L I U D M I L A  &  N E L S O N   | | |   biography

Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde | | | [lives & works – Havana, Cuba :::  b. 1969, Berlin, Germany]

Liudmila Velasco | | | [lives & works - Havana, Cuba : : :  b. 1969, Moscow, Russia]

LIUDMILA & NELSON is a cutting-edge collaborative photography based artistic team integrated in collaboration with the Cuban artists Liudmila Velasco and Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde. Liudmila and Nelson ́s most important achievement in their artistic career is to have represented Cuba at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. 

Nelson Ramirez de Arellano, parallel to his career as artist, was director of the Cuban National Center for Photography (Fototeca de Cuba) from 2010 to 2020 and was chief curator from 2000 to 2010. Currently works as director of the Contemporary Art Center Wifredo Lam and the Bienal de La Habana.

Ramirez de Arellano also created the Havana Month of Photograghy Festival “Noviembre Fotografico” in 2006 that held more than 60 exhibitions in different venues in Havana City every year.

He is also co-founder and curator at Fábrica de Arte Cubano (the most successful and popular cultural project in Cuba, recently nominated by the Times Magazine among the 100 most see places in the world).

When Christopher Columbus arrived at the coasts of Cuba, he asked a native if this land was an island or a continent. The native replied that it was an island, but that it was infinite. Since then, Cuba's destiny was sealed as a nation that transcends logic. I have always felt a deep fascination with the possibility of understanding the reality of the country in which I live and for that photography and history have been very useful tools. Combining both, the Hotel Habana series explores and compares in the same image everything we know about the past, how much we understand about the present and what are our fears or expectations about the future. This series takes refuge in the un-times, fictionalizing the evolution of our cityscape. The presence of billboards, posters and luminous announcements constitute recycled motifs in a simultaneity of epochs that manages to envision the possibility of a future in a concrete reality that digs, most of the time, in the archives of the past; as a mechanism that tries to activate the memory, in search of old values and essences. The playful character of these pieces is based on the ironic relationship of their own "supposed absurdity" labeling. It is as if we could see time as semitransparent layers, as through the eyes of God.

EDUCATION 

1989-1994 Academia de ArtesPlásticas de San Alejandro.(N)

SELECT SOLO SHOWS

2019    Cuban Time - Angewandte Schauroom, Museums Quartier, Vienna, Austria.
2018    Absolut Revolution Re-descrubrimiento - Galería La NAVE, Genesis Galerias, La Habana, Cuba.
2016    Absolut Revolution - Azul (video instalación) - 2da Bienal Internacional de Videoarte y Animación Puebla 2016. Instituto de Arte y Cultura, Puebla, México.
2014    Absolut Revolution - 1ro de mayo - Zona Franca, XII Bienal de La Habana Castillo de la Cabaña, Havana, Cuba
            Posible emigrante - Fábrica de Arte Cubano, XII Bienal de La Habana Havana, Cuba 2014 No es lo que es... - Galería Villa Manuela, Havana, Cuba
2012    Absolut Revolution - La Isla - 11Bienal de La Habana, Fortaleza de la Cabaña, Havana, Cuba.
2009    Hotel Habana - X Bienal de Havana, Fortaleza de la Cabaña.
            Absolut Revolution - FOTOLOGIA en el MAMM, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, Colombia.
2007    Absolut Revolution - Le Lieu Art Actuel Center, Quebec City, Canada
            Mare Nostrum - Galeria Servando Cabrera.
2003    Absolut Revolution (Enviroment) - VIII Bienal de Havana, El Arte con la vida. Forta- leza de la Cabaña, Habana, Cuba.
2002    Absolut Revolution - Fototeca de Cuba.
2000    Rituales - Gal. 23 y 12.
1999    Memoria Posible - Fototeca de Cuba.
1999    Silencios - Bienal Internacional de Pintura de Cuenca, Museo de las Conceptas, Cuenca, Ecuador.
1998    Cuarto Azul - Galería La Madriguera.
1995    Silencios - Galería Fayad Jamis.

