art LIStINGS rEVIEW
Inside/Outside and Identity
It is tempting to say that Cuba is a state of mind. Although much divides that nation’s citizens from the expatriate community in this country, there is a certain sensibility that pervades Cuban art regardless of where it was made — a surreal quality that goes back to the Caribbean cultural milieu melded with a Cuban dash of drama, as we see in the Inside/Outside expo at Octavia Art Gallery. Havana painter Reuben Rodriguez Martinez is the biggest surprise. Although his abstract and earth-toned nudes in some ways hark to Miro and Picasso, they Inside/Outside: Contemalso reflect a distinctly Caribbean tHRu porary Cuban Art by sensibility that melds surrealism JUNE with the spirit realm. Luisa Mesa, Victoria Spirits of a more concrete sort Montoro Zamorano, Jose are suggested in Victoria MonAntonio Choy and Ruben toro Zamorano’s photographs of Rodriguez Martinez moldering old buildings in Havana, Octavia Art Gallery where the antique baroque architecture leavened with centuries of 4532 Magazine St. decay yields some decidedly ghost309-4249 ly vistas. throw in some remarkably colorful people, and a sense of time www.octaviaartgallery.com traveling street theater is pervasive. the varied, if decorous, works of Identity: Works by Ruben Alpizar, Jose Choy and Luisa tHRu Carlos Betancourt, Mesa round out this exotic grab bag JUNE of a show. Sharon Jacques and the Identity expo at HeriardCarlos Villasante Cimino features a multinational Heriard-Cimino Gallery mixed menu of work, including large photographs by Carlos Betancourt 440 Julia St. (pictured), a Miami artist of Cuban 525-7300 ancestry. Here psychedelic images of exotic men and women in the www.heriard-cimino.com throes of bizarre shamanic rites — a conceptual cocktail of psychotropic flights of fancy — cast a spell that is spooky yet intriguing and a colorful contrast to Cuban expatriate painter Jose Bedia’s more austere Santeria-inspired work. But the paintings of Mexican artist Carlos Villasante explore the inner recesses of the identity theme even as New Orleans painter Sharon Jacques’ canvases take us across the globe to the strangest encounter of all: Islamic traditions and pop culture. All of these works suggest how some things remain the same even in an age of perpetual change. — D. ERIC BOOkHARDt
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tion curated by Christy Wood, through June 28.
MARTINE CHAISSON GALLERY. 727 Camp St., 3047942; www.martinechaissongallery.com — “Parallel,” works by J.t. Blatty, through June 29. MICHALOPOULOS GALLERY. 617 Bienville St., 5580505; www.michalopoulos.com — Paintings and other works by James Michalopoulos, ongoing.
NEW ORLEANS ARTWORKS. 727 Magazine St., 529-7279 — “Splash: the Freedom of Artistic Expression,” works by Stephen Williams, Aziz Diagne and Cathy DeYoung, through July. NEW ORLEANS HEALING CENTER. 2372 St. Claude Ave., 948-9961; www.neworleanshealingcenter.org — “Mixed Messages.2: Multiracial Identity Past & Present,” a group exhibi-
tion of artwork concerning race and identity curated by Beryl Johns and Jerald L. White, through June.
NEWCOMB ART GALLERY. Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, 865-5328; www. newcombartgallery.tulane.edu — “Patricia Cronin: All Is Not Lost,” through June. NOUVELLE LUNE. 938 Royal St., 908-1016 — Works using
Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > june 12 > 2012
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