Opening: Spring Exhibitions

Join us for the opening of Rocío García: The Object of Power is Power, curated by Carmen Maria Machado and Soft Spaces: groana melendez and Anna Parisi.

Rocío García: The Object of Power is Power
Over five decades of painting, Rocío García (b. 1955, Santa Clara, Cuba; lives Havana) has developed a distinctive visual language that draws from a diverse set of literary, artistic, and other cultural influences—from film noir and comics to Henri Matisse, Franz Kafka, and Havana nightlife—to explore shifting power dynamics in scenes both absurdist and (homo)erotic. The figures she renders in The Object of Power is Power exist at the margins of society and the imagination, caught within existential, seemingly irresolvable situations that darkly mirror systems of authority. Within them, her work creates spaces for humor and the imagined collapse of entrenched power structures. The work of guest curator and award-winning Cuban-American author Carmen Maria Machado is deeply resonant in its use of body horror, speculative fiction, and queer-feminist narrative: she brings an incisive and intuitive reading of García’s work to the exhibition.

García's numerous solo exhibitions include Noemí Espace Brownstone, Paris (2026); NG Art Gallery, Panama City (2025); Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, 14th Havana Biennial, Havana (2024); Frederic Snitzer Gallery, Miami (2024); El Apartamento Gallery, Havana (2023); and Thomas Nickles Project, New York (2021). She has been a distinguished artist in residence at RU and the Cuban Art Foundation in New York, at the Vermont Studio Center, at Fundación Ludwig de Cuba in Basel, Switzerland, and at the University of Michigan, and has been awarded the Distinction for National Culture award by the Cuban Ministry of Culture. García graduated from the San Alejandro School of Fine Arts in 1975 and received her MFA at the Repin Academy of Fine Arts in Leningrad, Soviet Union, in 1983. She lives and works in Havana.

Soft Spaces: groana melendez and Anna Parisi
groana melendez and Anna Parisi present photographic and filmic works, respectively, that paint personal portraits of homecoming. melendez's work grapples with hybrid identities and their lived experience as a Dominican-American raised between New York City and Santo Domingo. Parisi's work examines Black women's relationship to their natural hair throughout the African diaspora, and the ways in which Parisi's Afro-Brazilian identity was impacted by her adoption by white parents. Through their lens-based explorations, melendez and Parisi share their understandings of family, migration, and belonging.

Accessibility
Located at 26 Wooster Street, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art strives to provide a welcoming environment to all visitors. Five external steps lead to our entrance doors: a wheelchair lift is available. All galleries are wheelchair-accessible, and a single-occupancy accessible restroom is located behind the visitor services desk. All restrooms are gender-neutral. Large print didactics are available. Chairs with backs are available. For questions or access requests, please email info@leslielohman.org at least one week in advance of your visit.