Simone Lueck "Cuba TV" Book Signing and Exhibition
Clic Bookstore & Gallery (255 Centre St.)
This event has ended.
It happened by chance. In 2000, I tagged along with a good friend on a two-week trip to Cuba. I took my 35mm camera and a bunch of film. The first thing I noticed in Havana was that the city was dark at night. There were no streetlights, porch lights or living-room lamps. It was pitch black except for the faint colorful glow spilling out of open doors everywhere, and it came from the TVs. The light captivated me. For the next two weeks I wandered around, slipping in and out of strangers' living rooms. Each time I came across an open door and a TV set, I asked if I could take a picture of it. The answer was always yes. Nobody seemed to think it was an odd request and it was usually accompanied by a Cuban coffee or rum.
“These sets in Cuba are different. Long umbilical cords snake off to outlets unknown. Knobs so space-age that they couldn’t have ever been functional. A green hue makes each telenovela look like it takes place aboard a submarine. None of it makes sense, it’s all impossible. These rickety old boxes Lueck discovered in plain sight look to be the secret machines powering the entire façade of Cuba.”
- Excerpt from the book’s foreward by award-winning novelist Daniel Kraus
Simone Lueck is a Los Angeles based photographer originally from St. Paul, Minnesota. Her work is marked by an interest in looking at a cultural territory colored by notions of identity, performance and glamour. She received a Masters in Fine Art from UC San Diego in 2005.
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Schedule
September 21, 2011 from 18:00 to 20:00