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On this page, the painting Cinema Time No.4. Courtesy of Galleria Emilio Mazzoli

As a passionate collector of memorabilia from Cuban He was convinced that “universities are like an indoc-
history, he digs deep: he rejects the officialdom and propaganda, trination center, like an art factory; they make contemporary
and he opens the gates of his canvas to contradictions, art on demand.”
interweaving events and characters from different contexts. Now he has found his path. A road populated by men and
He now lives and works in New York, but he has made his women from different times and places, who watch and let us
share of drastic choices in his life. In 2007, for instance, he watch them, who talk to us and among themselves. They invite
decided to quit the Higher Institute of Art in Havana because us to speak and to reflect.
“the art world was more real outside, buying old documents On the occasion of the 2019 exhibition in Modena, the New
about historical memory and works of art of the nineteenth York critic and art curator Richard Milazzo wrote ten poems
century was like living history in practice and out of books, and inspired by Ariel Cabrera Montejo’s artwork.
far from the version of history of official Cuban art.” This, Too, Is an Accident presents a privileged perspective:
Getting away to find a different path, that was the choice reading its verses conveys the feeling of being in front of one of
made by the thirty-nine-year-old artist from Camagüey. the Cuban artist’s paintings.

78 Art Protagonist