An exhibition of 50 drawings produced during 1930s-1980s as a tribute to Cuban draughtsman and essayist Jorge Rigol, an outstanding Cuban intellectual of the last century.

Works by painter and draughtsman Adagio Benítez—National Art Award Winner 2002—in which architecture, landscape and women of today, are the protagonist of a colourful, imaginative and delicately sensual universe.

Personal exhibition of young painter Roberto González, with an intensely symbolic and introspective work. González is one of te most interesting figures of Cuban art today. Accoring to the critic Manuel Fernández Figueroa, “[In his work], one can see how the painter tends to simplify forms and content to arrive at one final conclusion: in the face of solitude, reflection, determination and hope are necessary. No man is an island”.

With recent works by Cuban and American artists from Seattle, Washington—including designers Eduardo Muñoz Bachs and Art Chantry—this poster exhibition had been previously presented at the Bumbershoot® Seattle Music and Art Festival, and is the first exhibition to take place between Cuba and any US city since 1959. According to its curators, Daniel R. Smith and Jacob McMurray from (US) and Pedro Contreras Suárez and José (Pepe) Menéndez (Cuba), the aesthetics of the graphic design produced between the two cities is very similar, especially, with respect to musical or stage shows and the promotion of films and books.

The most comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s work ever to be exhibited out of Spain: oil paintings, sculptures and drawings—one hundred and five works in all—by the famous Spanish singer-songwriter, Luis Eduardo Aute. The humanism that is present in his musical compositions is also present in his art.

The first retrospective of the poet, narrator, folklorist and painter Samuel Feijóo includes oil and tempera paintings, watercolours, ink drawings and chalcography produced during a 40-year span from 1937 to 1977. According to its organizers, the exhibition is an approach to “the intimateness, the ornamental profusion and the baroque style that is present in [his] paintings.”

An exhibition of digital photographs by documentary maker and photographer Héctor Veitía taken at Havana’s Cristóbal Colón Cemetery.

Polish posters are an indispensable referent to contemporary graphic design, which may be appreciated by the public in this collection of posters with a Latin American theme, its history, culture, politics and society.

Expo-sale of altarpieces and ceramics by this family of Peruvian craftsmen.

Of Luis Lázaro García del Campo’s photographic work, the critic Antonio Fernández Seoane has said that, “…Luis Lázaro …gives us these vibrant and suggestive landscapes where the most refined eroticism and exquisite sensuality…come to the surface.

With a language that, in spite of her youth, is original and unmistakable within Cuban art today, the painter Duchy Man presents an attractive collection of posters that depict concerts, stage productions, premieres—actual or imagined. Her graceful and strong strokes, the minute details and deliberate planimetric colour give her paintings elegance and good taste.

Paintings and installations by Damián Aquiles, who gives new meaning—through textures and compositions—to old pieces of canvas and recycled brass plates.

Works by artist Joan Cabrera, with the city as a recurring motif.

Collective exhibition with works from the latest production of Cuban cultural posters.

Graduation thesis from the Arts Institute of the artist Andrey Quintana Lamas with an exhibition that combines photography, video and installations to express his conception of the art work through different formal means.

The “Spanish Imprint Festival” is a festivity of music, art, lyric song, poetry and theatre, and is devoted to showing the Spanish cultural influence on Cuban culture—as well as the existence of living Spanish immigrants, their descendants and the associations founded by them—and the culture and customs of the Spanish provinces and communities.

Presided by musician and composer Juan Formell, director of the famous band Van Van, the festival has received confirmation of a number of international figures, including Simone from Brazil; Andy Montañez, Danny Rivera and Lucecita Benítez from Puerto Rico; Víctor Víctor and Sonia Silvestre from the Dominican Republic, Django and Massiel from Spain, as well as African bands who make Cuban dance music. From Cuba, participants include Van Van, Aragón, Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa, Adalberto Álvarez y su Son, Manolito Simonet y su Trabuco, José María Vitier, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Afrocuba, Orquesta Jorrín, Pancho Amat, Ernán López-Nussa and Carlos Varela, among others.

The International Digital Art exhibition was held for the first time in 1999 with the aim of offering “a space to exhibit and reflect upon” a new form of artistic creation which explores the potential that new technologies offer in creating art. It began with the participation of some thirty Cuban artists, eventually becoming a rendezvous for hundreds of digital artists, designers and photographers from dozens of countries, different ages and varied aesthetic views.

In commemoration of the birth of Las Tunas-born poet Juan Cristóbal Nápoles Fajardo (El Cucalambé), the most important Cuban decimista—country-ballad poet—of the 19th century, musicians, poets, repentistas (improvisers), researchers and folklorists get together in this unique festival to enjoy the songs and dances of Cuban country people. The event is presided over by the décima, a Spanish stanza of ten octosyllabic lines, created by the Spaniard Vicente Martínez Espinel (1551-1634), which in its journey to America was adopted by popular sectors of the population, especially by country folk, who have sung to it accompanied by string instruments such as the guitar and the lute.

Bolero, a musical genre which emerged in Cuba in the second half of the 19th century—the first printed notation of a bolero is Tristezas (1883), written by composer José Pepe Sánchez.—is what this festival is all about. This genre has had a marked influence in other countries of the area, including places as far away as Spain and Japan, and its first festival, held in Havana in 1987, is considered the oldest of its kind in Latin America. A Havana celebration in its beginnings, other provinces would become venues in later years given that bolero is one of the most loved and performed genres in the Island.

This annual popular festivity of Caribbean cultures, initiated in 1980, aims at harmonizing the identities of the peoples of the region beyond geographic and linguistic diversity. Considered Cuba’s most Caribbean city, Santiago de Cuba is the natural venue for this colourful and joyful celebration—dedicated to fire and its genesis symbolism—which combines dances, rhythms and rituals of strong African centuries-old presence syncretized into the national identity. The “El Caribe que nos une” (The Caribbean which Unites Us All) international colloquium focuses on issues related to the preservation, development and dissemination of Caribbean cultural diversity, as well as actions which could contribute to the unity of the region and promote a cultural exchange with the rest of America and the world.

Carnival festivities in Santiago de Cuba go back to the late 17th century with the annual procession on the feast of Santiago Apóstol, the patron saint of the town. During colonial times, slaves were granted permission by the Spanish authorities to celebrate the Epiphany with their own music and dance. By the end of the 19th century, these festivities were also held in June and July in celebration of various patron saints days. At the beginning of the 20th century, comparsas (neighbourhood dance groups) and processions of decorated floats began to parade down the streets—a tradition that is still observed. Although many Cuban towns hold their own carnival festivities, none attracts a greater crowd than the Santiago carnival: the whole city seems to move to the rhythm of conga lines, the sound of the Chinese trumpet and dozens of percussion instruments, both traditional and unconventional—bass drums, congas, pots and pans, and spoons—which lead dancing crowds down the steep roads of the city.

Initiated with great success in February 2007 in Havana with the aim of acquainting audiences with the cinematic production of the region, the series of films were exhibited in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Belize, Aruba, Antigua and Barbuda, Curaçao, Surinam, Guyana, Martinique, Guadalupe, Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republican and Puerto Rico. This year, the event, which is organized by UNICEF and UNESCO, will be dedicated to feature-length films, documentaries and animated films for children and adolescents, and will include countries from the Caribbean continent, such as Colombia, Venezuela and Panama.