VISUAL ARTS CUBA SQUARED Rachel Valdés Camejo’s Cubo Azul (Blue Cube- Immersion) is part of the Detrás Del Muro (Behind the Wall) collective arts project at the 2015 Havana Biennial.

THE CUBAN ART MARKET—FUELED BY SCORES OF TALENTED NEWCOMERS— HAS NEVER BEEN HOTTER By elizabeth Cerejido

18 WINTER/SPRING 2016 elevate cuba 19 VISUAL ARTS

changing dynamic between Cubans The artists who emerged in the age, making a human connection that on either side of the Florida Straits, suddenly expanding Cuban art world of contradicted all the horror stories I’d especially as it relates to artists. The the ’90s were very different from their heard about the island. That visit divided grassroots rapprochement that has predecessors. “The ’80s generation,” my life into “before” and “after.” Since long been in the making is now starting as they are known, confronted a very then, I have traveled frequently to Cuba, to change perceptions of Cuban art. different Cuba. Convinced that art could which has shaped my focus as a curator. I While the international market has be an instrument for social change, now have my own memories of the place been enamored of work by Cuban-based many of them created confrontational my parents left behind. artists since at least the 1990s, it has been work that pushed political and aesthetic Last May, I launched Dialogues less interested in the messier politics and boundaries that provoked the state. In Cuban Art, a multi-year exchange more complicated personal narratives By the end of the decade, with their program that brought a group of Cuban- of Cuban artists in the diaspora. Miami exhibits being arbitrarily censored and American artists from Miami on their and Havana have been considered cancelled, most had little choice but to first visit to Cuba. They included Leyden antagonistic spheres. That perception, leave. Many of these artists now live and Rodríguez-Casanova, Bert Rodríguez, too, is changing rapidly. Increasingly, the work in Miami, including Rubén Torres- Antonia Wright, Ruben Millares, Manny two cities are like two facets of an artistic Llorca, José Bedia, Glexis Novoa and Ana Prieres, Juana Valdes and Marcos Valella. identity expanding across the 90-mile Albertina Delgado. Our days were packed with visits to artist divide—this time it feels different. The generation that followed weren’t studios, galleries, museums and other only able to buy, sell and interact with cultural venues. We not only saw the work The Special Period the art world to a degree that Cuban of artists from different generations, but The contemporary Cuban art market artists had never enjoyed before, they new trends and practices. For example, began to emerge in the early 1990s. This had also learned a lesson about how to most of the artists received us not in their was the Special Period in Times of Peace, function on the island. Since the ’90s, studios, but in homes or apartments that the official name for the harsh economic Cuban artists have veiled critical political they use as personal showrooms. The few months ago, I had dinner with Havana- crisis that Cuba endured after the fall of commentary behind visual codes that strategy is a telling indication of how based artist Glenda León at an out-of-the- the Soviet Union, the island’s principal appear humorous and cynical on the artists are accommodating the growing way Argentine restaurant in Miami’s Little benefactor. However, the strategies surface but have a hidden meaning. number of international collectors, Haiti neighborhood. A couple of weeks Cuba adopted to deal with the situation Fernando Rodríguez, for instance, has scholars, curators and exchange groups earlier, I had also dined with León, but at had a dramatic effect on culture. The created an alter ego, Francisco de la Cal, visiting the island. her refurbished apartment in Havana, in government opened a humble Cuban Not far from the apartment where I Aone of a handful of modern high-rises in up the country to who went blind in had dinner with León, she met us at her other changes in the Cuban art world’s BRAVE ART Visual artist Glexis Novoa the once affluent neighborhood of Vedado. tourism and legalized the early years of the second home, where each room featured relationship to the market and the (TOP); Glenda León’s Summer Dream These may not sound like noteworthy possession of foreign Revolution, and who a different body of her work. The house diaspora. Detrás Del Muro is a project installation invites members of the public

events, but they reveal new ways that currency, including “uses” Rodríguez to ) was an eclectic mixture of architectural in this year’s Biennial featuring public to swim the symbolic divide between