SELECT EXHIBITION HISTORY

2013   Citizen of the world - Cuba in Queens re-apertura del Queens Museum, Queens NY. 2013 Absolut Revolution - La Isla - at the 55th Venice Biennale – Il Palazzo Enciclopedico -               Cuban Pavilion - La perversion de lo clásico: Anarquía de los relatos. MuseoArcheo- logicoNazionale di Venezia, Palazzo Reale, Piazza San Marco #17, Venice, Italy.
           Todos los caminos conducen al mar - Primera Bienal del Sur en Panamá, Figali Convention Center, Panama City, Panamá.
           The House of Cuba - Nordic Light International Photography Festival, Kristiansund, Norway.
2012    Cuba Imagen y Posibilidad - Museo Nacional de Arte de Brasil, Brasilia, Brasil.
2011    Photography and Art - Cuba - Museo de Arte Latinoamericano, LAKMA (Latin Ameri- can Art Museum of Amersfoort), Holland.
2010    Polaridad Complementaria: Recent Works From Cuba - Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, USA.
2003    Diaspora/Cuba - 5th Reencounter of African Photography at Bamako, Memorial Modibu Keita, Bamako, Mali.
2002    Mundos Creados Noordelicht - Fries Museum, Groningen, Nederland. http://www.noorderlicht.com/eng/fest02/mundos1/liudmila/index.html

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

PARIS PHOTO by KARL LAGERFELD (Selección de las mejores fotografías de Paris Photo 2017 por Karl Lagerfeld) Ediciones Steidl.
Cat. Rodando se encuentran (Colección del CNAP) Museo de la Ciudad de Shanghai, Shan- ghai, China.

Cat. Citizen of the world – Cuba in Queensre-apertura del Queens Museum, Queens NY.
Cat. 55th Venice Biennale – Il Palazzo Enciclopedico - Cuban Pavilion – “La perversion de lo clásico: Anarquía de los relatos”. MuseoArcheologicoNazionale di Venezia, Palazzo Reale, Piazza San Marco #17, Venice, Italy.
Photographic lenses of the 1800`s in France by CorradoD ́Agostini.
ART CUBA The new generation. Holly Block. 2001 pp-144-145. Published by Harry N. Abrams Incorporated, New York.
Cat. Enfoques (Primer Encuentro International de Centros de Fotografía) Centro Andaluz de la fotografía, Almería, España.
Cat. Killing time Exit Art, New York.
Cat. 2006 “Wating list” Mestna-galerija, Ljubljana.
Cat. Novena Bienal de Havana, 2006. pp-196.
Cat. REFLEXIONES INTIMAS, KunsthalleAttersee ,Attersee, Austria.
El otro lado del Alma. (Sincretismos en la fotografía contemporánea cubana) Ed. Oehrli, Zürich, Suiza, 2005.
Labores Domésticas, (versiones para otra historia de la visualidad en Cuba. Genero, Raza y grupossociales. ) Ed. Pontòn Caribe S.A.
ArtForum Internacional magazine, February 2004 issue.
Cat. Other realities, Neue Kubanische Fotografie. Edition gallery Refugium, Berlin, Germany. -Cat. La Noche. Museo de Arte de Pinar del Río. 2004
Mapas Abiertos, fotografía Latinoamericana. Ed. Lunwerg. 2003

SCHOLARSHIP 

HfG - ZKM , Karlsruhe, Alemania, DAAD. 2007
Residency summer program at the Watermill Foundation 2003

Cuban Art Fund, Residency at the Vermont Studios 2005

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA), Minneapolis, USA.
Chazen Museum, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
ICP International Center for Photography, New York, USA.
Nordic Light, Kristiansund, Norway.
Lehigh University Collection, Philadelphia, USA.
Colección de Arte Cotemporáneo Cubano del Consejo Nacional de las Artes Plásticas, Habana, Cuba
Fototeca de Cuba, Habana, Cuba.
Sherrit International Art Collection, Habana, Cuba.
Watermill Foundation Collection (Robert Wilson), NY, USA.
WestLicht Schauplätze für Photography, Viena, Austria

SELECT PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Dr. Mag. Alfred Weidinger Anabel González de Suero Allison and Peter Rockefeller Bern Arocha

Ben Rodríguez
Beth Rudin de Woody Collection Influent Culture (Romaric Tisserand) Hans Naeder Collection
Plonsker Family Collection
Jeff Stober and Steve Stober Collection