Trajectory and Present of Manuel Mendive at Latin Art Core

Latin Art Core gallery in Miami will open on June 19, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., the solo exhibition Manuel Mendive: Con el nuevo día el sol brilla y nos guía (With the New Day, the Sun Shines and Guides Us), showcasing 46 works by renowned Cuban artist Manuel Mendive, created between 2023 and 2025, alongside a curated selection of pieces from earlier periods.

The exhibition offers a broad view of Mendive's artistic evolution and reaffirms the continuity of his thematic and formal concerns. The featured works—paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media pieces—maintain his longstanding dialogue with spirituality, Yoruba cosmology, and the interconnection between nature and the sacred.

The artist himself will be present at the opening reception at the gallery's location on the iconic Calle Ocho in Miami's Little Havana, a cultural hub of the Cuban community in the city. The exhibition will remain on view through August 30, 2025.

In this recent body of work, Mendive presents a visual narrative rich in symbolic gestures, luminous colors, and poetic expression, reflecting both personal and universal meditations on spiritual renewal, inner guidance, and the balance between the physical and metaphysical realms.

“Nature is not just a reflection—it gives us strength, it gives us life. It is also a manifestation of the human being,” said the artist. Mendive emphasized that his most recent works celebrate the beauty and joy of living, and that his artistic journey began in childhood, deeply influenced by his family—especially his mother—and by Afro-Cuban culture and spirituality.

“In my work, I explore the relationship between human beings and the universe using symbols and colors that evoke the sacred and the ancestral,” he explained.

The exhibition includes bronze sculptures that emphasize the connection between spirituality, nature, and mysticism. “I’ve worked with bronze to shape figures that evoke the energy of the orishas and ancestral spirits, keeping an organic and symbolic style,” said Mendive, who was born in Havana in 1944.

A graduate of the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in 1963, Mendive also pursued studies in Ethnology, Folklore, and Art History at various Cuban institutions. He is a member of the International Association of Plastic Arts (AIAP) and has received numerous honors, including the Cuban National Visual Arts Award (2001), the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture (2019), and an honorary doctorate from the Anglo-Hispano-American University (2024).

His work has been featured in major international art events such as the Venice, São Paulo, and Havana Biennials, and exhibited at renowned institutions including the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Bronx Museum, the California African American Museum, the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, and the Atlantic Center of Modern Art in Gran Canaria.

With Con el nuevo día el sol brilla y nos guía, Latin Art Core reaffirms its commitment to promoting contemporary Latin American art and offers audiences in Miami and beyond an opportunity to engage with one of the most influential figures in Cuban visual arts of the past decades.