CUBA. AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO

10 YEARS OF HIS TRAVELS TO CUBA CULMINATING IN THIS BOOK

José María Mellado has photographed for ten years, one of the places that has inspired and fascinated him, Cuba, and which he now finally collects in a book, entitled Cuba. On the other side of the mirror (PhotoClub), where your particular vision of Havana, its streets, the neighborhoods, the sea, the cars of the 50s and some of the other Cuban cities such as Viñales, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, Trinidad, Remedios, Las Tunas, Baracoa, Santiago… The photographer
encourages the reader to contemplate each of the images and to get caught by its atmosphere.

“For years, José María Mellado has been approaching Cuba, focusing on Havana, trying to reach, as far as possible, his intimacy, his essence”, explains in the book Pablo Barrios, former consul general of Spain in Havana and adds that “Cuba represents an ideal field for that search for beauty in the unusual, in the strange , in the same way that characterizes the artist.”

He also alludes, Pablo Juliá, photojournalist and deep connoisseur of Mellado’s work, that his photographs “have that sense of leisurely time, of the unhurried observer”. In addition, he states that “the record of his work contains a study elaborated, in his many trips, of textures that can be together, compositions that balance synchronous elements and become calm images with an important compositional nerve of a very well-selected color palette of the multiplicity of colors that Cuba has. It makes the arbitrary structured into logical layers, making it possible to read the chaos from which they come.” In short, Juliá says, “Mellado gives us many different readings because he knows how to integrate in his photographic ideary, perhaps in an unconscious way, photographs that remind us of the world of Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange.”

 

SELECTION OF WORK

THE EXHIBITION

Colonia – Boisserée GALLERY

Coinciding with the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Dusseldorf Cologne Open Galleries (http://www.dc-open.de/) and the International Festival Photoszene (www.photoszene.de/), the Boisserée gallery opened the exhibition “Cuba. The other side of the mirror” on September 7, 2018. Composed of five ChromaLuxe large format pictures taken by José María Mellado between 2006 and 2016.

Under this title the author proposes a journey through the culture, art, architecture and daily life of Cuba, offering a unique view of the island anchored in time, but at the same time full of life, colorful and charming, where the history of its colonial past arises everywhere.

For Mellado, Cuba is one of the most up-to-date countries in the world and from the very first moment felt “fascination with beauty found in the temporal and imperfection. And the strange sense of affinity I had from the first moment.” With the title of the exhibition “The Other Side of the Mirror” it gives a poetic level of meaning to images that speak of past and present times.

In his photographs, the artist develops a pictorial language in which the question of the nature of time is always obvious, meets people in the spaces in which they live, and instead of highlighting great milestones, he looks for small symbols to capture the characteristic atmosphere.

 

THE BOOK

PRESENTATION

Casa de América. Madrid, Spain

José María Mellado, presented in Madrid his latest book, entitled “Cuba. Al otro lado del espejo”, where he collects his particular vision of the island

The event was scheduled in Casa de América (Madrid) on January 24th de enero 2018 at 7:00 p.m.

Participate at the table:

  • Pablo Juliá, photographer, journalist, profesor and ex manager of the Centro Andaluz de la Fotografía.
  • Pablo Barrios, ambassador of Spain and y ex consul general of Spain in La Habana. Critic and essayist.
  • Toni Vallés, director Illustrated books Grupo Anaya.
  • José María Mellado, photographer and author of the  book.

 

Presentation images

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