Almendrones

2007   Edition of 25 with 2 binders copies.   8.5 x 13 inches Woodcut, lithography, silkscreen, intaglio    

$1800

Almendrones is a collaborative project with ten Cuban printmakers I met while working in six different print shops in Havana. Their work reflects their reality of living in Cuba, where recycling materials is a necessity of life and a creative art form. They offer a reflection of their experiences with pre-revolution American cars.

Each edition has two hand bound books housed in a linen clamshell box published in 2007. The first book contains an original print by each of the artists. The prints are woodcut, lithography, silkscreen, and intaglio printed at the Taller Nelson Dominguez, Taller Experimental de Graficá, and private tallers in Havana. The second is a letterpress printed book of observations of living with these American cars by each artist and the publisher.

We go out every day and it is almost unbearable to wait, amidst the heat, the strong sunshine, and the thirst, for something that can take us to our destination. After a long and desperate wait, at last we decide to make the signal and stop the taxi, an American cacharro (a jalopy on wheels), as we usually call them, or, sometimes, a beautiful model that seems to have been dug up directly from the past, and we simply refuse to believe our eyes.

They are always there, running from one place to another, following any route, full of passengers traveling in the discomfort of the lack of space, but with the peacefulness of a safe arrival. Seeing these cars still running in throughout the city is, for me, a manifestation of an epoch of opulence, elegance, and power.

It would seem that they were destined for eternity, destined for a mission that not even their owners, or their sons, ever imagined.

It is the perpetuity of the American symbol in a stopped present. — Laura Hidalgo Cabrer

Collections:

Haas Family Art Library, Yale University, Mexican American & Iberian Collections, Green Library, Stanford University, Mortimer Rare Book Room, Neilson Library, Smith College, Wimberly Library, Florida Atlantic University, Doheny Library, University of Southern California, Olin Library, Wesleyan University, Princeton University Library, University of Colorado, Boulder Library, Chaplin Library, Williams College, Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana