Juan Carlos Alom El Apartamento

Juan Carlos Alom, Amhed, 2012, El Apartamento

Juan Carlos Alom is one of the most outstanding Cuban artists in the fields of photography and documentary and experimental filmmaking. His work, along with that of other great Cuban artists, participates in the generational impulse of the 1990s, committed to oxygenate the old discourses and aesthetic presuppositions of the genre. His work as a photographer and videographer has made it possible to carry out numerous exhibition projects inside and outside Cuba. Among the most outstanding are “Island Creatures” in The Apartment, Havana, Cuba; “Born to be free”, that participated in the National Event of Photo Library of Mexico; “Juan Carlos Alom”, Metrònom Fundació Rafael Tous d’Art Contemporan, Barcelona, ​​Spain, among others. Also, his work has been included in relevant collective exhibitions such as “Collimadores. A look at Cuba. Exhibition of modern and contemporary Cuban photography “at the Michael Horbach Foundation, Germany; “Iconocracy – Contemporary Cuban Photography, Sala Norte Artium Centro- Basque Museum of Contemporary Art. Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain; And “Cuba – Fiction and Fantasy”, Daros Latinamerica, Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2000 he was recognized by the Time Magazine of New York York, USA as one of the 100 Latin American photographers of the millennium.

His works are part of prestigious collections, including the IVAM – Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain; Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA; Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida, USA, among others.

Leandro Feal El Apartamento

Leandro Feal, De la Serie “Hotel Roma”, El Apartamento

Leandro Feal (Havana, Cuba, 1986) is one of the most interesting artists of the young generation of Cuban photographers. His work maintains the reserved and intimate atmosphere of domestic photography, hence the spontaneity of its frames and the naturalness of his characters facing the camera. The anthropological basis of his work has to do with his time in the Cátedra Arte de Conducta directed by Tania Bruguera and focused on the enhancement of relational practices in art.

This experience, together with the permanent interest in daily life, has crystallized a unique oeuvre, very close to the spectator. His production has been exhibited in Cuba in spaces such as the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, the Servando gallery and the Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño. He has also presented his works in other foreign institutions, among them the Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Poland, Centro- Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo and the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, both in Spain.

Raja’a Khalid Grey Noise

Raja’a Khalid, Desert Golf, 2014, Grey Noise

Raja’a Khalid (born 1984, Saudi Arabia) is a Dubai-based artist and writer. She received her MFA in Fine Art from Cornell University, where she was also the recipient of the Cornell Council for the Arts Grant in 2013. Recent awards and residencies include the NYU Abu Dhabi FIND Research Fellowship, 2014; the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen International Fellowship for Art and Theory; 2015, the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Guest Residency, 2015 and the International Curatorial and Studio Program Residency, 2015. Her work has been shown in New York, London, Dubai and Vienna.

Raja’a Khalid’s practice looks at contemporary narratives of class, luxury, and consumer cultures, especially those that link the Arabian Gulf region with the world at large. She likes to uncover how present-day neo-liberal Gulf economies strive to articulate ‘culture’ and ‘heritage’ and through her current work aims to subtly analyse the Gulf’s own streaming motifs of soft power and notions of wealth, masculinity, game, athleticism, adornment and crypto-religiosity. Outcomes of her research driven process are usually in the form of photographs, text-based works, installations and sculptural abstractions. Mediums employed include found documents, industrial processes, systems and rhetoric, for example wholesale supplies, patents and Business-to-business goods and services.

Lantian Xie Grey Noise

Lantian Xie, Dubai, 2013, Book object, Grey Noise

Lantian Xie (b.1988) is an artist from Dubai who makes images, objects, stories, and situations.He makes images about belonging and cosmopolitanism. He is particularly interested in general trading, hotel lobbies, broasted chicken, and those peacocks that roam around DIFC. Xie holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is editor-at-large at Dubai-based publishing practice THE STATE.

His works were recently shown as part of the exhibition ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS: POSITIONS IN PLAY – Curated by Hammad Nasar for the National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates at the 57th La Biennale di Venezia. Xie’s exhibitions include The New Normal: China, Art, and 2017 -Curated by Guo Xi, Yang Zi, Alvin Li and Wenfei Wang, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China; Why Not Ask Again? – Maneuvers, Disputations & Stories – Curated by Raqs Media Collective, Shanghai Bienniale, Shanghai, China; Forming in the pupil of an eye – Curated by Sudarshan Shetty, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India; SPRING1883, Melbourne, Australia with Grey Noise, Dubai; Summer Triangle – Curated by Venus Lau, at OCAT, Shenzhen, China; Art Basel | Statements, Basel, Switzerland with Grey Noise, Dubai; Accented – Curated by Murtaza Vali at Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE; In Search of Lost Time – Curated by Amal Khalaf at Brunei Gallery at SOAS, London, UK.