HECHO EN CUBA. Cinema in Cuban graphics. Posters from the Bardellotto collection

Cuban graphic design art represents one of the most acclaimed and original schools in the world, reaching the apex of its expression between 1964 and 1980. The watershed in the evolution of its trait and graphic ingenuity was the revolution in 1959. While posters in previous years displayed a style in evident debt to the West, posters after the revolution showed no links with films apart from being an ideal source of inspiration, offering themselves as actual artworks. While social and political solidarity graphic appeared more conditioned by political decisions and control, film graphic design enjoyed greater freedom of expression and a formal autonomy which makes it unique for its ability to combine its reference to artistic avant-garde with figurative and popular symbolic tradition.

With the founding of ICAIC (the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry) - which took place a few months after the revolution - graphics designers began to interpret feature films and documentaries arriving from all over the world through a new style, since Fidel Castro focused on film and culture as a means of communication to reach the people.

The items on display are over 200, some being one-off pieces never exhibited before in Europe, recounting the history of Cuban cinematographic graphic design from 1959 to our days.

The exhibition curator is Luigino Bardellotto, and almost all of the mostly unique pieces, especially sketches and layouts, come from his collection, which he assembled during his many trips to Cuba since 1998. Being in love with the island and its culture, he randomly bought his first poster as a souvenir to take home. Intrigued by this graphic design, he began to gather information and became aware of what was behind the creation of carteles de cine. He came into contact with those artists, living with them and becoming a camajan as he entered their world - meaning a foreigner well-connected and respected by the Cuban population in the local language - receiving much of his collection material directly from them.

Curated by: Luigino Bardellotto, with collaboration from with Nicoletta Pacini and Tamara Sillo (National Cinema Museum) and Ivo Boscariol, Patrizio De Mattio and Francesca Zanutto (Cartel Cubano Studies Centre).