WHAT: “Revolution Not Televised”

WHEN: Through October 7.

WHERE: Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse at 165th Street, Bronx, NY.

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: Alongside this summer's tri-museum extravaganza, “Caribbean: Crossroads,” the Bronx Museum of Arts is taking closer look at Cuba in “Revolution Not Televised.” Surveying the 42,800-square-mile island south of Florida and crowning the Caribbean sea, the show is advantageously timed in the wake of recent relaxation of Cuban travel restrictions for U.S. citizens, which have hindered access to Cuban culture. The museum likewise offers access to work by contemporary artists rarely exhibited in the United States, including Ana Mendieta, Manuel Mendive, and José Bedia get their due.

Communist activist Ché Guevara and longterm dictator Fidel Castro feature prominently as political subjects in the show. Graphic artist Villalvilla’s tongue-in-cheek painting “Just Do It” (2010) features Guevara in the iconic pose he assumed for Alberto Korda’s famous photograph, while Carlos Garaicoa’s “Untitled (Decapitated Angel),” (1993) highlights the looming but physically absent force of Castro — suggestive of the duel nature of Cuba’s political and social identity.

Mendieta, a more widely known contemporary artist explores issues of identity on a more personal level. Her “Silueta” series was performed outside the setting of an institution, where she created fleeting and temporary outlines of her body in remote locations, aligning herself more with feminist, body, and land artists of the 1970s, than political revolutionaries.

The exhibition features not only poignant visual political statements by artists, but revolutionary conceptual art practices in the 35 works spanning four decades of Cuba’s political and social revolutions.

To see featured works from the exhibition click the slide show.