A Photographic Portrait of Cuba

I had less than two hours to spend at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston this past Monday, and arrived to great lines having not taken into consideration that it was both a holiday and therefore, free entrance at the museum. My daughter and I had originally set out to see the Chihuly glass exhibition, but the crowds of people waiting were enormous enough to leave us wandering in a different direction, still a bit overwhelmed with the masses of people all trying to view the same works. Our bodies were pressed together in various rooms so my attention went more to the live figures than to the art, until we came to the Photographic Portrait of Cuba which presents Alex Webb's human portraits and Rebecca Norris Webb's animal portraits.

In this one room, we spent the bulk of our two hours, gathered into this other world.

The MFA's discussion of this couple's work relates that "they worked individually - Alex documenting the people he encountered on streets, in courtyards, and in cafes, and Rebecca recording the animals she discovered in personal and public menargeries. Woven together, the pitures form a poignant visual essay on the island's beauty and contradictions."

I am not one to spend much time in front of photographs, it is always the drawings, prints, and paintings, the sculptures and mixed media that call to me. It is a bias and I'm sure I overlook works as a result of my desire for surface, but walking into this space was a bit like falling into a dream. I felt these images, the heat, and the stillness, the noise and pressure, the absolute measuring of time and the movement within it. These images made me want to be there with the people and feel these textures, I wanted to speak their language and become part of their lives, even if only for a while.

I apologize for the quality of my jpegs of their far more beautiful works, but I wanted to share something of what I saw with you and send you the desire to see them in person. They are large and fill ones vision. They ask you to hear their specific sounds and dream those dreams. The color and shapes are saturated, alive, breathing things...

All the noise of the MFA and the people straining to see, faded. These images drew us us in to their world, to the beauty and hurt, the savage potential and gentle possibilities of the people and life here. If you see no other exhibitions this summer, try to see this. It has the lingering in memory of a long and loved novel.