School of Visual Arts (SVA) and Taller Experimental de Grafica, Cuba’s foremost printmaking facility, present “Date with the Angels,” featuring the lithographs of 41 Cuban artists who express their reactions to the 9/11 disaster at the World Trade Center. The images are derived from two documentary photographs by Richard Falco, taken in the immediate aftermath of the attack.A brochure published by the Visual Arts Press will accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition “Cita con Angeles” was originally presented in Cuba at the José Martí Memorial in Havana on July 8, 2004. The show stayed at the Hall for one month before it be- gan to travel to other countries around the world. More than a thousand people and news organizations from around the world attended the opening at the Jose Marti Exhibition Hall. A continual flow of viewers came to see the exhibition during its stay in Cuba.

SVA board member Walter Rivera, who led the College’s first fact-finding trip to Cuba, explains, “We were so warmly received by the people we met and were able to make amazing inroads together culminating in an exhibition at a place of such cultural prominence as the José Martí Memorial. It was an unforgettable experience.”

The two Falco photographs one, vertical, showing the structural remains of the buildings; the other, horizontal, depicting rescue workers among the rubble--were converted into multiple large-scale lithographs by Gunars Prande, head of the printmaking department at SVA, and hand-carried to Havana. The Cuban artists then printed on, painted on, cut up, manipulated and otherwise intervened with the prints directly. This made for a true hand-to-hand collaboration.

41 Cuban artists and staff members from the Taller Experimental Grafica in Havana.

participated in the project. They are: Edgar Hechavarria Ricardo, Rafael Paneca Cano, Rigoberto Mena, Luis Lara, Ernesto Rancano, William Hernandez, Juan Rodriguez Bonachea, Julio Cesar Pena, Norberto Marrero, Cesar Leal, Frank Martinez, Angel Ramirez, Alejandro Sainz, Zenen Vizcaino, Lesbia Vent Demois, Ibrahim Miranda, Alexis Leyva, Flora Fong, Diana Balboa, Jose Omar Torres, Eduardo Abela, Eduardo Roca, Anyelmaidelin Calzadilla, Tomy Ortiz, Gesser Lopez, Alberto Sautua, Vicente Hernandez, Max D.C., Isolina Limonta, Angel Rivero, Jesus Hernandez, Andres Jimenez, Ruben Rodriguez, Hugo Azcuy, Sebastian Leal, Ricardo Silveira, Manuel Lopez Oliva, Carlos Del Toro, Janette Brossard, Juan Carlos Menendez, Rafael Zarza, Samuel Riera. The collaboration became a true collective effort for everyone involved.

The artists chose diverse approaches to creating new works from the Falco photographs and these pieces express a range of responses. While one artist said he wanted to “reconstruct” the buildings, “to put everything back together again,” another said that he wanted “to make a better image for the world out of this horror.” One of the younger artists, who explained he thought the event was fiction when he first learned of it, wanted to “resolve his personal feelings at discovering it really did happen” through his work.

The title of the exhibition is taken from a song by Silvio Rodríguez, one of Cuba’s most popular singer-songwriters. The song, which speaks of angels who frantically try to warn people when something terrible is about to happen, yet fail to prevent the atrocity, references the Twin Towers, as well as the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lennon, among others.

The purpose of the project was to highlight the fact that people from all over the world share many of the same hopes and fears and that we are united by our humanity more than we are divided by it, that art and photography can build bridges of understanding that can traverse the political, social or economic divisions that often separate nations.

After traveling to a number of countries around the world, the exhibition “Date with Angels” arrived in New York, opened on September 11, 2009 at the Westside Galleries at the School of Visual Arts.

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