Untitled from the series White Things

In his series Cosas blancas [White Things], René Peña uses his own body, and those of his friends and neighbors, as his primary subjects. His images’ stark poetic interplay between black and white alludes metaphorically to the racial and socio‐ political disparities between people of differing skin colors who inhabit Cuba.

Yet, for Peña, this work is far more a celebration of blackness than a political statement. Black skin emerges from black backgrounds. The “white things” depicted in the images become merely props to explore the articulations of a black body beneath, for example, a white necklace, shirt, or bra. Through this gesture, living blackness breathes alongside the inert whiteness of the inanimate objects—eclipsing the ostensible white subjects the title suggests.