DREAM Cuba and the US. Cuban artists live, work and move in the the US dollar. For express his opinions styles typical of Vedado, with Colonial, work by artists from Cuba and abroad, world today, realities that artists haven’t artists, this meant on their country. Art Deco and contemporary elements. displayed along Havana’s famous SUMMER ( N

experienced since Castro’s Revolution that they could sell Ó Wilfredo Prieto, a conceptual artist Malecón, a broad coastal esplanade art museum). Titled Sueño De Verano LE took over the island in 1959. their work directly Cuba’s and contemporary of León’s who has a and seawall. It’s wildly popular and its (El Horizonte Es Una Ilusión)—or, Summer

For one thing, the policy changes to foreign collectors, ‘Now’ Moment LENDA successful career abroad, met us at an visibility makes it one of the event’s Dream (The Horizon Is An Illusion)—it’s

by both the Castro government and curators and Long before ); G apartment with a similar setup. Prieto’s main attractions. This year, project comprised of blown-up maps of Miami

the Obama administration have made museum directors the official NOVOA space merged stark minimalism with old- founder and organizer Juanito Delgado and Havana placed on either side of a it significantly easier for Cuban artists who began to flock rapprochement world ruin, sleek appliances contrasting also invited artists from the diaspora to swimming pool. Members of the public and cultural actors to travel—and to the island by the PILING ON With Secreter, another between Cuba and with rough walls whose crumbling participate. They included Glexis Novoa complete León’s Dream by diving into the Detrás Del Muro installation, artist even live—abroad, particularly to the mid 1990s as part of the US began a year structure was deliberately exposed. The and Florencio Gelabert, who were born pool in a symbolic crossing of the divide Lina Leal piles home furniture upon

US, and, most significantly, to Miami. Cuba’s burgeoning ago, I had embarked ( ROQUE ADALBERTO commingling of sophisticated design and in Cuba but have long lived in Miami. between Cuba and the US.

itself to address issues of privacy, ); Additionally, the steadily growing cultural tourism. pain and domestic violence. on my own journey dilapidated buildings has romantic appeal Increasingly, both are working in the city Next year, the second part of Dialogues SECRETER

demand for Cuban art from the global art The establishment of reconciliation. I , to foreigners drawn to Havana’s exotic they once fled; Novoa even has a studio In Cuban Art will see Cuban artists, market has made a profound difference of The Havana Biennial Art Exhibition left the island as a baby, and my mother decay. How could it not? in his mother’s home in Havana. curators and scholars visiting Miami. SPREAD in how artists live and work. The ability helped introduce the international brought me back once, when I was nine, I had a chance to have lunch with Like León’s installation and its journey

PREVIOUS ó to sell their work at international rates art world to contemporary Cuban art. to meet my father, who was in prison. ( New Directions Le n in Miami, as she was scouting for from Havana to Miami, the visitors allows them to live a privileged lifestyle Carlos Garaicoa, Los Carpinteros, Tania Then, in 2002, I participated in an intense Our group’s visit last May coincided a permanent locale for a site-specific represent not only the paths to and from relative to Cuban standards. Bruguera and Esterio Segura were among weeklong exchange program in Havana. It with the 12th Havana Biennial. However, installation purchased in Cuba by the the island being forged by Cubans here Finally, León’s presence in Miami and the first to cross over to the international was an enormously emotional experience it functioned mostly as a backdrop wealthy Cuban-American developer Jorge and there, but a new direction for Cuban

mine in Havana highlight the rapidly market, primarily to the US. to meet and bond with Cubans my own DELGADO JUANITO that framed our visit and hinted at M. Pérez (whose name is on Miami’s main art beyond nation and diaspora.

