The History and Impact of the Havana Biennale 1984 to the Present
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Cultural Maps, Networks and Flows: The History and Impact of the Havana Biennale 1984 to the present by Miguel Leonardo Rojas-Sotelo MFA, Universidad de los Andes, 1995 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2004 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of History of Art and Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH History of Art and Architecture This dissertation was presented by Miguel Leonardo Rojas-Sotelo It was defended on January 23, 2009 and approved by Barbara McCloskey, Faculty, History of Art and Architecture Hermann Herlinghaus, Faculty, Hispanic Languages and Literatures Kirk Savage, Chair, History of Art and Architecture Advisor Terry Smith, Andrew Mellon Professor Contemporary Art and Theory, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Miguel Rojas-Sotelo 2009 Special thanks Okwui Enwezor, Academic Director, San Francisco Art Institute iii Cultural Maps, Networks and Flows: The History and Impact of the Havana Biennale 1984 to the present Miguel l. Rojas-Sotelo, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Since 1984 the Havana Biennale has been known as “the Tri-continental art event,” presenting artists from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It also has intensely debated the nature of recent and contemporary art from a Third World or Global South perspective. The Biennale is a product of Cuba’s fruition since the Revolution of 1959. The Wifredo Lam Center, created in 1983, has organized the Biennial since its inception. This dissertation proposes that at the heart of the Biennale has been an alternative cosmopolitanism (that became an existential internationalism during the “contemporary” moment) embraced by a group of local cultural agents, critics, philosophers, art historians, and also supported by a network of peers around the world. It examines the role Armando Hart Dávalos, Minister of Culture of Cuba (1976-1997), who played a key figure in the development of a solid cultural policy, one which produced the Havana Biennale as a cultural project based on an explicit “Third World” consciousness. It explores the role of critics and curators Gerardo Mosquera and Nelson Herrera Ysla, key members of the founding group of the Biennale. Subsequently, it examines how the work of Llilian Llanes, director of the Lam Center and of the Biennale (1983-1999), shaped the event in structural and conceptual terms. Finally, it examines the most recent developments and projections for the future. Using primary material, interviews, and field work research, the study focuses on the conceptual, contextual, and historical structure that supports the Biennale. It presents from several optics the views and world-view of the agents involved from the inside (curators and collaborators), as well as, from an art-world perspective through an account of the nine editions. Using the Havana Biennale as case study this work goes to disentangle and reveal the socio- political and intellectual debates taking place in the conformation of what is call today global art. In addition, recognizes the potentiality of alternative thinking and cultural subjectivity in the Global South. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE............................................................................................................................... XVII INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................... XIX PART ONE.................................................................................................................................... 1 1.0 ANOTHER STORY..................................................................................................... 2 1.1 THE HAVANA CONNECTION........................................................................ 2 1.2 ON THIRD WORLD CULTURE ...................................................................... 8 1.3 WRITING ANOTHER STORY....................................................................... 12 1.4 ON THE CUBAN SITUATION ....................................................................... 15 1.5 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 26 2.0 SITUATING THE HAVANA BIENNALE ............................................................. 29 2.1 IN THE HAZE OF THE SIXTIES .................................................................. 29 2.2 ON THE CONSTITUTION OF A DE-(POST) COLONIAL DISCOURSE IN THE MIDST OF A POSTMODERN ONE IN CUBA (1889-1983).......................... 33 2.2.1 Visual Arts and De/Postcolonial Discourse ................................................. 38 2.2.2 A New Face..................................................................................................... 45 2.2.3 A New Body.................................................................................................... 46 2.2.4 Out of the Cage (the Cuban response)......................................................... 51 2.3 IN CULTURAL TERMS .................................................................................. 54 v 2.3.1 Fluid Thought: Cultural criticism in Cuba at the time.............................. 55 2.3.2 Fluid Action: art exhibitions influence and impact.................................... 61 2.4 THE FIRST HAVANA BIENNALE................................................................ 66 2.5 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 71 PART TWO................................................................................................................................. 73 3.0 PORT/PIER – MAPS – ROUTES – NETWORKS................................................. 74 3.1 THE WIFREDO LAM CENTER .................................................................... 75 3.1.1 The Lam Center Organizational Model ...................................................... 78 3.2 TIME CAPSULES............................................................................................. 83 3.3 A PERSONAL ARCHEOLOGY OF THE LAM CENTER ......................... 84 3.3.1.1 Training and background .................................................................. 86 3.3.1.2 Organizational model and team-work .............................................. 91 3.4 THE WORK MODEL CURATOR-INVESTIGATOR-TRAVELER ......... 95 3.4.1 The Work Model and the Spirit of the Biennale....................................... 101 3.4.1.1 <1989> Rethinking models............................................................... 102 3.4.1.2 The Fourth Biennale, a breaking point........................................... 110 3.4.1.3 Research Journeys, “the world in us”............................................. 114 3.4.1.4 The Fifth Biennale, special period and maturity ........................... 119 3.4.1.5 New challenges and crisis, revision and regression........................ 124 3.4.1.6 New Generations and Proxy Wars .................................................. 125 3.5 UNPACKING THE BIENNALE HISTORY................................................ 129 4.0 ON THE CONCEPT OF (THIRD WORLD / GLOBAL SOUTH) CONTEMPORARY ART: THE HAVANA PERSPECTIVE.............................................. 137 vi 4.1.1 Third World Collapse, Third World Art Victory. The Global South. ... 143 4.2 ON THIRD WORLD CURATORS ............................................................... 147 4.2.1.1 The Cuban Curator .......................................................................... 150 4.3 THE ROLE OF THE ACADEMY: ART CRITICISM, THEORY, AND THE ARTIST.................................................................................................................... 157 4.3.1.1 Artistic practice and cultural theory............................................... 161 4.4 A GENDER DIMENSION?............................................................................ 167 4.5 ON NETWORKING ....................................................................................... 173 4.5.1 The Question of Solidarity.......................................................................... 176 4.6 THE BIENNALE AND CULTURAL TOURISM........................................ 182 4.7 ON CUBAN ARTISTS AND CUBAN ART.................................................. 199 PART THREE........................................................................................................................... 205 5.0 MAPPING THE WORLD....................................................................................... 206 5.1 THIRD WORLD ART .................................................................................... 211 5.2 ON CARIBBEAN ART................................................................................... 224 5.3 ON MODERNITY, TRADITION, AND CONTEMPORARY ART.......... 237 5.4 COLONIALISM AND NEO-COLONIALISM............................................ 259 5.5 MULTIPLE REALITIES ............................................................................... 273 5.5.1 Exodus, Boats, and Boat-People (balsas and balseros)............................. 281 5.6 ON MEMORY AND RUINS .......................................................................... 294 5.6.1 Cuban Presence and Alternative Inner-worlds ........................................ 308 5.7 OPEN CONTEMPORARY ART AND THE POST-PRODUCTION DEVIATION: COMMUNITY, TECHNOLOGY, COMMUNICATION .................. 315 vii 5.8 ART WITHIN LIFE.......................................................................................