Anthropology Now

ISSN: 1942-8200 (Print) 1949-2901 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uann20

Reflections on the Havana Biennial at Matanzas (2019)

Iftikhar Dadi

To cite this article: Iftikhar Dadi (2019) Reflections on the Havana Biennial at Matanzas (2019), Anthropology Now, 11:3, 74-81, DOI: 10.1080/19428200.2019.1747889 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2019.1747889

Published online: 10 Jun 2020.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=uann20 books and arts The Havana Biennial has a unique trajec- tory. It started during the reign of Fidel Castro, as one of the many ambitious international Reflections on the Havana platforms by which Cuba sought to establish itself during the Cold War and under U.S. Biennial at Matanzas (2019) sanctions. In particular, the Second Havana Biennial (1986) and the Third Havana Bien- Iftikhar Dadi nial (1989) have been analyzed in recent scholarship as landmark events. The Havana Biennial is now seen as among the first of the This article is a personal observation of my “Biennials of the South” in the developing experience participating as an artist in the world. By creating links with other regions 2019 Havana Biennial (“Bienal de La Ha- of the Global South, it sought to counter the bana”) in the city of Matanzas, Cuba. As an dominance of the canonical, highly capital- artist, I work in collaboration with Elizabeth ized Western art world. From this perspec- Dadi.1 tive, the Havana Biennial remains a landmark The Havana Biennial is run by the Centro platform in the increasingly crowded bien- de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, based nial calendar of the international art world, in Havana, named after the celebrated Cuban due to its originary association with values artist Wifredo Lam (1902–1982, of Afro-Chi- of nonalignment and its anticapitalist ethos.2 nese background). Its staff is appointed by Beginning in 1989 with the collapse of the Cuban government. For the 2019 instal- the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its major patron. lation, its authorities expanded the ambit of Along with continued sanctions by the United the Havana Biennial to include other cities States, this has taken its toll on the lives of as independent sites. We were invited to par- Cubans. In the past two decades, Cuba has ticipate in the Havana Biennial at Matanzas, struggled with infrastructural development a 90-minute drive from Havana. and maintenance, lack of provision of basic Biennials are large-scale, temporary inter- facilities and obstructed links with the rest of national art exhibitions held every two years. the world. American sanctions, which were Associated specifically with cities, they have beginning to relax toward the end of the proliferated across the world during the past Obama administration, have again hardened 30 years. The Venice Biennale, founded under President Trump. Travel to Cuba by in 1895, is the oldest, followed by the São U.S. citizens had become easier during the Paulo Art Biennial in 1951. Even though the Obama era, was still possible in April 2019 Havana Biennial started much later, in 1984, provided that the travel was intended for it is well established compared to many other education, research and cultural exchange, biennials. And there are many with which to not for tourism. compare it, given the ceaseless proliferation, The Havana Biennial at Matanzas was which has resulted in more than 200 bienni- mounted under these challenging condi- als across the world. tions. During my two trips to Matanzas, in

