Exhibition by Reynerio Tamayo, "Cuban Slugger", strengthens ties through art and sport between Cuba-United States

June 13, 2018

The Cuban Slugger exhibition, by Cuban visual artist Reynerio Tamayo, will be on display in Washington, D.C., from the 11th to the 29th of next month, coinciding with MLB's 89th All-Star Game, to be held in the U.S. capital on July 17th.

The 54 pictorial works will be shown in the main lobby of Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theatre. "This work came to fruition on March 10, 2017, when the major exhibition titled 'Cuba en Pelota' was inaugurated at the exhibition space of Galería Habana in the city of Havana," explains Tamayo.

The current collection was launched in Miami last year at the Kendall Art Center, also in connection with the star-studded classic held in the Florida city.

The painter emphasizes that "from the works exhibited at the Kendall Art Center, a selection of 39 pieces was made and 15 are new, created in Havana and which will be shown for the first time at Arena Stage. The majority comes from the acrylic-on-canvas technique, except in some where screen printing takes the lead."

"For art lovers, fans and the public, Cuban Slugger is a beautiful tribute to the great figures of baseball and is a journey through its history and the passion shared for this sport, both in the U.S. and in Cuba," states a statement issued by the organizers.

"My expectations have always been the same at each exhibition: to share with the viewer the richness and emotions one finds in the world of baseball, whether through its history, its protagonists, its emotions or the passion this beautiful sport provokes. I also have in mind that the ultimate goal of all this work would be that someday it could be exhibited at the baseball museum in Cooperstown," expresses the author of Cuban Slugger.

Reynerio Tamayo (1968), from Gran tierra, is an artist whose career has been marked by the relationship between canvases and baseball, with paintings that range from "painting to illustration, from humor to design, assisted by his solid academic training—initiation in Nueva Gerona, studies at the National School of Art and later at the Higher Institute of Art—and a capacity for fabulation and synthesis," says a 2017 critique published in the newspaper Granma.

His colleague Gary Anuez states that "in Tamayo's work one can see an authentic liveliness, a kind of celebration, expressed through baseball, through the transformation of a classic Cuban-American pastime into a symbol of transcendence."

One of the entities sponsoring this event is the Caribbean Educational & Baseball Foundation, a nonprofit organization, which "uses a shared passion for baseball to build bridges between the U.S., Cuba and other Caribbean countries."

The 89th edition of the All-Star Game will be the fifth opportunity for this sporting spectacle to take place in Washington—the last was in 1969—the first with the Nationals of that city as hosts, at Nationals Park stadium.

Source: CubaDebate