Iván Cañas Boix

Iván is a Cuban photographer. He was one of the main photographers of the first decades of the Cuban Revolution, and he went into exile in Miami, USA, starting in 1992. Nevertheless, his photographic work on the Island establishes him as one of the principal witnesses of the period after 1959. In 1982 he graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Havana.

His work is found in permanent collections in Cuba, Mexico, the United States, France, Canada, Finland, Germany, and Italy. Before practicing photography, Iván had a career as a musician, as he was a member of the quartet Los Cañas.

"Thanks to the eyes of Iván Cañas, today we can appreciate a Cuba that, if not for him, we would no longer have. While most photographers of the 60s and 70s strived to document the revolutionary feat, Iván looked elsewhere," wrote Cuban writer Camilo Venegas in 2014.

"Photography is not an exact reproduction of the reality surrounding us. It is an interpretation of it. It is perhaps this fact that most fascinates me about the youngest of the Plastic Arts. I had the privilege of beginning my career as a photographer in a very special publication, Cuba Magazine, where our images had substantial display and thanks to which I traveled practically throughout our Island," Iván himself recounted.

He has received various national and international awards, among which the Photography Prize of the National Salon of Plastic Arts of Cuba in 1980 stands out.

One of his most recognized works was the photography book El Cubano se ofrece (Ediciones Unión, 1982), where he brought together part of his best-known work "a graphic testimony of the social utopia of the 70s that emerged in the town of Caibarién, in the province of Villa Clara, in the center of the island. A book where the subjects tend to look at the camera with no mediation other than the photographed and the photographer," "he managed to gain people's trust. That was his magic, you don't see anyone tense [in his photographs]". Currently, the original layout of "El cubano se ofrece" is part of the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía in Spain. Cañas's work is also present in other museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

In his last years in Cuba, he worked as the head of Public Relations for the Conjunto Danza Nacional de Cuba, which was based at the Mella theater.

Before settling in Miami in 1992, he published another volume of photographs in Germany: "Trinidad" (1988).

He was a photojournalist for the Mexican News Agency (Notimex). In the 70s and 80s he worked at Cuba Internacional magazine alongside journalists such as Eliseo Alberto Diego, Antonio Conte, Manuel Pereira, and Reinaldo Escobar.

The 40 black and white photos that Cañas took of Lezama Lima and his personal surroundings were exhibited at the Wolfson Campus of Miami Dade College in November 2010, under the name "Lezama inédito".

When inaugurating a retrospective of his work at the Fototeca Cubanoamericana in Miami in 2014, he expressed "As you will see, in these photographs there is no apology for the system that prevails in Cuba: there is an apology for the Cuban people, who truly are not to blame for what is happening in Cuba".

In 2014 he also presented at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico City the exhibition "Lezama Inédito", with photos of the author of Paradiso, José Lezama Lima, whom Cañas portrayed extensively. It was the last of his 14 solo exhibitions. Also in 2014, he participated in what would close his presence in nearly a hundred group shows: Urbes Mutantes, Latin American Photography 1914-2013, at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York.

He was a photographer passionate about black and white; his portraits of veteran mambises from the wars of independence, employees of Havana shops and businesses, workers from Antillana de Acero, and simple passersby form part of Cuba's graphic memory.

The Museo Reina Sofía in Spain acquired and preserves the layout of his first book. The collection of photos of the veterans was acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in California.

He was united by a deep friendship with painter Raúl Martínez, whom he considered his teacher, and with playwright Abelardo Estorino. In fact, in 1966 he was Martínez's student in a workshop on photography and graphic design taught by the painter.