Gilda Pérez

Born in 1954 in Havana (Cuba)
Lives and works in Miami (USA)

Gilda Pérez is among the pioneers of modern Cuban women photographers. She was one of the first photographers (and the only woman in a group of six) to exhibit in the United States during the Cold War, at the University of California in 1982. She has had numerous solo exhibitions in Cuba, Spain, Switzerland, Canada and Venezuela and been part of group shows in more than 50 countries. Her most recent group exhibition was ¡Cuba, Cuba! 65 Years of Photography presented by the International Center of Photography, New York in 2015. Her work is included in renowned photography collections, including the Mexican Council of Photography (Mexico) and the Musée de l´Elysée (Switzerland). For 20 years she made Venezuela her home, but now lives and works in the US.

Gilda Pérez is exhibiting work from her series Out of Home for KB17. Of her practice, the artist writes: “As a photographer I have always been looking for spaces of quotidian life that do not get enough attention from us. I am not talking about the myth of photographers who see what common people do not see. I am talking about things that do not seem important: an abandoned doll in a yard, a lonely man contemplating a landscape, a rundown gas station, an old fashioned car parked in front of an iconic theater in Havana, my own house. I am also interested in the lives of ordinary people: farmers, workers, passengers. Those are my punctums (to put it in the words of Barthes). My punctums are the small realities inside reality. In that sense, my work is influenced by photographers such as Walker Evans, David ‘Chim’ Seymour, Dorothea Lange and Imogen Cummingham.”