Biographies of the Curators of Polaridad Complementaria:
Recent Works from Cuba
Margarita Sánchez Prieto
(b. Havana City, 1953)
Margarita Sánchez Prieto. the co-curator of Polaridad Complementaria, is a researcher and art critic for the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam in Havana. Previously she served as curator for the Havana Biennial and for cultural institutions and universities in the Netherlands, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Paraguay and Canada, as well as the University of Havana. She has authored for catalogues and art magazines and has lectured on contemporary Latin American art in Cuba and abroad. She is the author of the anthology Visión del arte latinoamericano en la década de 1980 (Vision of Latin America Art in the ’80s) and of its foreword which was published by UNESCO in Lima, Perú. In 2001, she was awarded a Rockefeller scholarship for the research project Identidades en Tránsito: ante la globalización (Identities in Transit: In Face of the Globalization). Born in Havana, Prieto has juried exhibitions sponsored by the National Council of Visual Arts of the Ministry of Culture in Cuba and received the National Prize for Curatorship from the 2000 Havana Biennial. She has a Bachelor in Art History from the University of Havana, 1976.
Jorge Fernández Torres
(b. La Habana, 1965)
Jorges Fernández Torres, the curator of Polaridad Complementaria, is the Director of the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam and the Havana Biennial, where he also works as an art critic. He is a past member of the Commission for Cuban Cultural Development of UNESCO and served on the Advisory Council for the Arts of the National Library of Cuba from 2000-2001. From 1998-2008 he was Vice Rector of the Higher Institute of Arts in Havana. Torres has curated and authored catalogues for numerous exhibitions in Cuba and abroad. Among his curatorial projects are El lugar construido (The Constructed Place), Scholtter Foundation in Altea, Alicante, Spain, 2005; Three Cuban Artists, Alicante, Spain, in 2006 and 2007; Cuban selection of Imágenes multimedias de un mundo complejo. Visiones a ambos lados del Atlántico (International Video Art) organized by Granada University, Contemporary Art Centre of Sevilla, Recoleta Cultural Centre in Buenos Aires, Mytho Gallery, Mexico D.F. and Ludwig Foundation and French Alliance in Havana. A Cuban native has a Bachelor in Art History from the University of Havana, 1990, and currently serves as professor of contemporary art at the Higher Institute of Arts and lectures internationally.