Book

I’ve been fortunate enough to see this project evolve. What I love most about the book is what I perceive to be a very sensitive and delicate rhythm that carries you through the pages, cover to cover. When I first had a look at May Days I remember thinking of Shen Wei’s “Chinese Sentiment,” which is one of my favorite monographs of the last few years. With Shen’s book there’s this moment when you separate your impressions of China, especially the political, and you begin to see the work as a journal or a memoire… it’s like he’s collecting something. It defies the politics and embraces the personal. Don’t get me wrong, China is there in Shen’s book just as Cuba is in Dana’s, but in both cases they don’t depend on it. For me it’s what makes May Days so successful… Dana has created a volume that challenges our perceptions of Cuba by not focusing on the “Cuba” we’ve seen a million times over.

The rhythm of the book leads you from moments of energy through quiet expanses where each page is as much about discovery as it is about a meditation, a loneliness, a happiness, some solitude, and even celebration. It’s as though she keeps looking for something she loves, and because of that, it gives us the opportunity to connect to the work on a much deeper level.

Andrew Mroczek, Director of Exhibitions, Lesley Art + Design, Cambridge, MA, 2018

Dana Mueller, on the other hand, presents a purely visual journey of her two one-month visits to Cuba in the spring of 2014 and again in 2015 in her book May Days. Her images of this island nation are blessedly free of vintage 1950’s era vehicles and the oversaturated color of so many pictures made in Cuba. She explores the light gray tones of the gravel and minerals used in buildings, monuments and open plazas under the baking Caribbean sun.There are sublime portraits of the people she encountered and a stirring images of domestic pets alongside pictures of the character and architecture of the place. A dog’s plaintive expression is revealed by opening the first of several gatefolds throughout the book. As the reader flips through the pages, the gatefolds serve to create visual connections and disconnections. In one spread, a blue wall faces a portrait of a woman wearing a light blue skirt; as I open the gatefold, a bright empty hallway adorned with a potted plant on shattered limestone hints at a demolished structure. Her juxtapositions of texture, material and light are further enhanced with the use of photographic references: the cover and several images in the book are presented as negatives or printed so lightly that they appear to bleed through the paper. This is a light yet mysterious journey through Cuba; Mueller has revealed little of the politics or economics of the place, yet she allows the viewer to wander, exchange looks, and acknowledge a spirited, elegant and contradictory culture through a bright, clean vision.

Book review by Suzanne Revy, Winter's Silent Songs, What Will You Remember, January 2019