In a stroll around his new show in Chelsea, the artist spoke about how being Cuban has influenced his work, what the challenges he finds in painting, and why his work isn’t really figurative. And a possible new project in Havana.

Cine Cubano, la pupila insomne (Cuban Cinema, The Insomniac Eye) is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, having posted a thousand entries. In Part 1 of our interview, founder Juan Antonio García Borrero talked about how the blog started and its growth over the years. Here, García Borrero and Carlos Eduardo Maristany Castro discuss sponsorship, influence, and what to do with those thousand posts.

For your holiday pleasure, here's a video by the Kringskastingsorkestret and Grupo Hovedoen Social Club of Oslo, Norway, performing a full orchestral arrangement of Tchaikovsky's beloved classic, followed by a quick salsa version of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Feliz Navidad y próspero Año Nuevo from all of us at Cuban Art News.

This month marks an important milestone for Cuban Art News: five years of reporting on Cuban art and culture worldwide. We’ll be celebrating in different ways over the coming months, but to get things started, here’s a quick recap, along with one of our first stories from December 2009.

In Part 1 of our conversation, Miami curator Elizabeth Cerejido talked about the first phase of the artist exchange program she organized, which brought a group of Cuban American artists, who were raised and trained in Miami, to the island for the first time. Now, Cerejido looks ahead to the next phases of the project, and some of the issues that Cuban artists might face in the coming years.

Known as the queen of the bolero, Cuban singer Olga Guillot died in Miami last month. Cuban poet Sigfredo Ariel, a great music lover, graciously shared with Cuban Art News his reflections on Guillot´s life and work.

Havana’s music video industry continues to produce some of the most interesting video clips anywhere, and they hit the spotlight with the annual Lucas Awards, presented late last month in Havana. As a holiday celebration, here’s a quick look at some of the top winners for 2013—with videos, of course.

The Wifredo Lam Center takes an 18-day plunge into international performance art and a new prize for curatorship is announced. Luis Gómez opens a solo show in Barcelona, two Cuban artists “draw the line” in Los Angeles, and a work by Luis Cruz Azaceta joins a Bronx conversation on AIDS.

It was Mario Carreño’s turn to shine at this week’s New York Latin American sales, taking the top spot for Cuban art in both the Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions, while a work by José Bedia more than tripled its high estimate at Phillips.