Dr. Abigail McEwen: Revolutionary Horizons

Event Details

Dr. Abigail McEwen, Associate Professor in Art History at the University of Maryland, discusses her book Revolutionary Horizons: Art and Polemics in 1950s Cuba with Vesela Sretenović, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Phillips Collection. Dr. McEwen’s book offers the first in-depth examination of art in 1950s Cuba, when modernism in Havana reached its climax. During these turbulent years, a generation of artists embraced abstraction as a means to advance artistic and political goals in the name of Cuba Libre. A decade of insurrection and ultimately revolution, abstract art signaled the country’s cultural worldliness and its purchase within the international avant-garde. Dr. McEwen’s book examines Cuban art following the intersecting trajectories of the artist groups Los Once and Los Diez against a dramatic backdrop of modernization and armed rebellion.

In addition to conversation about the new book, Dr. McEwen and Dr. Sretenović will discuss an upcoming project at the Phillips featuring Cuban-born, Puerto Rico-based artist Zilia Sánchez.