Orestes Larios, María Ofelia and Gregorio Perez arrived on Nov 2.  Susan Kepecs writes a great piece in The Isthmus describing their visit, it’s significance and the their artwork.

Finally, here’s some change we can believe in. The U.S. blockade on Cuba is alive and well, but Obama’s given us wiggle room. For the first time since the start of W’s second term, Cuban artists can get visas to visit the States. Thanks to impressive efforts by the Madison-Camagüey Sister City Association, with support from Edgewood College, the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, and the Overture and Pleasant T. Rowland Foundations, painter Orestes Larios Zaak and sculptor Gregorio Pérez Escobar will be our guests. It’s part of the Madison-Camagüey association’s 15th anniversary celebration.

An exhibit of their works, “Cuban Artists in Madison: Celebrating Friendship,” curated by Larios’ wife, María Ofelia Granela, graces Edgewood’s DiRicci Gallery Nov. 4-24. The opening’s on Friday, Nov. 6, at 5 p.m. Larios and Pérez also give a public lecture on contemporary Cuban art at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 11, in Edgewood’s Predolin Humanities Center.

f you haven’t kept up with Cuba, you may be surprised by these events. Long gone are the revolutionary posters of Fidel’s heyday. The island faces technological challenges largely linked to the blockade, but Internet access is growing, and person-to-person cultural exchanges like this create vital new connections. Larios and Pérez, widely known in Cuba, are represented in private collections in Europe, South America and Canada. “When our messages reach everyone, we can say we’ve left being local artists behind; today we’re universal artists,” Larios says.