74 anthropology Volume 11 • Number 3 • December 2019

Anthropology Now, 11:74–81, 2019 • Copyright © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1942-8200 print / 1949-2901 online • https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2019.1747889 January and April 2019, I saw stores with create an original sound composition based bare shelves or a limited number of every- on Matanzas’s Santeria heritage. day commodities. The internet is strictly con- The lead curator for the Matanzas exhibi- trolled in Cuba. In Matanzas, to my knowl- tion was the internationally recognized Afro- edge, it was available only in two sites near Cuban artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons. the city center. One had to purchase cards Born in Matanzas in 1959, Campos-Pons has with codes that allowed up to five hours of lived in the United States for many years. Her access, but the process was cumbersome; own installation-based artwork incorporates one had to enter the codes manually to log sculpture, photography, performance and in each time. Shipping art to Cuba from the moving-image media to address the legacy of United States is complicated because of slavery in Cuba and the Caribbean. Campos- sanctions, compounded by the bureaucratic Pons has also been an influential professor of customs procedures at the Cuban end. It was art practice, having taught at a number of art difficult and expensive to find tools and sup- schools in the United States. Many of her for- plies. There was also a lack of local expertise mer students from diverse backgrounds have in effectively promoting and communicat- developed their own careers and are counted ing about the exhibitions, sites and events. among important international artists. Some Guidebooks, handouts, site plans and events of them participated in the Matanzas exhi- calendars were unavailable or not easily bition, along with other internationally rec- accessible. ognized artists from North America, Latin Historically, Matanzas has been sur- America, Africa and Europe. The U.S.-based rounded by large sugar plantations that have artists included prominent African Ameri- formed the backbone of the island’s econ- cans: conceptual artist David Hammons; omy, and a large percentage of the city’s sculptor Melvin Edwards, who references population is of African descent. Partly as a motifs associated with slavery; photographer consequence of the policies adopted by the and conceptual artist Carrie Mae Weems; Cuban Revolution from 1960 onward, the and painter and printmaker Julie Mehretu, mix of the residents in Matanzas is remark- who is Ethiopian American. able. Indeed, it is difficult to discern a A much smaller city than Havana, Matan- dominant majority. Fellow artists from Mex- zas also has a less developed infrastructure ico, Colombia and other Latin American for supporting large exhibitions. The curato- regions also remarked on the much greater rial team at Matanzas fortunately included and more continuous ethnic mix as com- three highly experienced international schol- pared with other Latin American regions. ars, curators and writers: Salah Hassan, pro- In Cuba, African belief systems have also fessor of Africana Studies and History of Art persisted to a greater degree than in many at Cornell University and curator of numer- other regions in the Americas. Matanzas ous exhibition on African and African dias- has an important place in the development pora art; Selene Wendt, a freelance curator of Afro-Cuban music. One of the participat- and writer based in Norway and founder of ing artists worked with local musicians to The Global Art Project, who has showcased

Iftikhar Dadi Reflections on the Havana Biennial 75 many artists from the Caribbean and Latin platforms also function as key spaces for dia- America; and New York–based Octavio Zaya, log and civic engagement, especially when a writer and curator who has been active in an exhibition is thoughtfully conceived with numerous international initiatives, including inclusive programs for discussion and out- Documenta 11 (2002), and the Johannes- reach that can incorporate ever-larger and burg biennales (1995 and 1997). These cura- more diverse publics in every subsequent tors also attracted many international visi- manifestation. tors to Matanzas. Significantly, the opening Many visitors from the art world were was attended by numerous emerging artists drawn by the promise of visiting Cuba, still and museum professionals from the United viewed through the heroic legacy of the States, primarily of African American back- Cuban Revolution and seen as one of the last ground, who were drawn to the lead curator’s bastions of anticapitalism in a world domi- focus on addressing legacies of slavery and nated by neoliberalism. The Cuban economy racialization in the Americas. The program of remains highly regulated and under central discussions and talks organized by Campos- control. There are growing, but still very lim- Pons during the opening days focused on ited, arenas for private entrepreneurship, seen these topics. in the small-scale shops and makeshift ven- Part of the motivation for hosting the tures lining one of the main streets in central Havana Biennial in Matanzas was to develop Matanzas. These undertakings consisted of its cultural infrastructure and to build capac- individuals selling handmade clothing, crafts ity in the city for mounting large-scale exhibi- and toys, greeting cards, kitchen utensils and tions, which in turn might bring international basic plumbing and hardware fixtures, as attention to the city, as the curator explained well as small booths for making clothing and in conversations. The biennial was fully sup- repairing cell phones and watches. ported by city authorities. This is normally This snapshot of small enterprise, how- the case for many of the emerging biennials ever, belies the invisible, imaginative creativ- of the South, which are also premised on the ity of the informal economy of Cuba. Even ambition of placing the city on the interna- though the economy has been under central tional stage as a site of significant cultural control for decades, the presence of a bewil- activities. Emerging biennial projects that dering variety of vehicles on the street and promote culture are thus in tension with eco- their longevity is a testament to sophisticated nomic imperatives that are premised on ideas informal knowledge and skills, a realm of of “creative cities” and “creative economies” expertise that needs more attention. The pres- that are intended to attract transnational ence in the informal markets of plastic and capital investment and tourism. These proj- metal objects that appear to have been made ects are caught between neoliberal celebra- in private workshops is further evidence of tions of entrepreneurship and long-standing this. concerns regarding the promotion of local Matanzas’s built form is layered and creativity and products. Nevertheless, criti- another marker of its informal economy. A cal observers have noted that these biannual large stock of the older, stately colonial-era

