Say hello to Adiós Utopia. After Hours will be your first look at this landmark exhibition, the most significant survey of Cuban art shown in the United States in decades. Celebrate with music by Charanga Tropical, Malamanya, and DJ Don Cuco; indulge in specialty cocktails and small bites; and get your hands dirty at a screenprinting workshop. Preview more than 100 works, including painting, graphic design, photography, video, and performance.
Tickets
Tickets are $15. Purchase online or call 612.375.7600.
New benefit! Walker members attend After Hours for free. Get your free tickets in advance to ensure you don’t miss out. Not yet a member? Join today for as little as $5/month.
Música
Escape to the Garden Terrace Room for live music and dance to DJ Don Cuco’s mixes all night long in the Cargill Lounge.
9 pm: Charanga Tropical
10.45 pm: Malamanya
All night: DJ Don Cuco
Comidas y Bebidas
Enjoy complimentary small bites and sip a specialty cocktail from the cash bar.
Arte
Drop in to the Art Lab to pull your own silkscreen prints inspired by revolutionary posters in Adiós Utopia. Experiment with layering and contribute your artwork to a temporary installation.
Belief in the Potential Object: Technological Disobedience in Cuba
A battery charger for non-rechargeable batteries, a Soviet-era fan repaired with telephone parts and vinyl records, a beer can mousetrap: for years Havana-born Ernesto Oroza has been documenting such examples of "technological disobedience" in Cuba. Here, the artist discusses his focus on objects born out of necessity and his artistic practice, one that spans roles of design theorist, art practitioner, and pedagogue.
How is revolutionary Cuban Cinema still revolutionary today? Our six-part series examining this question concludes with a perspective from Havana-based critic and film studies professor Gustavo Arcos Fernández-Britto, who reframes perception of today's Cuban cinema away from historical and revolutionary contexts toward the concerns of contemporary life and culture in Cuba.
One Way or Another: How to Hold the Gaze of the Revolution’s Subaltern
Sara Gómez's One Way or Another works like a Marxist fable, writes Havana-based film scholar Dean Luis Reyes, one that expresses the contradiction between the wish to understand the historical character of social formations and the background of irrationality, of the unpredictable darkness that lies inside each individual.
Iconoclasm & Experimentalism: From Revolutionary Roots to Today’s Cuban Cinema
From the founding of ICAIC to Juan of the Dead, and beyond: Michael Chanan, author of Cuban Cinema (2004), dives into the legacy of Cuba's revolutionary cinema and socialist film production in order to look at its influence on the situation new independent Cuban filmmakers face today.
In the third installment of our six-part series on Cuban revolutionary-era cinema, Juan Antonio García Borrero defines the ideologies and anxieties of the filmmakers from the 1960s. Untangling the myth of revolutionary cinema from its reality, he asks, "Was Cuban cinema of the Sixties a myth invented to satisfy the anxieties of those who faced Hollywood, or is there a visible cultural evolution in all that production?"
Humberto Solas's Lucía: From the Silk Noose to the Conscience
In the second installment of our six-part series on what makes Cuba's revolutionary-era cinema still revolutionary today, Camaguey–based filmmaker and educator Oneyda González looks at the gender politics in Humberto Solas's 1968 work, Lucía.
How Are Revolutionary Cuban Films Still Revolutionary Today?
For now, Cuban cinema remains terribly underrated, writes critic and filmmaker Alejandro Veciana, but in light of the current spike in interest, perhaps soon the film community will justly revere Cuban revolutionary cinema in the same ranks as other national movements like the Brazil's Cinema Novo, Italian Neorealism, or the Czech New Wave.
Revisiting and Remembering: Why Restage the Neighborhood Media Project?
So, why look the Neighborhood Media Project, an early-’80s community screening program, now? What is the significance of remembering it? Simona Zappas concludes her four-part look at the Twin Cities–based mobile media group's brief, yet storied history, and its ties to the Walker's Adiós Utopia exhibition.
Neighborhood Media Project: Taking Control of Their Media
"A group of us got together and said, ‘Hey, you know, what if we were using film as a vehicle so people could tell their own stories about taking control of their media?'" Gary Cunningham, Neil Sieling, and Denise Mayotte remember the genesis, growth, and ultimate dissolution of the Neighborhood Media Project (1979–1982).
Mobile Cinema and Grassroots Screenings: Beyond the Twin Cities
The Neighborhood Media Project, which screened some 60 films at community centers across the Twin Cities from 1979 to 1982, took inspiration from both revolutionary Cuba's mobile cinemas and from Cuban films included in its screening roster. Its organizers were drawn to the work of Cuban filmmakers who explored their politics and reflect them in both the form and content of their films. Cuban cinema presented a chance for these beliefs to be presented not as an alternative to dominant culture but rather as the culture and politics of the nation itself—a truly exciting concept for a grassroots leftist community group.
From 1979 to 1982, the Neighborhood Media Project hosted some 60 film screenings at community centers across the Twin Cities and the upper Midwest. Created in conjunction with the exhibition Adiós Utopia, this series chronicles the project's history, its neighborhood-based mission of providing people of color and low-income residents with "media resources for their efforts to build community strength," and its links to mobile cinemas of the Cuban Revolution.
