Bajo los efectos del poder | Ricardo Miguel Hernández y Yenny Hernández

Terremoto La Postal is an exhibition program located in our office in the center of Mexico City that fosters the dissemination of archival research projects within the artistic field through public exhibits. On september 2020, we launched an open call for a special edition of this program, as an incitement to rethink how to maintain and active dialogue considering the issues and limitations of the pandemic present. Terremoto La Postal’s 2021 program is made possible by the generous support of Fondation Antoine de Galbert.

Bajo los efectos del poder (Under the effects of power) is an investigation and curatorial proposal that is anchored in revealing through interdisciplinarity and artistic versatility the historical and daily tensions that some societies and nations have suffered, victims – and sometimes victimizers as a result of the attitudes of subjects. with authoritarian airs – of despotisms, inconsistencies and dystopias. Precisely the reference is not in the order of understanding the decolonial framework in Latin American nations as a detachment from the Eurocentric power that they suffered for years; but rather reflectively and suggestively showing the result of scrutinizing, touching sensitive areas, questioning the course of a social project stranded in nostalgia, immobility, and arbitrariness: visible and experiential phenomena in contemporary societies.

It is an exploratory and curatorial work in the trajectory of Ricardo Miguel Hernández, which is anchored in the exercise of power and control that is still suffered today in contemporary societies, where it travels amongst the the spaces of intimacy, of the community and of society in a general sense. It is a reflection and visualization on the centralisation of power, on the despotic control of some with respect to others, evidenced through different postures, operations, and aesthetic supports.

Dates and venues

• August 19, Nada nuevo bajo el sol, virtual collaboration with Sin Cinta Previa

• September 9, Campo de batalla, Terremoto, Mexico City

Campo de batalla (Battlefield) presents a series of digitally printed analogue photographs that are part of the photographic essay Viviendo con el enemigo (Living with the enemy) (2006), by Cuban artist Ricardo Miguel Hernández. The work records the massive fumigation campaign launched by the Cuban government in 2006, called En lucha contra el enemigo (Fighting the Enemy), whose objective was to eliminate the Aedes Aegyptis mosquito (Dengue transmitter), which in a few months became an ” invader” for Cuban society. This event led to a socio-political conflict, generated and imposed by the island’s officiality, which had a significant impact on national society, both collectively and individually.

The spaces recorded by the artist’s camera, who seems to assume the role of a war correspondent, reveal a kind of war zone. It seems like the documentary record of a finished war where you can see smoke-filled interiors mimicking an atmosphere of chaos: it is the vestige that has remained in the wake of a war. It is a summary of a past moment in Cuban history which marked the social reality, while being deeply connected with the endless ideological cycle of the national history of fighting and defeating “the enemy”. Now, the private home itself is the battlefield where an uncertain, smoky, ancient, stale, polluted atmosphere is generated…

Book a visit at proyectosterremoto@gmail.com  from September 9 to October 7, 2021

• September 24, Historias Polares, Fototeca de Cuba, Havana

“Historias Polares” (Polar (Hi)stories) summarizes a vast archive material found, manipulated and reconstructed by Ricardo Miguel Hernández. These are records of different realities which move between the ideological, the social, the political, the cultural, the intimacy and the identity, all perfectly meshed from the metaphorical reconstitution to which the artist submits these photographic residues.

Power and its symbolic ramifications are also spread in the exhibition display, which constitutes a visual extension to the discursive framework of the exhibition. The effects of power take on their course both in explicit settings –given by the representations of certain characters, clothing or postures–, as well as in more subtle aesthetic gestures –such as in landscapes, crowds or intimacy. This show unveils the urgency of delving into the historical and daily tensions that societies have suffered, including Cuban society as a result of the attitudes and decisions of communities or subjects with authoritarian tendencies. These are polar stories that we have inherited as part of our heritage: repetitive, nostalgic, dystopian stories.

From September 24 to October 24 in the Sala Joaquín Blez, Fototeca de Cuba, Plaza Vieja, Old Havana, Cuba

• November 18, Nada nuevo bajo el sol, in collaboration with El Lobi, Puerto Rico

From November 18 to December 4, El Lobi: 621 Ernesto Cerra, San Juan, Puerto Rico

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Ricardo Miguel Hernández

He was a student of the Cátedra Arte de Conducta (Behavior Art Department) created and directed by Tania Bruguera. He has exhibited his works in several solo shows such as Grenze-Arsenali Fotografici in Verona and Fundación Ludwig de Cuba in Havana. His work has been shown in collective exhibitions such as KAOS 3rd Festival of Contemporary Collage in Kranj, PHotoEspaña 2020 and 2019 in Madrid, FestFoto Brazil 2019 in Porto Alegre, ESMoA El Segundo Museum of Art in Los Angeles, Foto Museo 4 Caminos in Mexico City, PAC Padiglione D Arte Contemporanea in Milano, ZAC Zisa Arti Contemporanee in Palermo, DOX Center For Contemporary Art in Prague, 6th Salon of Cuban Contemporary Art in Havana and other group exhibitions in Latin America, Europe and Cuba. Among the awards, scholarships and residencies obtained, the following stand out: Arte no es fácil Residencie, Chicago’s Center for Independent Dance and Performance Arts, Special Mention SetUp in Bologna, Study 21 Creation Grant, “Sala Discontinua” Project, Development Center of the Visual Arts in Havana, Salvo Conducto Scholarship, Espacio en Tránsito, in Santiago de Chile, First Prize IV National Biennial of Photography Alfredo Sarabia in memoriam in Pinar del Rio and awarded prizes in the 2nd and 4th International Video Art Festival of Camagüey.

Yenny Hernández Valdés

Researcher, critic, curator and cultural manager. She has a degree and a master’s degree in Art History from the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Havana. Member of the Hermanos Saiz Association (AHS), Criticism and Research section; the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and the Union of Historians of Cuba (UNHIC).  In 2016 she was awarded an Honourable Mention by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), 2016 edition of Young Critics Incentive. She works as a specialist and cultural manager at the Palacio del Segundo Cabo: Center for the Interpretation of Cultural Relations Cuba-Europe (OHC). She is an instructor professor at the University of Havana with a subject program on Cuban culture at the Faculty of Foreign Languages (FLEX).

She is co-author of the books “Cultural experiences in the Palacio del Segundo Cabo: strategies for participation, interpretation and creation” (2018, Ediciones Boloña, Cuba); and “Yuniel Delgado Castillo: selected works” (2018, Ediciones Siranga, Spain); and compiler of “Coloquios Presencias europeas en Cuba. Memorias” 2017-2018 (2018, Ediciones Boloña, Cuba). She has published texts on magazines such as Kolaj Magazine, Cuban Art, Noticias de Arte Cubano, CdeCuba, Magenta, Art Crónica, Negra; as well as on the web: El Sr. Corchea, Art On Cuba, La Jiribilla and Cuban Art News. She has given conferences and lectures at national and international events on Cuban culture and visual arts. Among her curatorships are “Mío, tuyo, nuestro”, in the framework of the “Noviembre Fotográfico” event (2016); Hominium 3, within the framework of the XIII Havana Biennial (2019); and When the Memory Turns to Dust (2020).