76 anthropology Volume 11 • Number 3 • December 2019 buildings and courtyard houses remains, but small scale. They exemplify a kind of bot- many people live in houses and buildings tom-up entrepreneurial capitalism and pro- constructed since the Revolution. Unlike vide a different picture of life in the contem- buildings in other communist nations, the porary urban Global South than accounts newer housing stock in Matanzas consists of globalization that emphasize state with- not so much of massive centralized apart- drawal from development, the intrusions of ment blocks but of small makeshift buildings transnational capitalism and the fantasies of on small lots. The character of much of this neoliberal life in upscale gated communi- construction, which appears to have been ties. While these latter accounts are essen- erected by individuals without relying on for- tial in understanding contemporary predic- mal architectural planning and using what- aments, they do not sufficiently attend to ever materials available, is very reminiscent how ordinary people negotiate unplanned of informal housing in the developing world. and uncertain conditions and strive to From the microcosm of Matanzas, partici- shape their lives and work under the con- pation in the Havana Biennial thus presented straints and possibilities of informality. interesting scenarios and possibilities to us as In our art practice, we have become artists. During my first visit in January 2019, increasingly interested in the productive I spent several days in Matanzas, getting a capacities of everyday life. Our Matanzas sense of the city and thinking about a proj- project is titled “Cosmos.” The term bears ect Elizabeth and I could propose that would multiple resonances. On one hand, it refers be meaningful with regard to our ongoing to celestial bodies and the universe, and met- artistic work but also engage with Matanzas aphorically to a constellation of possibilities. and Cuba in a way that was substantive and Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet Union had respectful. I also spent a few days in Havana, led to a Cuban cosmonaut’s inclusion in the where I visited collections at the National Soviet space program, celebrated in a framed Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of the newspaper at a restaurant in Havana. Cos- Revolution and looked at architecture and mos also is a brand name we came across street life. After returning to Cornell Uni- in Lahore in a part of the city dedicated to versity and conducting more research on the production and sale of locally made Cuba in February and March, we proposed machinery. We also came across revolu- a project that sought to investigate informal- tionary murals in Havana that celebrate the ity in Cuba in relation to developments in assemblage of machines working in concert the Global South, which is a long-standing with labor toward a developmental process theme in our artistic work. of world-making. Some of our previous investigations have “Cosmos” was presented as a site-spe- focused on South Asia cities as centers of cific installation in one of the main exhibi- production of machinery and everyday tion sites in Matanzas, the Palace of Justice, objects of seemingly little value. Many of a stately building that had previously served these initiatives are local, with branding as the courthouse. Installed in a large rectan- and advertising that is either missing or of gular chamber with high ceilings, the work

Iftikhar Dadi Reflections on the Havana Biennial 77 Figure 1. “Cosmos” newspaper.

78 anthropology Volume 11 • Number 3 • December 2019 Figure 2. Mural Havana.

