Cubanismo!

The Cuban artist Carlos Estévez believes “that works of art...are men’s supreme effort to conquer the universe.” Mr. Estévez, who was born and educated in Havana and still works and lives there, has a show up at the University of Buffalo Art Gallery called “Images of the Thought”. Earlier this month, we had the privilege of catering his opening reception.

The reception brought 200 people to the gallery, which is on the Main Floor of the UB Center for the Arts. As the guests arrived at 5, Mr. Estévez went through the galleries and briefly explained each work of art. He works in a wide array of mediums, from drawings to ceramics to painting to installation art. He has developed a distinctive visual lexicon that owes something to primitive mythology and cosmology as much as 19th and 20th century science. Human figures are prominently featured in his work; from a distance his canvasses, which have a somewhat neutral palette, resemble old-fashioned medical charts, like those used by palm readers or phrenologists. From mid-range to up close, the details in his work have the whimsy of Cornell, as well as the mandala abstraction of Kandinsky and Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes.

After Mr. Estévez finished explaining the exhibition, we started serving a buffet of Cuban specialties. We offered homemade beef empanadas, grilled eggplant on skewers, and plantain chips with mojo sauce, which is a light-textured, spicy citrus dressing, like a vinaigrette, that is common throughout the Caribbean (and allegedly originated in the Canary Islands). We made miniature version of the traditional Cuban sandwich with roasted pork loin, ham, mustard, and dill pickles grilled between bread. Lacking the necessary plancha that gives the sandwich its characteristic, panini-like flatness, we used a grill pan and weighted the sandwiches down under a baking sheet with a heavy, water-filled pot. Hundreds of guava-filled pastellitos were assembled and baked in advance by hand, and we fried up an enormous batch of savory, crunchy bacalaitos, a salt cod fritter. Without access to a good Cuban beer, we poured Corona and white wine and other soft drinks. We were pleased when the artist and many other commented on how authentic the food was; a Cuban émigré even mentioned that the bacalaitos were as good as she or her mother could have made.

“Images of the Thought” is up at the UB Art Gallery, on the UB campus in East Amherst, until mid-February 2010.