This exhibition highlights works acquired since 2017 as part of an ongoing investigation and interest in art from Cuba and Cuban diaspora. It succeeds a significant donation of contemporary Cuban art to the Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2016. Rather than a historical survey of Cuban art, this thematic exhibition brings together artists from different generations who share collective experiences yet take very personal approaches to their practices.

You Know Who You Are is a statement of confidence and resistance. In the context of Cuban art and culture, knowing yourself, having a voice, and defending your beliefs is an act of defiance. The fragmented history of Cuban art has been subjected to political readings, to the dichotomy of inside and outside—the island and its diaspora. It has been marked by intentional omissions, by the erasure of talented artists whose forced or voluntary exiles extracted them from the cultural continuum of the nation, and by generations of Cubans who were not born on the island. Amid so many collective dramas, this exhibition focuses on each artist’s personal journey.

The artists in this exhibition revisit Cuba’s past and examine its present by questioning history, deconstructing hierarchies, and reflecting on notions of representation, race, gender, diversity, and human rights, while others reclaim a connection with the island by referencing its physicality or its place in collective memory.

You Know Who You Are was co-curated by Anelys Alvarez and Patricia Hanna from El Espacio 23.