MIAMI, FLA.- Miami Art Week 2025 opens with a constellation of ambitious exhibitions across the city, and among them is a major showcase that stands out for its historic resonance and artistic depth. Presented by Latin Art Core at the Art Miami fair, the exhibition places Cuban modernism — and particularly the groundbreaking legacy of Wifredo Lam — at center stage. It is a moment charged with cultural significance, coinciding with a renewed wave of international recognition for Lam, whose sweeping retrospective Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on November 10, 2025. The synchronicity between New York and Miami underscores how Lam’s vision remains urgent and essential on both sides of the hemisphere.

For Israel Moleiro, founder of Latin Art Core, this alignment of events is a statement. Lam’s work, he affirms, embodies the depth and distinctiveness of Latin American Surrealism — a movement he describes as “one of the most compelling and transformative contributions to modern art.” Lam’s presence in Miami Art Week is not merely celebratory; it is a crucial reminder of the region’s intellectual and spiritual contributions to the international avant-garde.

Moleiro emphasizes that unlike their European predecessors, Latin American Surrealists did not simply adopt Surrealism as an aesthetic or philosophical extension. Instead, they reshaped its language entirely. “Latin American artists used its language to explore hybrid identities shaped by Indigenous, African, and European traditions, as well as by the long shadow of colonialism,” he says. The irrational, in this context, becomes a method of unveiling — a tool for exposing submerged histories, cultural memories, ancestral knowledge, and the lived contradictions of postcolonial societies. What for Europeans was often a rebellion against bourgeois reason became, in Latin America, a profound reclamation of spiritual and cultural truth.

Among the movement’s key figures, Lam stands out as a visionary bridge between continents and worldviews. Born in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, and trained in Europe, he absorbed the impulses of Surrealism and Cubism at their core — yet his most radical contribution emerged only when he returned to his roots. His relationship with MoMA began early, in 1939, with the acquisition of Mother and Child, but it was his iconic 1943 masterpiece The Jungle — a work pulsing with syncretic spirituality — that cemented his legacy. With its hybrid figures, lush vegetation, and rhythmic, ritualistic energy, the painting marked a turning point in Caribbean modernism and remains one of the most influential works in the history of 20th-century art.

Moleiro situates Lam within a constellation of Latin American Surrealists who — each in their own realm — expanded the possibilities of the movement: Remedios Varo with her mystical investigations of science and magic, Leonora Carrington with her feminist mythologies, and Roberto Matta with his cosmic psychological dimensions. “They infused Surrealism with mythologies and spiritual symbolism, creating a universe where the material and the spiritual intersect,” Moleiro explains. Their work challenged dominant narratives and proposed Surrealism as “a space for resistance, introspection, and cultural affirmation.”

Indeed, Latin American Surrealism is distinguished by its ability to translate the subconscious into territories where history, spirituality, and identity intersect. It reinterpreted European Surrealist principles through the region’s own cultural realities. The movement proposed an alternative modernity — one grounded in ancestral memory, ritual symbolism, and the embodied experiences of its people. Artists such as Lam, Varo, Carrington, and Matta did not illustrate dreams; they revealed the hidden infrastructures of cultural survival. This is why, decades later, the legacy of Latin American Surrealism remains vital: it continues to expand the boundaries of imagination while articulating a vision of art deeply rooted in the continent’s diverse identities.

Latin Art Core’s presentation at Art Miami builds directly upon that legacy. Alongside major works by Lam, the gallery will present a robust selection of pioneering figures who shaped — and continue to shape — Cuban art: Tomás Sánchez, Servando Cabrera Moreno, Agustín Fernández, José Bedia, Manuel Mendive, Roberto Fabelo, Pedro Pablo Oliva, and Rubén Alpízar. Together, their works trace the evolution of Cuban artistic expression from mid-century modernism to the newest voices of the island and its diaspora. It is a narrative of continuity, rupture, resilience, and reinvention.

This curatorial approach reflects what Moleiro sees as the movement’s enduring power: “Its synthesis of myth, memory, and visionary invention continues to inspire artists worldwide,” he says. “It stands as an essential chapter in the history of the avant-garde.” By highlighting Lam’s legacy within an active lineage of Cuban creators, Latin Art Core demonstrates that Latin American Surrealism is not a closed chapter — it is a living force, still generating new meanings and new possibilities.

With its Miami presentation, Latin Art Core not only honors one of the greatest artists of the 20th century; it reaffirms the region’s vital role in shaping the dialogue of modern and contemporary art. The gallery’s commitment to research, visibility, and cultural advocacy ensures that Latin American art remains exactly where it has always belonged: at the forefront of global artistic innovation. Through platforms like Art Miami, the gallery continues to elevate the voices of the artists who transformed Surrealism — and those who carry its fire forward into the future.

Learn more at
@lac.contemporary
Www.latinartcore.com
Phone 305-989-9085 /imoleiro@hotmail.com


Wifredo Lam, Untitled 1973. Oil on canvas, 20 x 27.


Wifredo Lam, Untitled 1973. Oil on Canvas, 24 x 20 in.


Wifredo Lam, Composition, 1975. Oil on Canvas, 28 x 39 in.