“None of the Art Stuff Makes Sense Anymore”: An Interview with Luis Camnitzer

Weiss and Camnitzer discuss his ideas about the transformative potential of art in education; his experiences in and thoughts about Cuba and Cuban art; his “Uruguayan Torture” series of prints, and his thoughts about productive anarchy.

Vigía Iconography and the Construction of a Cuban Identity

Ediciones Vigia’s chief designer, Rolando Estévez Jordán, created his own artistic language by adopting and adapting iconography from a variety of traditions that span the vanguardia and New Art movements in Cuban art to ancient Greece statuary, medieval manuscripts, and modernist works of Western art. This chapter considers how Vigía created its own vision of twentieth-century Cuban history and contemporary Cuban identity through these allusions as well as the material designs of the books and the literature published within them.

“El Bloqueo” e a 3ª Bienal de Havana (1989)

ResumoMeu texto tem por objetivo discutir a relevância geopolítica da 3ª Bienal de Havana na história das exposições do século XX e a impressão causada por algumas das obras ali expostas, com destaque para os artistas da chamada nova arte cubana e, em especial, Tonel e sua obra “El Bloqueo”. Visa ainda refletir sobre a repercussão desta mostra nas últimas décadas, a partir de comentários de artistas e de críticos envolvidos com o evento. Por fim, coloca em debate o possível impacto da Bienal de Havana na cena brasileira dos anos 1990.Abstract My paper will call attention to the geopolitical relevance of the 3rd Havana Biennial in the history of the 20th century exhibitions and to the impression caused by some of the artworks exhibited there, focusing on the artists of the so-called new Cuban art and, in particular, Tonel and his El Bloqueo. It also aims to reflect on the repercussion of this exhibition in recent decades, based on comments from artists and critics involved with the event. Lastly, it discusses the possible impact of the Havana Biennial on the Brazilian artistic scene of the 1990s.

The Cuban Avant-Garde and the International Art Community

Art collector Ramón Cernuda discusses how Cuban art was consolidated during the first half of the twentieth century, especially after the emergence of two generations of modern artists that are now considered the core of the vanguardia (also known as the Havana School). Cernuda notes that the international art market increasingly valued the work of Cuban artists such as Amelia Peláez, Víctor Manuel García, René Portocarrero, and Wifredo Lam. These artists appeared in numerous individual and collective exhibitions in major museums and private galleries, as well as in specialized art magazines and books. As Cernuda underlines, Cuban vanguardia painters reached a broad audience with Alfred Barr Jr.’s 1944 exhibition, Modern Cuban Painters, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Ironically, the wide success of Cuban artists abroad led Cuban collectors to pay attention to them.

Picturing Cuba

This book delves into several defining moments of Cuba’s artistic evolution from a multidisciplinary perspective, including art history, architecture, photography, history, literary criticism, and cultural studies. Situating Cuban art within a wider social and historical context, fifteen prominent scholars and collectors scrutinize the enduring links between Cuban art and cultural identity. Covering the main periods in Cuban art (the colonial, republican, and postrevolutionary phases, as well as the contemporary diaspora), the contributors identify both the constant and changing elements and symbols in the visual representation of Cuba’s national identity. The essays collected in this volume provide insightful information and interpretation on the historical trajectory of Cuban and Cuban-American art. From colonial engravers to contemporary photographers, several generations of Cuban artists have been fascinated—perhaps even obsessed—with picturing Cuba’s landscapes, architecture, people, and customs. Each generation of artists focused on various tropes of Cuban identity, whether it was the tropical environment, the lights and colors of the island, certain human types, the fusion of European and African traditions, or the uprootedness produced by exile and resettlement in another country. Even when artists shed the attempt to represent their subject matter realistically, they sought to contribute to a longstanding national tradition in dialogue with a broader international scenario. The cumulative result of more than three centuries of Cuban art is a kaleidoscopic view of the island’s nature, population, culture, and history.

Theatricality in the Art of the Cuban Diaspora

Art critic and collector Ricardo Pau-Llosa proposes that certain “tropes of identity”—common metaphors inherited from previous generations of modern Cuban artists—continue to shape the work of contemporary Cuban-American artists. Pau-Llosa underlines the trope of theatricality as a form of representing “the poetics of shelter (from time, history, persecution, and other forces).” The early work in exile of Mario Carreño and Cundo Bermúdez launched a diasporic sensibility in Cuban art that still resonates in the more recent work of Emilio Sánchez, María Brito, and José Bedia. From this perspective, theatricality ties together several generations of Cuban modern artists and those who left the island after 1959.

Women Not Successful Here

Art historian Carol Damian laments the scarcity of Cuban women artists from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Damian explains that this trend was based on both women’s traditional exclusion from art academies and exhibition circuits and difficulties in traveling abroad and establishing their own studios. Yet she documents the work of eight major women artists during the first half of the twentieth century in Cuba, including Mirta Cerra and Gina Pellón. Most of these artists were associated with the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana, participated in numerous exhibitions, and received critical acclaim during their lifetime. However, most critics now neglect them—except for Amelia Peláez—in favor of the canonized male leaders of the Cuban vanguardia. Damian concludes with a call for further research and reflection on the careers of lesser-known female figures and their contributions to Cuban art before and after the country’s independence in 1902.

Cuban Art in the Diaspora

Literary and art critic Andrea O’Reilly Herrera analyzes an itinerant art exhibition known as CAFÉ (Cuban American Foremost Exhibitions), curated by Leandro Soto (b. 1956) since 2001. O’Reilly Herrera argues that the artists participating in this exhibition raise many of the same issues as earlier vanguardia artists in Cuba, including the significance of the island’s African and Indigenous roots, landscape, and architecture, although they do not claim to represent the entire Cuban diaspora. Still, O’Reilly Herrera’s analysis of the artworks of several cafeteros, such as Soto, José Bedia, and Raúl Villarreal, identifies recurrent themes and common concerns, especially with displacement and transculturation that, in the end, “allude to the all-embracing nature of Cuban culture itself.”