About Us
The Cuban Art Foundation (CAF) is the American sister foundation of the Fundación Arte Cubano (FAC) founded in Madrid in 2007. Its mission is to research and disseminate Cuban art, through specialized art research, art book publishing and digital initiatives.
CAF is a Florida 501(c)3 non-profit. Its directors are committed to the advancement of Cuban art by collecting, publishing and researching Cuban art masters.
The art community has recognized the positive impact of the work done by FAC. To date, the FAC has published over 20 Cuban modern avant-garde art books. These books include extensive research, and the cataloguing and organization of the canon of the most important Cuban modern masters.
Executive Staff and Board of Directors
Leadership at CAF
Octavio Zaya
Executive Director
Octavio Zaya is an independent curator and art writer living in the US since 1978. He is Director of Atlántica. Journal of Art and Thought (www.atlanticajournal.com), the biannual and biligual publication of Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, CAAM (Las Palmas, Spain). He was a Curator at Large and Advisor of MUSAC (León, Spain, 2005-2012), a co-Director of Centro Huarte, a museum in Pamplona, Spain (2007-2009), and Guest Curator at CAAM (1991 to 2016). He is a member of the Advisory Board of Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), of Performa (New York), and is on the Editorial Board of Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, a Contributing Editor of Flash Art, and a contributor to art-agenda/e-flux (New York), Art IT (Tokyo) and Arte al Dia (Miami). He is also part of the Editorial Board of the Collection “Arte Hoje” (Art Today) published by Paço das Artes (Sao Paulo) and Aftershock (Chile)
He was a curator in Okwui Enwezor’s team at Documenta 11 (Kassel, 1998-2002). He was also a curator at the 1st and 2nd Johannesburg Biennials (1995 and 1997 respectively), and has curated some 30 museum exhibitions worldwide, including at the Guggemnheim Museum (New York, 1976) and other museums in Helsinki, Copenhage, Spain, Italy, South Africa and Germany. He conceived and was a curator of Versiones del Sur. Latinoamerica at Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid, 2000). He was one of the curators of Fresh Cream (Phaidon Press, London, 2000), has authored some 20 books on contemporary and emerging artists, and has contributed to numerous artists’ books and catalogues.
He has worked with several artists organizing and curating more than twenty solo-exhibitions, including those with Shirana Shabazi (TRANS Area, NY, 2004), Shirin Neshat (MUSAC, 2006), Candice Breitz (MUSAC, 2007), Christian Marclay (Museo Huarte, Pamplona, 2007), and Keren Cytter (Museo Huarte, 2008). He curated important solo exhibitions devoted to the works of Cerith Wyn Evans (2008) and Paul Pfeiffer (2009), both at MUSAC. With curator and museum director Agustin Perez Rubio and with Yuko Hasegawa, Zaya co-curated Trial Balloons (May 2006), a large exhibition of some 50 artists from all over the world. Also with Pérez Rubio and curator Maria Inés Rodriguez, Zaya organized Model Kits/Modelos para Armar (2010), a large exhibition on Latin American artists from MUSAC’s Collection (July 2010), both at MUSAC. He curated a large show by Yinka Shonibare at Alcala 31, Comunidad de Madrid (February 2011, travelling to CAAM, Las Palmas in October 2011). He curated an exhibition on the Israeli photographer Miki Kratsman at Palau de la Virreina/Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona (October, 2012), originated at MUSAC, and another on the work of Georges Adeagbo (April 2012). The following year, he curated another large exhibition of Shirin Neshat (Telefonica, Madrid, June-September, 2013), and he was the curator of the Spanish Pavilion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013), selecting Lara Almarcegui to represent Spain.
More recently, he curated Theorem, at Mana Contemporary (May-August, 2015), bringing together the works of 29 artists, including Fernando Bryce, Otto Berchem, Annette Lemieux, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Sergio Vega, Warren Neidich, Julieta Aranda, Marlon de Azambuja, Miguel Andrade Valdez, Pedro Gomez-Egaña, Elena Damiani, Heman Chong, Kader Attia and Kendell Geers. He also curated “History Lessons” (CAAM, June-September 2015) with Raqs Media Collective, Kader Attia, Miki Kratsman, Shoja Azari, Teresa Margolles, Tania Bruguera, Jo Ractliffe, Marcelo Expósito, Nuria Güell, Avi Mograbi and Halil Altindere, among others. Recently Zaya curatedo the largest retrospective of the works of Luis Camnitzer for Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid (October 2018-March 2019). He will be helping with the project by Maria-Magdalena Campos-Pons for the Havana Biennial in Matanzas (2019).
Besides the artists he has worked with, he has written also about Cai Guo-Qiang, Zelethu Mthethwa, Milagros de la Torre, Zhang Huan, Yutaka Sone, Juan Muñoz, Zarina Bhimji, Barry McGee, Laura Lima, Damian Ortega, Fernanda Gomes, Bjarne Meelgard, William Eggleston, Shoja Azari, Gregory Green, Shahryar Nashat, Adel Abdessemed, etc.