Luis Cruz Azaceta

As a teenager, he witnessed many acts of violence on the streets of Havana: bombs in stores, cinemas and theaters, shoot-outs, arrests, and torture of citizens by Batista secret police.

Critic John Yau argues that Azaceta's need to change is not only one of the features that distinguishes him from other painters, whether figurative or abstract, but it is also emblematic of his life as both an exile and an alien.

[4] In 1992, he moved with his wife and two sons from New York to New Orleans where a warehouse studio provided him space for producing larger scale works, constructions, and installations.

With Museum Plans, Azaceta calls into question the individuals and institutions who govern culture by depicting labyrinths of lines devoid of exits.

[5] The series Shifting States (2011-2012) related to contemporary struggles such as crumbling economies, revolutions, wars, civil movements against social injustice, and climate change.

The title of the series has a double meaning, referring both to physical major changes and to the psychological state that involves moving into self-awareness in order to create necessary transformation.

[8] In his 2013 solo exhibition Dictators, Terrorism, War and Exiles at Aljira, Center for Contemporary Art, curator, Alejandro Anreus writes that Luis Cruz Azaceta is committed "to bearing witness to the political crisis of humanity.