
Street GraphicsMuch of today's most exuberant, most creative and most telling imagery is all around us, in the street. All over the world, the street has become a public art gallery of visual icons, each city with permanent collections and temporary exhibits, each country with its own much-loved identity.
Cuba has a unique place in these international street galleries. Its colonial past and its Revolution, invoked everything in utopian images, have created something vibrantly distinct. Beyond the ideology, this is the venue to enjoy the nostalgia of the chrome trim and high tail fins of 1950s automobiles, the locale for Cohiba cigars, pre-Revolution Coke signs, the ever-popular Bacardi and all the excitement of the Buena Vista Social Club.

Ivan Konstantinovitch Aivazovsky, Golf of neapel,1841
© The Peterhof State Museum-Reserve, St. Petersburg, 2010 (detail)