Sculptor Orlando Basulto, first Cuban member of the International Academy of Ceramics in Geneva

October 7, 2023

A jury composed of fourteen members of the Academy meticulously reviewed 150 candidacies to select Basulto, who will receive his accreditation in September 2024 in Portugal.

The sculptor from Camagüey, Orlando Basulto Abreu, has just become the first Cuban member of the International Academy of Ceramics (AIC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

According to the Cuban Association of Craftspeople Artists in the province of Camagüey, a jury composed of fourteen members of the Academy meticulously reviewed 150 candidacies to select Basulto, who will receive his accreditation in September 2024 in Portugal.

From his Facebook wall, the artist expressed feeling honored by this recognition, "even more so to represent Cuba in this prestigious institution".

"Cuba enters this list of countries for the first time," noted the sculptor.

On the sculptor's official website, he is described as "a contemporary Cuban" who considers the human body as the ideal subject, for its perfect proportions, its wealth of details, its expressive features and its volumes.

Basulto, the website adds, highlights the lightness, flexibility and voluptuousness of his characters and explores themes of life, death, memory, dreams, love, sensuality and sexuality, while revealing human behavior with its impulses and emotions, simultaneously denouncing all forms of discrimination.

Eleven individual exhibitions and about sixty collective ones in galleries, art fairs and museums complete his career, the website notes. His works are part of private collections throughout the world.

The artist from Camagüey has received numerous honors and awards, including the Artistic Merit awarded by the Pinacothèque du Musée de Luxemburgo and the Excellence Award from the Musée des Bellas artes de Mont-ST-Hilaire Quebec, Canada.

The objective of the AIC is "to stimulate friendship and communication among professionals in the field of ceramics in all countries". The Academy develops and encourages all forms of international cooperation to promote ceramics and to foster and maintain production at the highest level of quality in all ceramic cultures.

Since its founding in 1952 by Henry J. Reynaud, president of the AIC until his death in 1964, the organization has changed and evolved. Originally, it had a solid diplomatic foundation, merging representatives of national museums and cultural organizations. Ceramicists were invited as consultants.

The AIC consists of more than 1000 members, representing 81 countries from all continents.