Contemporary Art from Cuba:
Public Programs
Project Summary
Premiered September 26, 1998 - December 13, 1998, Arizona
State University.
National and international tour in progress through 2002.
The curatorial concept of the exhibition is to identify and show works of art that demonstrate the vital role that art can play in both reflecting and shaping the social drama. It takes as a tenet that when political and personal life become untenable, humor may be one of the few outlets for frustration and anger, and a practical palliative in maintaining sanity within a system that appears to be guided by irrationality. In the context of Cuba, daily life is rife with challenges to survival at levels as basic as finding enough food. For the artist, censorship, often exerted as self-censorship by the artist, makes irony and humor essential strategies for the articulation of a critical stance. The imminence of change hovers over Cuba, making the timing of the exhibition and catalogue a factor in the relevance to the basic issue of reflecting the role art can play in the social realm. The project is about the human condition rather than about politics.
The exhibition, opened during the Cuban centenary of independence from Spain, raises issues common to post-colonial cultural development. The special position of Cuba, so essential to the Spanish empire, then impacted so strongly by its proximity to the United States, and its role in the early years of the Revolution as a leader in Latin America and Africa as an example to or ally of other nations emerging from colonial domination, and finally its place in American foreign policy and the American imagination, make the project especially provocative. The need for a clear look at Cuba through the art of its young artists, free from censorship, is necessary. Other Cuba projects have been undertaken for the American audience, but none that examines the issues from the perspective of the role of irony as a means to subvert censorship and to express criticism.
The artists whose work is selected demonstrate their ingenuity in commenting upon such themes as the longing for escape, the tragedy of the balseros (those who left on makeshift rafts) shortages, bureaucracy, inequality in the distribution of privilege and goods. The work ranges from that of José Angel Toirac, who is most explicit in pointing out hypocrisies of the Revolution by juxtaposing Revolutionary rhetoric against the Cuban reality. For example, Toirac uses the audio track of a weekly television series conducted by the historian of the city of Havana through the many restoration projects in the Old City, with his own visual track, showing the way people live, often without running water, with electricity cobbled together, with telephone lines dangling, with intermediate floors built in the high-ceilinged rooms to create stifling lofts called "barbacoas" (barbecues) to add sleeping space in the overcrowded barrio. Others create allegories, as do Los Carpinteros, who picture themselves nude in the Hermitage, smoking habanos (Cuban cigars), over a text that reads that even after all else is gone (with one possible reading a reference to both the decay of the Cuban infrastructure and the rights of the people) the will to "play the game" persists.
Escape is a persistent theme. The humor of the Carpinteros converts an overturned umbrella with an outboard motor into a desperate escape vehicle. Sandra Ramos encapsulates whole lives in suitcases, but escape, even when merely a fantasy, is not without its price. Ramos expresses the sense of loss of those who have left and her own ambivalence with a wistful "Fidel" written in the clouds painted in the sky above a sea. Many artists make reference to the Malecón, the sweeping avenue that traces the shoreline from Old Havana through El Vedado. Its wall is a long bench, where people congregate and black market merchants and prostitutes ply their trade. It separates the city from the sea, which is both the route of escape and the barrier against it. Overarching all the work is a sense that the Cuban necessity to "make do" fosters creativity not only in art but in how one survives.
Another artist that refers both to escape and to escapism is Kcho. His boat of books offers both in one image. Some artists look inward as a means of survival, inward to the city, celebrating its beauty, even in ruins, or inward to a spirit within that is always free. One who does both of these is Carlos Estévez. He makes extraordinary drawings, creating a parallel between internal and external. One of his most poignant works imposes a city plan of Old Havana on the anatomy of the heart.
This work by Estévez goes to the core of the exhibition, which presents works that express a critique of contemporary Cuba, but also express love for it. The special circumstance of being an island, with the implication of isolation but also of being a paradise, suffuses the work. The isolation is both Cuba's burden and its source of a kind of innocence. The breakdown of isolation is another source of ambivalence.
Other themes include the enforced indolence of underemployment, and waiting for change, a perennial theme in contemporary Cuba. The ideals of the Revolution that sought to redress racism and sexism are examined. Belkís Ayón, a brilliant printmaker, takes as her content the myth of Sikán, who infiltrated the Yoruba all-male secret society of the abakuá, and then revealed its secrets. The unspoken text is that the abakuá are said to form a protective cordon around Fidel, so her reference to them also is an oblique reference to the magic that surrounds the Maximum Leader.
VIDEO DOCUMENTARY: To give context to the exhibition, and with stills inserted in the catalogue, the Museum has produced a video documentary with interviews of the artists and views of Cuba. The documentary focuses on interviews with the artists which will be placed in the social context from which their work is drawn. The references of the artist will be demonstrated by cut-aways to the images of Cuba that they include in their work, thus presenting a picture of contemporary Cuba against which the work will make sense. The tape is bilingual, with character text at the bottom of the screen. The video can be used at each venue either on a monitor or projected as a living mural, and also can be used in classrooms, on local television stations, and excerpted for publicity.
PRINT PORTFOLIO: Eleven artists have each produced a print marketed to support the Museum Acquisition Fund. 35 portfolios are available for purchase.
COLLECTION FOCUS: Much of the work in the exhibition has been purchased for the permanent collection, making the ASU Art Museum a resource for contemporary Cuban art for other institutions in the future. This focus fits with the Museum's already significant holdings in Latin American, Latino, and contemporary art, and with its commitment to serve the broader field through its exhibitions, collections, publications, and programs.
This website document, including images and text, may not be reproduced, either mechanically or electronically, without permission in writing from the ASU Art Museum. ©1999, the artists, the writers, and the Regents of the State of Arizona.
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