Elliot and Erick Jiménez, twin photographers from Miami, have debuted their first museum exhibition, 'El Monte,' at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). The immersive installation transforms the gallery into a hybrid chapel-forest, drawing conceptual inspiration from Cuban ethnographer Lydia Cabrera's seminal 1954 book of the same name, which explores Afro-Cuban spiritual traditions. The artists present staged photographs featuring anonymous 'shadow figures' adorned in paint and costumes, creating archetypal representations of spiritual forces.
The exhibition is significant for its deep engagement with Lucumí (or Santería) traditions, a syncretic religion born from West African Yoruba beliefs and Spanish Catholicism. By using visual anonymity, the artists subvert historical narratives of persecution, transforming 'shadow' into a powerful, dignified presence. Their work explores themes of diasporic identity, duality—reflected in their own twinhood—and the complex cultural syncretism of the Caribbean, bringing these often-marginalized spiritual cosmologies into a major contemporary art museum context.