Both Sides Now: Sandra Ramos

Curated by Octavio Zaya, Curator and Art Critic
September 7, 2022 - April 5, 2023

Exhibiting Sandra Ramos at DRCLAS represents an opportunity to continue conversations we began with José Toirac and build on the strengths of our Cuba Studies Program. Not only because Ramos has become the icon of a new generation of Cuban artists, those born after the 1959 revolution, grew up under that revolution, and unavoidably experienced its successes, contradictions, and painful shortcomings. Her work is also relevant because through her personal and singular language she has posed probing questions concerning Cuban republican history.

Through an exquisite combination of irony and humor, Ramos’ work is populated by anthological figures of Cuban popular culture—most famously by her own alter ego, a schoolgirl dressed in uniform who witnesses, frequently with helpless astonishment, how Cuba drowns. We could say that her recurring subjects are all related to her painful experiences living in Cuba and parting with Cuba, from the loss of innocence to the disruption of her family ties, from isolation and disenchantment to her encounter with the U.S. culture; autobiographical recollections that have managed to create an allegorical landscape of photographs, drawings, collages, video and installations that brings together the artist’s projections on the social, political and economic realities of her country.

More recently, since her move to the United States, Ramos has expanded her incisive search to tackle the contradictions and ambiguities within the American political culture. Through these works, she has expanded her cultural critique while exposing the weaknesses of the democratic system when it is placed against the totalitarian regimes and the tragicomical populism of our times. This exhibition covers both sides of Ramos´ inquiry.