View the exhibit and meet artist Michel Mirabal
Enjoy live music by Michael McClintock and Cubanisms (Trio format)
No Tickets Required.

The Kansas City Museum presents The History Behind the Sheets, an exhibit with select paintings by Michel Mirabal and presented in partnership with Cubanisms: A Cuban Cultural Project, founded by Kansas City Ethnic Enrichment Commissioners Dálida T. Pupo Barrios (Cuba) and Michael McClintock (USA). While the exhibit is on view from July 14 – September 25, programming at the Museum will explore the history of KC Sister Cities and the Ethnic Enrichment Commission, the importance of international relations to the growth of Kansas City, and the importance of international cultural exchanges to Kansas City’s membership in the UNESCO Creative City Network (UCCN) – as the first and only UNESCO Creative City of Music in the United States. Santiago de Cuba and Havana, Cuba are now also UCCN Cities of Music.

Michel Mirabal is a graduate of Visual Arts from the Fine Arts National Academy San Alejandro in 1996 (Cuba) and holds a specialized degree in Industrial Design from the High Institute of Design in Havana. He was awarded with the Rockefeller Scholarship after graduating, and later, with two other residency creation programs in Italy and Morocco. Michel started his career as a scenery painter for the Cuban National Ballet Company and in the Production Department of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC). His work has been included in several private and public collections around the world. In 2016 he opened his own studio “Finca Calunga,” where he said, “his dream became a reality.” Finca Calunga became the home of Michel’s art as well as a community project teaching children about art and supporting low-income families, elders, and orphaned children in Havana, Cuba.

Michel’s body of work includes paintings, drawings, photography, and mixed media installations that often include imagery of flowers, barbed wire, and banderas (flags). His work reveals both the beauty and harsh realities of struggle, survival, and transformation. He centralizes the Cuban flag as a recurring symbol and metaphor to create an honest, reflective discourse that unveils the complexity of cultural identity and nationalism and exposes the courageous resistance, resilience, and creativity needed to attain truth, independence, and freedom.

The History Behind the Sheets is on view in the Meeting & Education Room on the second floor of Corinthian Hall. This space is for meetings, programs, special events, and temporary exhibits. It is a space to create opportunities for experiences that particularly tell the untold stories of our place and time through art, culture, and conversation.