20 WINTER/SPRING 2016 elevate cuba 21 DANCERS FROM THE DANCE DANCE Showroom, by DanzAbierta’s Susana Pous, is a conceptual study of the inner lives of Cuba’s cabaret dancers that turns clichés inside out. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE HIPS WHEN CUBANS START TO DANCE (THANK GOODNESS) By Jordan Levin

So Cubans have tremendous, life created something of a paradox for insatiable, natural physical talent. I was Cuban dance. Cuban dance is respected in a Miami theater in 2008, watching as an art form; the island has ballet and Taras Domitro, who’d just defected from folkloric companies, and, since the ’90s, the National Ballet of Cuba, soar in a a number of modern and even Spanish grand jeté when, hovering mid-leap, he troupes. But its choreographic and creative defied physics and just went up, as if achievements don’t match its physical on an invisible jet blast. My mouth and ability. Cuban modern dance has long those of several other dance critics next been an odd mix of old-fashioned Graham to me dropped open simultaneously, as technique (Suárez studied with Martha we turned to one another, asking “Did Graham in New York City) and Afro- you see that?! Did that just happen?” Cuban movement. Merce Cunningham, Professional dance in Cuba essentially postmodernism, pretty much the whole dates from the Revolution. That’s evolution in dance in the last half-century when Alicia Alonso began receiving simply passed Cuba by. It’s not hard to the state support that enabled her to understand why. Isolation affects dance turn the National Ballet into one of the more than other art forms; music and island’s key cultural institutions. It’s also visual images travel far more easily than the when Ramiro Guerra Suárez founded teachers, choreographers, performances Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, the and interaction that transform dancing. country’s first modern dance troupe. That’s all starting to change. Malpaso, The training of talented children in state a new company started by former Danza carry some great dance conservatories and the elevation of Afro- Contemporanea members Osnel Delgado moments in my memory—Gelsey folkloric and Santería ritual dance into and Dailedys Carrazana González (with Kirkland in Giselle, Stephen Petronio in respected genres with their own rigorous Fernando Saez), has worked with major Tr i s h a B r o w n’s Set And Reset, Crazy Legs techniques also happened after 1959. choreographers Ronald K. Brown and spinning at the Roxy and an ordinary (Just an aside here: Afro-Cuban dance Trey McIntyre, while Delgado’s own woman dancing in a Havana nightclub, is hard. Just try to follow in the abruptly fluid, kinetically intense and layered her body and limbs a dizzying choreography has been Inexus of gracefully swirling praised in the company’s S-curves, from her slim fingers the whole evolution in increasingly frequent to her close-cropped head, dance in the last half- US tours. Showroom, by from her spiraling shoulders to century simply passed Cuba DanzAbierta’s Susana Pous, her confidently slashing legs, a by. Isolation affects dance is conceptual dance theater proud, perfect whirl of motion. based on the conflicted inner That Cubans often dance more than other art forms. life of cabaret dancers. as naturally as they walk is “Part of our mission is to a cliché, but it remains true. Dancing is sharp, indecipherable—to non-Cuban be exposed to American audiences who as innate to Cubans as is music. More ears—rhythms of rumba. I danced are really demanding,” says Malpaso so, in a way. Almost all Cubans dance, professionally in New York City in my 20s executive director and third cofounder albeit primarily in social or Afro-spiritual under the best ballet and modern teachers Fernando Saez. “Because if you’re celebrations. As many good musicians as in Manhattan. But when I took an Afro- not challenged enough, it can be like there are in Cuba, the people on the dance Cuban dance class in Miami, basic moves, performing for a mirror.” floor will always outnumber those onstage. like steadily shimmying my shoulders Cuban dancers’ joyful physicality, the way Thank the tropical humidity. And the while my feet hit a syncopated three in life spills out of their bodies, already makes island’s African inheritance, where dancing between, had me totally flummoxed.) them something to see. If they start to spin and drumming, movement and rhythm, are But the rapid institutionalization of off ideas the way they spin off moves, now,

a basic response to and expression of living. what had been primarily a natural part of that would really be something. CASEY STOLL

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