Recently I found myself at the decidedly less tropical Photographers' Gallery in central London where a series of photos from Raul Canibano, titled Chronicles of an Island, sent me right back to that holiday - and made me wish I was there again. Not least because it was raining outside and the prospect of witnessing Amanda Holden, Jamie Theakston, and Danny O'Donoghue from The Script switch on the Regent Street Christmas lights was considerably less tempting than the idea of a bartender fixing me up a mojito while I soaked up some rays to the sound of Beny More or Omara Portuondo!
Playita Cajobabo, Cuba (2005)
Chronicles of an Island is Canibano's first UK solo exhibition and though it's a small one, inconveniently located in the basement next to the shop, that doesn't mean he's a new, or a small, photographer. Born in 1961, he initially worked as a welder until a visit to an exhibition of surrealist photography by Alfredo Sarabia at the Fototeca de Cuba in 1989 inspired him to switch career paths.
Since then, Canibano has developed a reputation as one of Cuba's most respected snappers. It's not always been an easy path for him. Due to Cuban restrictions on imports and the country's absence of dark rooms, he had to transport his negatives to the UK in a cigar box to produce the silver gelatin works on display at The Photographers' Gallery. Despite spending so much time in darkened rooms (and in drizzly Britain), the sun, sea, sand, and socialism of Cuban life seeps into his work.
Malecon Habanero, Cuba (2011)
Even if everything displayed in Chronicles of an Island, from two series - Ciudad and Tierra Guajira, is in monochrome. I've written in praise of colour photography before but I have to admit that Canibano does a lot with his black and white prints.The use of shadows, irregular cropping, and inventive shading all work together to create images that are powerful, evocative, and yet often sweetly sentimental (though never schmaltzy) at the same time.
The little girl proudly, or tentatively, holding a bird aloft in Playita Cajobabo looks both wise beyond her years and completely innocent but the shadowy reflection of a nearby tree gives the image a mysterious appeal that cropped up time and time again as I craned my neck to get a better look at Canibano's poorly hung collection.
The little girl proudly, or tentatively, holding a bird aloft in Playita Cajobabo looks both wise beyond her years and completely innocent but the shadowy reflection of a nearby tree gives the image a mysterious appeal that cropped up time and time again as I craned my neck to get a better look at Canibano's poorly hung collection.
Malecon Habanero, Cuba (1994)
Manati, Cuba (1999)
The tiny children's hands wrapped around the neck of their mother's curlered hair, the elderly gentleman in a straw hat relaxing beneath canvas, and the curious youthful face that peers back at the camera. All speak of Canibano's easy way with his subjects, a great passion for his country and his people, and a desire to tell their story free of cliche and didacticism.
Malecon Habanero, Cuba (2006)
Parrandas, Camaguani, Cuba (2007)
His process may have been fraught but the genius of his artistic decisions is down to their simplicity. It's actually quite difficult to free oneself of the emotional detritus and baggage that has accumulated over a lifetime and look at something almost as with the eyes of a child. But Canibano pulls it off with no little panache.
Some sort of street party, or concert, appears to be going down in Parrandas, Camaguani that looks as exciting and fun as it does anarchic. In Vinales, we see the shadow of an embracing couple reflected on a wooden wall as a dog stands to attention nearby as if stilled by the power of love. There's a feeling of magical realism about some of these images which is merely underpinned by the Latin American locations in which they were taken.
Vinales, Cuba (2007)
Vinales, Cuba (2013)
Vinales, Cuba (2007)
The ordinary and the intangible together as if it's the most natural thing on Earth. Which it is. In Vinales, a lady washes her hair in a bucket while the shadowed figure of a gaucho astride a horse sits vigilant on a clapboard shack, a boy's face is pressed up close to a window in which birds fly around, and an elderly face, lined and sagacious, looks pensively out over a scene in which a man in a cowboy hat prepares to lower his axe on to something unseen.
These photographs deal as much with that, the unseen, as they do with the seen. They exist in a world we instantly recognise while, at the same time, suggesting stories we can never fully understand. Canibano, with a few low key and initially unremarkable images, has created a rich, varied, and intentionally far from definitive personal history of the Cuba he knows. The Photographers' Gallery should give him a much bigger room next time. ¡Chao pescao!
Cienfuegos, Cuba (1998)
Vinales, Cuba (2006)
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