NOEL MORERA CRUZ, MATANZAS 1962.

1990-Course in Silk Screen Techniques at the René Portocarrero Workshop. Old Havana. Cuba.

Member of UNEAC (Cuban National Union of Writers and Artists)

Member of the Graphic Arts Workshop, Havana.

Bijouterie

1987-Collective exhibition at the Gallery Teodoro Ramos. Havana. Cuba.

1988-Personal exhibition “Jewellers”. Hotel Havana Libre. Havana. Cuba.

1989-Personal exhibition “Useful Objects”. Hotel Habana Libre. Havana. Cuba.

Arts and Crafts

1987-1988-1989. Participation in the International Arts and Crafts Festival FIART. Havana. Cuba.

Paintings

Personal Exhibitions

1994-“Intimate Concert for Maíz”. Gallery Víctor Manuel. V Biennial of Havana. Cuba.

1996-“The Comfort of Well-Wrapped Leftovers”. The artist’s studio-workshop. Havana. Cuba.

1997-“Delirium Tremens”. Gallery EEGEE-3. Madrid. Spain.

1999-“No cure. What cure.” Gallery EEGEE-3. Madrid. Spain.

2000-“Paintings”. Gallery Mela Paredes. Valencia. Spain.

2000-“Postcards of Havana 1”. Gallery Suyu. Havana. Cuba.

2000-“Postcards of Havana II”. Gallery Patio de María. VII Biennial of Havana. Havana. Cuba.

2001-“ Postcards of Havana III”. Spanish Cultural Centre. Havana. Cuba.

2003-“Balcony of Cuba”. Gallery EEGEE-3. Madrid. Spain.

2003-“Children’s Stories” VII Biennial of Havana. Editorial Abril.

2004-“The Show’s off.” Galería SGAE Lonja del Comercio, Villa San Cristóbal de la Havana.

2004- “Others’ Stares”, Galería Suyu. Plaza de los Capitanes Generales, San Cristobal de la Habana.

2006- Guardians Angels. EEGEE-3, Madrid, Spain.

2006- Cubans engravers in Istanbul. Artane Gallery. Istanbul.

2006- Noel’s Party in Istanbul. Artane Gallery. Istanbul.

2006- One Minute of Silence. Collateral with the 9 Biennal of Havana. Engraver Workshop of Havana city.

2007- The Havana and the Havana. Guayasamín Gallery. San Cristóbal de La Habana. Cuba.

2007- One Minute of Silence. Contemporary Siranga Art Gallery. Spain.

2008- Zorro rides back on. Artane Gallery. Istanbul.

Collective Exhibitions

1987-“Cuban Painters”. Gallery Domingo Ravenet. Havana. Cuba.

1990-“Graduation of the Silk-Screen Course”. René Portocarrero Workshop. Havana. Cuba.

1995-“ Cuban Painters”. René Portocarrero Workshop. Havana. Cuba.

1997-Festival of Contemporary Art” ARCO-97. Madrid. Spain.

1998-Biennial of Contemporary Art” Marbella-98. Marbella. Spain.

1998-“Underground Art”. Faculty of Philology of the Havana University. Havana. Cuba.

1999- Festival of Contemporary Art” ARCO-99. Madrid .Spain.

1999-“All or Nothing”. Gallery EEGEE-3. Madrid. Spain.

1999-Design, direction and realisation of a collective mural. Finca de los Molinos. Havana. Cuba.

2000-Participation in the collective mural in the Cuban Pavilion. VII Biennial of Havana. Havana. Cuba.

2001-“Round Trip”. Gallery EEGEE-3. Madrid. Spain.

2001-“Workshop Prints”. Gallery Madriguera. Havana. Cuba.

2001-“National Meeting of Engraving”. Centro Wilfredo Lam. Havana. Cuba.

2001-“XII Salon of the City”. Provincial Centre for Art and Design. Havana. Cuba.

2001-“4 Decades of Graphic Counterpoint”. Quito. Ecuador.

2001-“ International Event VISUARTE 2001”. Cienfuegos. Cuba.

2002-“Descartes”. Gallery FAMA. Havana. Cuba.

2002-“Conciliation in the 40s”. National Fine Arts Museum. Havana. Cuba.

2002- Havana Club Painting Competition. Rum Museum. Havana. Cuba.

2002-“Line, oh, Line”. Gallery-Workshop Taller Ezequiel Suárez. Havana. Cuba.

2002-XIII Salon of the City. Provincial Centre for Art and Design. Havana. Cuba.

2003-“Common Sense”. Gallery Havana. Havana. Cuba.

2003-I National Landscape Salon. Convent of San Francisco of Assisi. Havana. Cuba.

2003-National Award-Winners’ Salon. Centre for Development of the Visual Arts. Havana. Cuba.

2003-Madrid Art Festival. Madrid. Spain.

2003-Book Illustrations. Editorial ´´Perro Vagabundo´´. Madrid. Spain.

Collective Exhibition London 2003, UNEAC

Itinerant Exhibition of Contemporary Painters. Florence, Italy , April 2004, UNEAC

2004, Collective Exhibition, Tourism Convention, Plaza “Las Americas”, Varadero, Cuba.

2004- “Something Else” 45th Anniversary of the National Theatre of Cuba, Sala Avellaneda.

