issues

For further information on events and news about the 9th Digital Art Exhibit and Colloquium, please visit our website at www.artedigital9.cubasi.cu.