A Modernist Regime. Cuban Design from the Mid-Twentieth Century
A Modernist Regime. Cuban Design from the Mid-Twentieth Century
On 19 November, MINIM Madrid had the honour of hosting the presentation of A Modernist Regime. Cuban Design from the Mid-Twentieth Century, by Cuban curator and researcher Abel González Fernández, published by Rizzoli/Electa.
The evening offered a journey through Cuban modernism and its political dimension, centred around an emblematic piece: the Guamá armchair, designed in 1950 by Gonzalo Córdoba and manufactured by Dujo. The piece combines the influence of Scandinavian modernism (particularly Finn Juhl) with Cuban craft tradition and the legacy of the dujos, ceremonial seats from Taíno culture.
The book accompanies the eponymous exhibition presented at the Cranbrook Art Museum (July–September 2024), bringing together over a hundred pieces (furniture, graphic design, industrial objects, photography and institutional archives) that reveal how the modernist imagination was instrumentalised by the Havana regime between the 1950s and 1970s.
About Abel González Fernández
Abel González Fernández is a Cuban curator and researcher. His work offers a critical perspective on Cuban modernism and its political dimension, representing a fundamental contribution to the study of twentieth-century Latin American design. The editorial project included the participation of contemporary Cuban artists such as Marco Castillo, Hamlet Lavastida and Julio Llópiz-Casal, among others.
