Feature Articles


April Issue 2000

The Light Factory in Charlotte, NC, Offers Works by Cubans & John Pickel

The Light Factory in Charlotte, NC, continues its annual series of international art that focuses on places undergoing dramatic change with the exhibit, Cuban Allure: Photography and Video, which opens on Apr. 1 and continues through June 11. Concurrently John Pickel: A Man's World, an interactive gallery installation, will also be featured.

Cuban-born exhibiting artists Arturo Cuenca, Luis Mallo, Maria Martinez-Cañas and Marta Maria Pérez Bravo, fabricate or alter their subjects to create narrative and psychological works commenting on alluring, mystical, ritualistic or nostalgic aspects of Cuba. The concurrent video series of documentary and experimental works shares similar themes and includes work by Raul Ferrera-Balanquet, Tony Labat, Tony Mendoza, and Ela Troyano.

The exhibition is curated by The Light Factory's executive director, Bruce Lineker. "The Light Factory is very excited to present this exhibition," explains Lineker. "These recent works in photography and video by Cuban-born artists will provide educational opportunities to examine artistic expression as a reflection of Cuba's complex cultural and political identity."

Cuban Allure: Photography and Video is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. An illustrated catalogue will document the exhibition, including essays by Cuban émigré, art historian and curator Gustavo Valdés and The Light Factory executive director and curator of the exhibition Bruce Lineker.

John Pickel: A Man's World, an interactive gallery installation, comments on masculine identity in today's media age. Supported by a New Works grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, this installation comprises a full-scale room designed to look like the living room of a young bachelor's apartment. A network of digital cameras records viewers as they move around the space, peering inside the windows and doorway of the installation. Accessible at The Light Factory's website, (http://www.lightfactory.org), this project is the first to fully integrate a gallery installation with The Light Factory's Web site and the first to use Web cameras.

Pickel is a multi-media artist living in Winston-Salem, NC. He received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1986 and is assistant professor of Digital Art and Photography at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem. In 1991, he received an Individual Artist Grant from the Arts Council of Indianapolis and a CELL Grant from Wake Forest University to research new media in 1998.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the gallery at 704/333-9755.

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