Cuban Art in the Gary Nader Auction. This past Thursday, the debut sale at the Gary Nader Fine Art Centre lured some 400 international collectors from the opening night vernissage at Art Basel Miami Beach—including bidders with an interest in Cuban art. Among Cuban artists, the evening’s high marks went, not surprisingly, to Wifredo Lam, whose 1955 oil, Here on Earth, fetched $506,000 and 1945 Butinantes went for $690,000. Other works by Cuban artists sold well within their estimates, including a 2005 painting by Cundo Bermúdez, a 1997 canvas by José Bedia, and two by Enrique Martínez Celaya, including one—The Heard and the Seen—that brought $10,000 over its high estimate. Overall, the sale realized $17,137,300—85% by value—with top-lot honors going to a 1953 Picasso canvas, Buste de Femme, which sold for $3,450,000.
Boleto al paraíso at MoMA. If you missed the screenings of Gerard Chijona’s award-winning feature film Boleto al paraíso (Ticket to Paradise) at the Havana New York Film Festival last spring, you’re in luck: it’s making a return appearance at the Museum of Modern Art next week as part of the museum’s “Iberoamérican Images” series. The sobering, gritty drama looks back at a certain aspect of the “Special Period” of the early 1990s: young people who, with no other resources, deliberately infect themselves with AIDS to secure food and shelter. Director Chijona “navigates unexpected narrative turns with finesse,” writes MoMA. “The young actors inhabit their roles with a natural energy and abandon, to great emotional effect.” The film screens at 7 p.m. on Friday, December 9 and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, December 11.
Miranda Closes, Segura Opens at Galería Servando. The gallery in Havana’s Vedado district recently finished a show by Ibrahim Miranda and U.S. artist Steve Daiber of Red Trillium Press. This weekend saw the opening of El final nunca está en el horizonte (The End is Never at the Horizon), a solo show by Esterio Segura.
Save the Date. From Couturier Gallery in Los Angeles comes advance word of Flavio Garciandía: No Man Is A Brush, a solo show of recent paintings in acrylic on aluminum. Though Garciandía’s work in the 1970s and ’80s used photorealism and elements of kitsch, that approach later evolved into a colorful abstract style that the artist calls—with a healthy dose of irony—“New Tropical Abstraction.” The acrylic on aluminum works are the latest in his ongoing experiments in abstraction. Catch them, and Garciandía, at the opening reception on Saturday, January 14, 6-8 p.m. The show runs through February 25.