Figure 3. Palace of Justice Matanzas. consisted of two components. An illuminated hand-painted signage in Lahore and Mum- sign reminiscent of a mythical brand name bai, creating a confluence of associations Cosmos served to anchor the installation, and motifs and the resonance between the around which were placed multiple images title “Cosmos” as a quasi-brand and the gal- of machines, framed in ornate borders remi- axy of machinery emanating from it. niscent of motifs from colonial architecture. Although drawn from two geographically These images were drawn from commercial separate sites in Cuba and South Asia, these

Iftikhar Dadi Reflections on the Havana Biennial 79 references nevertheless serve to draw atten- state, of international agencies and of trans- tion to overlapped and shared experiences national capitalism, but also in the realm among them — all now part of the Global South, where the question of development is tiered and multifaceted at the levels of the

Figure 6. “Cosmos” installation, close-up.

Figure 4. “Cosmos” installation.

Figure 5. “Cosmos” installation, close-up. Figure 7. Matanzas announcement.

80 anthropology Volume 11 • Number 3 • December 2019 of informality, where it is perhaps the most they are engaging with is necessarily fragmen- invisible. Our concept note for the “Cosmos” tary. However, a key modality in contemporary project summarizes these concerns: art is precisely premised upon illuminating a larger sense of history and experience from frag- mentary encounters. The risks of mistranslation “Cosmos” examines world-making in de- and illegibility are always present in the nature veloping societies by foregrounding their of this engagement. rich urban materiality and their diverse pro- 2. On the importance of the Third Havana Bi- ductive capacities. It focuses on practices ennial (1989), see Making Art Global (Part 1): of fabrication, especially the significance of The Third Havana Biennial 1989 (London: Afterall machines that enable amplified prosthetic Books, 2011). For a broad and multifaceted account abilities even in relatively impoverished of the rise of biennials globally, including a discus- situations. Tools shape streetscapes and sion of the Second Havana Biennial (1986), see architectures, and forge everyday objects Charles Green and Anthony Gardner, Biennials, Tri- that emerge and circulate locally, even as ennials, and Documenta: The Exhibitions That Cre- all this remains largely invisible to the out- ated Contemporary Art (Malden, MA: Wiley Black- side. Their presence is vital to widespread, well, 2016). For a historical account of Matanzas, dispersed, and ongoing informal transfor- see Miguel A Bretos, Matanzas: The Cuba Nobody mations. “Cosmos” addresses imbricated Knows (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, processes of industrial and artisanal produc- 2010). For more images of the “Cosmos” installa- tion, by bringing comparative materials and tion, visit www.dadiart.net/cosmos. themes from South Asia in a conversation with the Cuban context. The project thus situates parallel developments from across Iftikhar Dadi and Elizabeth Dadi have collabo- the Global South. Above all, “Cosmos” rated in their art practice for 20 years. Their work emblematizes creativity that is dispersed investigates memory, borders and identity in con- throughout the fabric of these societies. temporary globalization; the productive capaci- ties of urban informalities in the Global South; and the mass culture of postindustrial societies. Notes Elizabeth Dadi is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute. Iftikhar Dadi is an associate profes- 1. I wish to underscore that I am claiming sor in Cornell’s Department of History of Art. He neither ethnographic authority or expertise nor is the author of Modernism and the Art of Mus- systematic participant-observation as a trained lim South Asia (2010) and the edited monograph anthropologist. Instead this account is perhaps Anwar Jalal Shemza (2015). He has coedited Lines representative of the challenges faced by many of Control: Partition as a Productive Space (2012) artists today when they participate in large-scale international site-specific exhibitions. Typically, and Unpacking Europe: Towards a Critical Reading artists of diverse backgrounds converge on the (2001). He has been a recipient of grants from the exhibition site for a very short time. Even if they Andy Warhol Foundation For the Visual Arts and undertake prior research trips before the exhibi- the Getty Foundation. He received his Ph.D. from tion opening, their understanding of the place Cornell University.

Iftikhar Dadi Reflections on the Havana Biennial 81