Pioneros: Building Cuba’s Socialist Childhood

September 18, 2015 - October 1, 2015

Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 17, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

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Friday, September 18, 2015: 12:00-1:00 p.m. – One hour with the artist: Geandy Pavon – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Monday, September 21, 2015: 12:00-1:00 p.m. – One hour with the curator: Meyken Barreto – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Tuesday, September 22, 2015: 12:00-1:00 p.m. – One hour with the curator: Maria A. Cabrera Arus – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Wednesday, September 23, 2015: 12:00-1:00 p.m. – One hour with the artist: Geandy Pavon – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Thursday, September 24, 2015: 12:00-1:00 p.m. – One hour with the curator: Maria A. Cabrera Arus – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Friday, September 25, 2015: 6:00-8:00 pm – Panel Discussion “Grown-Up Children from State Socialist Regimes.” – Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium (Room N101), Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Avenue

Conducted by Jacqueline Loss (University of Connecticut), with Ana María Dopico (New York University), Nina Khrushcheva (The New School), Elzbieta Matynia (The New School), Virag Molnar (The New School), José Manuel Prieto (Seton Hall University), Abel Sierra Madero
(New York University).
A group of professionals from different areas will share their experiences of growing up in state socialist regimes. The panelists’ different nationalities and upbringing will place the recent history and material culture of Cuba in dialogue with both the Cuban exile and the
Eastern European and Soviet world.

Monday, September 28, 2015: 6:00-8:00 pm – Documentary Screenings – Orientation Room/Bark Room (M101), Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 2 West 13th Street.

Screening of the feature documentary (2006), directed by Camila Guzmán Urzúa (courtesy Icarus Films) and the documentary/short (2005), directed by Asori Soto. Q&A with Asori Soto and Jerry W. Carlson (City University of New York), conducted by Walfrido Dorta (City
University of New York).

Tuesday, September 29, 2015: 12:00-1:00 p.m. – One hour with the curator: Meyken Barreto – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

Wednesday, September 30, 2015: 12:00-1:00 p.m. – One hour with the curator: Maria A. Cabrera Arus – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

On New Year’s Eve 1958, the Cuban Revolution deposed the ruling military dictatorship and opened a new political era for the country. This event changed not only the political and social reality in the island but also the material environment, including domestic spaces and leisure activities. Pioneros: Building Cuba’s Socialist Childhood, curated by María A. Cabrera Arús and Meyken Barreto, is an exhibition of the material world of childhood in Cuba from the 1960s to the 1980s. It explores the ways in which the Cuban state—monopolizing production and commerce—tried to shape a socialist “new man” and instill notions of a Cuban modernity associated with a “luminous” communist future.

The exhibition features more than 200 objects such as toys, clothing, books, furniture, appliances, diplomas, certificates and schoolroom paraphernalia, and other childhood ephemera designed for or used by Cuban children in these decades, as well as old photographs obtained from Facebook and other social media or contributed directly by their owners. In addition, the exhibition includes posters, television shows, and recorded music from the period. The music selection is curated by art historian Emilio García Montiel and the posters are part of the collection that designer Pepe Menéndez keeps in Havana, Cuba. A series of photographs produced by Cuban-born artist, Geandy Pavón—former pionero and, now, exile and political activist—anchors the collection in a critical present.

Pioneros offers an intimate glimpse of everyday life in socialist Cuba, a period excised from the US imaginary. It presents contentious conceptions and representations of childhood, freedom, state and individual rights, privacy, and modernization, understood not as abstract categories but as directly affecting everyday life. The objects featured in the exhibition have been gathered as part of the project Cuba Material, founded in 2012 by curator María A. Cabrera Arús, who is also a PhD candidate in Sociology at The New School. Meyken Barreto is gallery manager at Y Gallery in New York City.

Pioneros: Building Cuba’s Socialist Childhood

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