Virgilio Pinera; Eduardo Hernandez Santos (illus.)
El Muro: The Wall, 2009
Florence, MA: Red Trillium Press
One of fifty deluxe copies. With two additional photographs, both signed by the artist, one of which did not appear in the book.
2282
Further images
Oblong quarto. Ten black-and-white triptych photographs, two bilingual essays, and a glossary, all printed duotone offset on iridescent mica-coated paper. Santos recounts, through photographs and the poetry of the late...
Oblong quarto. Ten black-and-white triptych photographs, two bilingual essays, and a glossary, all printed duotone offset on iridescent mica-coated paper. Santos recounts, through photographs and the poetry of the late gay Cuban poet and playwright Virgilio Pinera, the gay and trans nightlife of Havana, which took shape along the seawall. He describes the culture as one of "furtive encounters, cruising, reaffirmation, and confrontation of identities," an atmosphere similar to San Francisco or New York's West Village but transported to a 2005 Cuba just emerging from the economic downturn known as the Special Period. Santos's images capture the tension between insularity—both literal and personal—and community. As of 2026, the section of the seawall no longer exists and the book now functions as both contemporary journalism and as archive of a past, but not altogether lost, culture. Fittingly bound in a semi-concealed wire-o binding to facilitate the breadth of the triptychs and of the wall itself. Fine. Housed in dropback box.


