Aglutinador - Cuba’s Longest Running Independent Art Gallery
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Our Story
Aglutinador is Cuba's longest running independent art space, founded in 1994. It is contained within the modest Havana home of artist Sandra Ceballos. Keeping an artist-run gallery open is an extraordinary feat in a country where the state maintains a monopoly on cultural management. Over the years, dozens of Cuban artists residing on the island as well as in exile have presented work there. Young Cuban artists who want to test out challenging projects as well as older Cuban artists who have encountered censorship and institutional indifference have sought out the gallery to create memorable exhibits. Notable artists from other countries such as Santiago Sierra, William Cordova and Leslie Hewitt, have also exhibited at Aglutinador.
Aglutinador director Sandra Ceballos.
Here's a video about Aglutinador's history and future plans.
Our Gallery
Our Projects
Future Workshops in English
Sandra Ceballos and Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco are planning new workshops in English to be held at Aglutinador that will explore cutting edge art trends thriving at the margins of officially sponsored culture in Cuba. Artists, arts professionals, students and researchers from around the world will be invited to dialogue with Cuban art historians, critics, curators and artists, visit artists studios and independent art galleries. Workshops will launch in 2018.
Malditos de la Posguerra
The Damned of the Postwar Era: A series of exhibitions focusing on artists who do not appear in from official accounts of contemporary Cuban art history due to exclusionary cultural policies. Exhibitions feature works by Angel Delgado, Amaury Pacheco/Omni Zona France, JuanSi Gonzalez and others. (2016-ongoing)
Museo de Arte Maniatico
The Museum of Maniacal Art: A series of three exhibitions - including a solo show of Sandra Ceballos' work - that showcase art by those who consider themselves visionaries working outside the realm of high art, including autodidacts. This project was inspired by Jean Dubuffet's concept of Art Brut. (2012-2013)
Torneo Audiovisual
Artists as Sportsmen: A ludic three part project that commented on Cuba's obsession with competitive sports. Artists were invited to compete in arm-wrestling, phone based gaming and tennis. (2010)
La Bodega de Paquita
Sandra collaborated with artist Samuel Riera and situated their performance in a neighborhood grocery store. Participating artists donated works to be sold in accordance with regulations used for food rationing. Neighborhood residents embraced the event with great enthusiasm. (2009)
La Perra Subasta
La Perra Subasta: A group exhibition that casts a satirical look at the influence of the international art market in Cuba and the control exerted by state institutions over whose art is made available to foreign buyers. (2009)
Proyecto Perro
Perro means dog but it also functions here as an acronym for Propuesta Experimental de Respuesta Rapida (Experimental Rapid Response Proposal), an ironic allusion to the rapid response brigades deployed by the Cuban government to intimidate its opponents. Sandra commissioned new works by young Cuban artists and curators for this project. (2010)
Curadores Go Home
For this project, Sandra invited artists to install whatever they wanted wherever they wanted in the gallery, a gesture meant as a rebuke to institutional and curatorial control of Cuban art. The exhibition featured a collective mural-performance in which arts professionals were invited to write the names of censored exhibits as well as the names of those who had censored them. (2008)
We Are Porno
The fact that pornography is illegal in Cuba only makes it more desirable. For this group exhibition, Sandra invited artists to create humorously erotic works in a variety of media. (2007)