Los Carpinteros, the renowned Cuban artistic duo formed by Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodríguez, will be featured in a solo exhibition at Buenos Aire’s Faena Arts Center. Three sculptural works will be displayed at the show: Avião [Portuguese for “Airplane], El Barrio [“the neighborhood”], and Alumbrado Público [“street lights”]. Common to these pieces are the concepts of progress and development. Click on the video above to watch the artists give insight into the show. 

Until September 9th, Madrid’s ICO Foundation will host La fotografía como intervención [“Photography as intervention”], a retrospective exhibition that encompasses twenty year of Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa’s photographic work. The opening coincides with PHotoEspaña 2012’s kick-off.

Photography is a central element in the work of this artist that began taking snapshots of buildings in ruin in Havana during the 1990s. He would later extend this technique to other cities to symbolize frustrated dreams and illusions around the world.

Visitors will find not only Garaicoa’s characteristic images of ruinous buildings and deserted architectonical spaces, but also a series composed exclusively for the occasion portraying Cuba’s involvement in Angola’s civil war. The show’s catalog—edited in collaboration with PHotoEspaña and La Feria—presents itself like an artist’s book.

To commemorate its 40^th anniversary and the 11^th Havana Biennial, New York City’s Center for Cuban Studies is currently exhibiting painting, sculpture, drawings, and new media from its collection at Cuban Art Space. Included in the show are Havana Cultura artists Luis Enrique Camejo, José Fuster, and Mabel Poblet, whose multimedia pieces were recently acquired by the Center. 

Proyecto Paladar is an initiative of New York-based restaurant designer Craig Shillitto designed to foster dialogue through a culinary performance-installation produced for the Havana Art Biennial. Twenty chefs—10 American and 10 Cuban— take turns cooking for groups of 12 guests composed  of ordinary Cubans and foreign visitors at an improvised restaurant within a prefabricated container. The dishes served result from a fusion of New York high cuisine with Cuba’s increasingly sophisticated paladar culture and provide for an occasion of conviviality. 

The film 7 Days in Havana was screened at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23rd at the Debussy Theater. Here’s the official trailer! (Spanish with French subtitles)

After the release of Havana Cultura : The Search Continues—Gille’s Peterson’s second Cuban compilation— last fall, Brownswood Recording presents remixes of two of the album’s tracks: ‘Agita’ and ‘Orisa’.

Preview ‘Agita’ remix (Switch, Sinden and Sunlightsquare)

Preview ‘Orisa’ remix (Atjazz, Chancha Via Circuito, Alex Patchwork)

After a successful European tour this spring, Danza Contemporánea de Cuba will perform in 10 UK cities as part of the 2012 London Olympics cultural program. The show features Sombrisa, a piece by Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili that draws inspiration from boxing, an Olympic discipline deeply ingrained in Cuban sporting tradition. It is also for this reason that the first performance will take place in Newscastle, the official Olympic boxing venue. Also included in the program are Carmen?! by Kenneth Kvarnström as well as Mambo 3XXI by George Céspedes.

Click here for complete dates of DCC’s UK tour

Cuban singer-composer Niuver will release a bilingual Spanish-French new album on May 28th entitled Trasnochando.  The first single, “C’est toi que j’aime”, is already playing on major French radio stations like RTL and France Inter. You can preview the album here. 

The 2012 edition of the Cannes Film Festival includes the film 7 Days in Havana as part of the official selection for the “Un certain regard” [“A particular look”] category, which presents a number of original and different works seeking international recognition.

 7 Days in Havana is a snapshot of modern-day Havana; a portrait of an eclectic, fascinating, and timeless city sketched by seven world-class moviemakers that have become regulars at Cannes: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Elia Suleiman, Julio Medem, Gaspar Noé, Juan Carlos Tabío, and Laurent Cantet.

The film will premiered in France on May 30^th and in 35 other countries thereafter.  

The 10° Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre (“10^th International Poor Cinema Festival”) is taking place in the Cuban city of Gibara from April 17 to 22. Some 113 short and feature-length fiction, documentary, and experimental films are part of the official competition. Año bisiesto [“Leap Year”], by the Australian-Mexican director Michael Rowe and winner of the 2010 Golden Camera award at Cannes 2010 opened the festival.

The Festival de Cine Pobre is an initiative of Cuban director Humberto Solás (1941-2008). Its goal is to promote high-quality alternative cinema.