On this “El Monte,” the science of ethnography is traded for one thing much less inflexible, one thing extra whimsical and unconstrained. Whereas Cabrera sought to current a devoted documentation of the occult, the Jiménezes construct a dizzying world of a number of dualities, during which images seem like work, Afro-Cuban and Greco-Roman mythologies mingle freely, and the aesthetics of Western artwork actions encompass what the twins name “shadow figures”—fashions distilled into blacked-out, bright-eyed presences, redolent of Ayón’s visible universe.
“The Rebirth of Venus,” 2025.
“Criatura del Jardín” (Backyard Creature), 2025.
“Persons are conversant in these European mythologies or well-known artwork historic figures like Monet or Michelangelo,” Elliot Jiménez stated. The sequence, he defined, is an try at “reinterpreting extra iconic works within the context of Cuban tradition and spirituality—the issues we grew up with and that relate to us.” In a single shot, Venus is reborn, darkish and pregnant towards a background of blurred blue. Sikán, a feminine determine from the lore of an all-male, Afro-Cuban secret society referred to as the Abakuá, is portrayed holding the fish that sealed her destiny. (The picture is devoted to Ayón, who studied the spiritual order and ultimately adopted Sikán as a type of alter ego.) The Jiménezes’ model of the wilderness is an area during which dominant symbols and narratives endure a strategy of transformation, even subjugation. Draped in lush materials or donning Elizabethan ruffs, the shadow figures command every body they occupy.
