Leandro Soto Ortiz

Leandro Soto (bornLeandro Soto Ortiz; March 1, 1956) is a multidisciplinary visual/installation and performance artist.He is also a set and costume designer for theater and film.Soto studied at Escuela Nacional de Arte National Art Schools (Cuba) and Instituto Superior de Arte, University of Havana.As an educator he has taught and lectured at various Higher Education institutions in the U.S. and abroad.Soto also founded a creative workshop, El Tesoro de Tamulte, in Tabasco, Mexico, from which professional artists emerged.

Soto was born and grew up in the city of Cienfuegos, Cuba.

Soto was one of the leading figures of the influential “Volumen Uno”, an artistic movement that changed the course of Cuban Art in the decade of the 1980s, in which he was the first artist in his generation to work with the Afro-Cuban heritage.He is also credited for being the first performance and installation artist on the island.

In his performances and the visual/installation art which emerge from his performances, Soto responds to the postmodern coordinates of implosion and satire, often subverting the inceptions of culturally accepted notions of high/kitsch, traditional/pop, global/local, and profane/sacred art forms.Throughout his artistic career, he has demonstrated an interest in religion, ritual, and the mythology of indigenous people.

• 2018Crónicas visuales.Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.Havana, Cuba (current catalog, ISBN no. pending)
• 2015hacia todas partes ir II. (Everywhere I go) La Acacia Art Gallery, Havana, Cuba.
• 2013Carpentier in Barbados. Errol Barrow Center for Creative Imagination Art Gallery. University of The West Indies. Barbados, West Indies.
• 2012Leandro Soto: Open Windows to the Caribbean. Museum of Finest Cuban Art.Vienna, Austria.
• 2011Cuba in the Southwest: The Art of Leandro Soto.Sangre de Cristo Art Center: Hoag Gallery.Pueblo, Colorado.
• 2006Leandro Soto Recent Works. Paulina Miller Art Gallery. Phoenix, Arizona
• 1997A Glance over the Garden.Big Orbit Gallery.Buffalo, New York
• 1992Resonancias de la selva (Resonances of the jungle). Galería Nina Menocal, México D.F.
• 1984Retablo familiar (Family altarpiece).Casa de la Cultura. Plaza Gallery and Art Center.Havana, Cuba.

• 2019Sacbé, Camino de Intercambio (White Road, Exchange Path).Casa del Benemérito de las Américas Benito Juárez, Old Havana, Cuba.
• 2017Adiós Utopía: Art in Cuba Since 1950. The Museum of Fine Arts. Houston, Texas
• 2014Drapetomania, The 8th Floor, New York, NY
• 2011 Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul.Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey.
• 2008Cuba! Art and History from 1868 through Today. Musee des Beaux Arts de Montreal, Quebec
• 2004Confluencias: Leandro Soto and Raoul Deal. Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• 1998Ceremonial Lands.Buffalo Arts Studios.Buffalo, New York.
• 1997Breaking Barriers. Museum of Fine Arts of Ft. Lauderdale. Florida.
• 1987Prague Quadrennial of Stage Design, Prague, Czech Republic
• 1989Kitsch.Third Havana Biennial. Galiano-Concordia Art Center.Havana, Cuba.
• 1981Volumen Uno. International Art Center.Havana, Cuba

Soto's work is held in a number of institutional collections, including:

• The CIFO Collection, Miami. FL.
• MOCA. Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. FL.
• Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba
• Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theater Research Institute. Ohio State University.Columbus, Ohio
• Museum of Finest Cuban Art, Vienna, Austria
• Dr. Arturo and Lisa Mosquera, Private Collection of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL
• Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.South Hadley Mass.

• El tesoro de Tamulté : arte desde el trópico. Phoenix. Ariz.: Editorial Orbis Press. 2003. OCLC 58678600.
• O'Reilly-Herrera, Andrea, ed. (2001). "Testimony of an Artist". ReMembering Cuba : legacy of a diaspora (1st ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 245. ISBN 0292731477.
• Fusco, Coco, ed. (1999). "Performance in Cuba in the 1980s". Corpus delecti : performance art of the Americas (1st ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 266. ISBN 9780415194549.
• González-Pérez, ed., Armando (1999). "E-Motions / E-Motions". Presencia negra : teatro cubano de la diáspora ; antología crítica (in Spanish). Madrid: Editorial Betania. ISBN 84-8017-111-1.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)