2004-Exhibition, “Cuban Fine Arts”, Cuban Cultural Festival, London Hilton, Park Lane, 30 October-10 November, 2003.

2006- Exhibition of American Fine Art Agora Gallery. SoHo. New York

2007- Supermercat Ibiza, Spain

2007- Supermercat Valencia, Spain

2008- Six Cuban Artists. NH Central Park Hotel. Havana City.

2008 –contemporary art in Black and White Gallery, Miami, Florida.

Other Works

1987-1988- Scenery for “Blind Opera”. Theatrical Group OBSTÁCULO. Havana. Cuba.

1998- Scenery for a concert by the musical group SÍNTESIS. International Cabaret, Hotel Riviera. Havana. Cuba.

1998-Illustrations for the book “20 Poems of Love and a Song of Hope”. Editorial Perro Vagabundo. Madrid. Spain.

1999-Design of dress and adornments for the theatrical group Teatro Callejero GIGANTERIA. Pasacalle Día Mundial de la Tierra.

2002-Illustrations for the book by Gabriel García Márquez “The trace of Your Blood in the Snow”. Editorial Perro Vagabundo. Madrid. Spain.

2005- Illustrations for The book “La Visita de La Infanta” by Reinaldo Montero. Alejo Carpentier (2006 Award). La Visita de La Infanta.

Awards

1998-“CIMEX Building Mural Project” Competition. Havana. Cuba.

2000- Award of the Salon of the City. “Collective Vigilance”

He has been participated in the Arco’s Fairs in Madrid, Spain in many years.

His works are in different privates collections in Cuba, Istanbul, Spain, France, United States, Germany and others countries.

__________________________________________________________________________

THE UNTAMEABLE SHREW

(THE UNTAMEABLE/INDOMABLE NOEL MORERA)

(Words in three acts)

Act I

The worst thing that can happen to a Cuban is to be blessed with success enough to swell his ego but to have no-one with whom to share it. We need our audience. We may count on an excellent stage set-up, an infallible script, praiseworthy actors; but if we don’t have at least one spectator there’s just no show. This emptiness, this dramatic failure causes profound anxiety.

Being alien to professional and commonplace criticism, weary of it and its meagre results, I approach Noel Morera’s work accomplice to his “insolence”. I do not believe he would be interested in words which exalt his domination of line, his originating a conceptualism close to satire and political caricature, his dispatch of the figurative and renunciation of the figure. His work is as elastic as reality, as his walls. Possessed by the “figures” weaved by the smoke that envelopes and illuminates him, he overflows with irreverent and interminable originality. Sometimes his “objects” imply History, illustrious names in new contexts, with new meanings; others change into surroundings, mute, cheerful choirs, ironic and mocking, seeking to overcome insurmountable obstacles (what is the sea if not the widest and most powerful of all obstacles?) even when the tide is low and we have nothing but green seeds to toast and the squashed fag-ends of the last smoke. With time, these bodies/objects decompose and leave the stains, the shadows of what they once were, deckchairs strewn around an empty beach, and the distant, inevitable lighthouse which, no matter how much I look at it, makes me each time crave for awesome solitude. The total lack of “object” requires a disquieting alternative: “Is the show on?”

Act II

If Godot appeared he would be faced with the most absurd scenario, a terrible deception; nobody is waiting for him. Beneath the sun, the queue without end. The empty, grey seats without fulfilment. They are not seats because no shoulder rests against them, there are no bums to caress. The chairs piled upside-down in the attic or the pyramid of broken benches like those in the old park of Calzada and Calle K, where pain gets confused among those who accompany their dead to the cemetery and those apparently “chosen” for other, not so sanctified, lands. Both suffering masses, that of men and that of benches, share something in common: their absence.

Noel, thank God, exits the market and then returns with this proposal as the “provoking spirit” which has animated Cuban art for almost twenty years. While retaining their grace, his works surrounding us are charged with anguish. The convocation is not just for instant effect, is not a vain performance for catalogue covers. I do not believe that this acute sensation of void can be covered over by the orations of specialists. It is to do with a shuddering inside, intimate and perpetual. The distance between the chair and the observer leaves us with the bitter taste of loss. An undesired, involuntary detachment; the same uneasiness of the chestnut leaf when autumn nears and it must depart. The duality of a spiritual death in the leaf who falls and its sister who clings to the branch awaiting the harsh winter. Not for this are either one of them not chestnut leaves.

Act III

While it is safe to say that the absence of an audience makes the show impossible, even more dramatic would be the absence of the actor. He is entrusted with the most risky of roles. He knows he could be found guilty, his innocence is on the scales; on his shoulders will fall the weight of criticism, sacred and profane, whichever the most dangerous. They will try to silence him, obtain the closure or reform of public areas, vigil for public uniformity. The actor, victim of his tragic destiny, will carry on creating from the lights and the shadows, according to the ebb and flow of the tides. That is the great convocation in act. “I am here” Noel tells us. “And you? Where are you?”

Anchored to our memories we long for those times, past or yet to come, we call spring. And then, we’ll sprawl into chairs, benches or seats, all together (including cousins) for a good smoke.

Arturo Soto.

Havana, August 2004.

English translation from the original Spanish by John Harden.