Raúl Cañibano: Human Landscapes

Fri 26 Jan 2024 - Sun 07 Apr 2024

Step into the intricate tapestry of Cuban urban and rural existence with Raúl Cañibano in our Print Sales Gallery

Black and white photograph of a beach scene with a person's leg in the foreground and a person mid air about to dive into the water in the background

Raúl Cañibano: Human Landscapes

Fri 26 Jan 2024 - Sun 07 Apr 2024

Step into the intricate tapestry of Cuban urban and rural existence with Raúl Cañibano in our Print Sales Gallery

This event is part of our Past Programme

Explore the captivating essence of Cuba through the lens of Raúl Cañibano (b.1961, Havana) in our Print Sales Gallery exhibition Raúl Cañibano: Human Landscapes

Raised in post-revolutionary Cuba and initially a welder by trade, Cañibano's photographic journey began in 1984. Self-taught and inspired by the art books at Cuba’s National Library, Cañibano soon developed his own style, which he calls “somehow surrealist.” This surrealist sensibility appears in his playful use of scale, often contrasting uncannily close-up subjects with distant figures to evoke mysterious affinities and tensions. Everyday scenes take on poetic and mystical qualities tinged with a political edge.  

Black and white photograph of a person's head framed in an open window frame with silhouetted shadow of washing on a line

Viñales, 2013. © Raúl Cañibano

I think Surrealism is very poetic, and perhaps for that reason my work has something of a mystical feeling.

Raúl Cañibano

Cañibano’s large, open-ended photographic essays that allow him to explore the complexity of urban and rural life in Cuba. Taking an anthropological approach, he documents a way of life that he believes will soon vanish. Having travelled extensively across the country, often living with his subjects for months at a time, Cañibano offers an intimate, often humorous or profound perspective on the island's identity, providing a window into Cañibano’s Cuba, from the small farming communities of his childhood to the exuberance of Havana and the Malecón.   

Prints are available to purchase from £1,500 + VAT. All profits from print sales support The Photographers’ Gallery public programme. With special thanks to exhibition liaison, Dr James Clifford Kent (Royal Holloway, University of London.) 

Own Art allows you to acquire the art you love and pay it back in 10 monthly instalments, completely interest free.