The History and Impact of the Havana Biennale 1984 to the Present
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.
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