Paolo Gasparini first trained in photography in the studio of Aldo Mazucco in Gorizia. Miliciano, Trinidad, Cuba (1961/2014-15) is a photograph shot in Cuba during Gasparini’s stay there between 1961 and 1965. As he had in Caracas, in Cuba he continued to work with communist publications such as Lunes de Revolución and organisations such as El Consejo Nacional de la Cultura Cubana to document the state-sponsored literacy campaign, as well as scenes of everyday life in urban and rural contexts in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution. This photograph is the portrait of an armed guerilla wearing a soiled uniform. The title of the series this image belongs to, Serie Cuba, de la utopia al desencanto (Cuba series, from utopia to disenchantment, 1961–1996), underscores the harsh realities experienced on the island that Gasparini sought to expose, unsweetened by ideology. From this, Gasparini developed one of his earliest books of photographs, La ciudad de las columnas (Havana, 1970), prefaced by renowned Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier.
—Sofia Gotti
