NEW YORK, NY — This spring New York’s noted uptown performing arts center Symphony Space will present Havana Rhythms, an exhibition of photographs created by David Katzenstein on a recent visit to Havana, Cuba. These striking images will be on view in the Bar Thalia from March 24 to August 31, 2015. The opening reception will take place on Wednesday, March 25 between 6-8pm.

In the past 80 years, Havana has drawn important photographers who explored this vibrant city with their unique vision. In the 1930s, Walker Evans shot the graphic quality of men and women against white buildings, plastered with advertisements. Henri Cartier-Bresson found the political “decisive moment” in his 1963 photographs of Castro and Che interacting with the people of Cuba.

In December 2014 David Katzenstein photographed Havana’s sounds, colors, and energy. Unlike Evans’ and Cartier-Bresson’s black and white images, Katzenstein has found a musical quality using compositions of raw colors in his wide variety of subjects. From his photographs, we get to feel the powerful rhythms created by people interacting on the Malecon, colorful bulbous cars racing through the city, and curio shop objects juxtaposing themselves like musical notes that quietly echo their revolutionary past.

Katzenstein captures the brilliant reds, distinctive blues and glittering greens that jump off the cars and objects that surround the people on the streets of Havana. These colors create a lyrical pattern where the eye hears the sounds of the city’s soul: a sensuous, sweaty, fading song along the ocean.

Havana Rhythms is curated by Richard Grosbard for Dashbe: Art Collective, a project founded by David Katzenstein and Sherrie Nickol to present their varied photographic collections for site-specific exhibitions and installations. Their work has been presented at public and private institutions around the United States.

To view online: Havana Rhythms

© David Katzenstein / Dashbe