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Cuba libre | page 2 while the Miami Cuban community gears up for some imaginary Götterdämmerung, conjuring an idyllic big-bang when the whole country will be up for grabs and it will all land back in their hands, 1 million tourists visited Cuba last year, European companies are on a hotel-opening jag and joint operating agreements are being signed weekly with European, Canadian, Mexican and Brazilian companies on mineral, sugar, coffee and hydroelectric power deals. American travel companies are lathering at the prospect of adding another spot on the beachside-hotel-daiquiri circuit. Royal Caribbean cruises out of Miami has reportedly reserved dock space near here for its lumbering liners, anticipating the moment that everyone now assumes is inevitable, what is referred to in coded terms as D.C. -- despues Castro (after Castro). The inevitable, however, has not yet arrived, and in the meantime I am almost knocked over by a man on a bicycle, careening along the Malecon with a huge cake balanced precariously in a box atop one raised arm. The cake, in one of those curious twists of Cuban-style socialism, is made available for subsidized purchase to each citizen on his or her birthday -- the single indulgence in the otherwise rigidly parsimonious menu of items available at the neighborhood tiendas, which parcel out rice, beans, soap and toothpaste in return for ration coupons and a pittance of pesos each month. The rest of the year, cakes are 10 times as expensive at government bakeries, or, of course, can be obtained for dollars on the thriving black market -- as can virtually anything else, from vegetables to VCRs. Those very same dollars that could have incurred a prison sentence just five years ago now grease the wheels of everything in Cuba, making it possible to live a life above the subsistence level guaranteed by the country's subsidized housing and food rationing. Suspended between the certainties of the Revolution, the myths of the pre-revolutionary past and the wrenching realities of economic change, Cuba is being pushed into a dual economy, with dollars and pesos coexisting in parallel universes that rarely intersect. I sat at a restaurant near the University of Havana, put $15 (U.S.) on the table for a simple lunch of sandwiches for five, and winced as our Cuban driver commented that this pile of small bills was more than most doctors earn in a month. So, side by side, the cruise ships come, and the birthday cakes are delivered by bike messengers. Cuba may be lacking in essentials, but it is a virtual factory of ironies. There is the classic art deco headquarters of General Motors -- whose presence is still felt in the abundance of 40-year-old automobiles that prowl the streets, small triumphs of necessity -- now the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then there are, in a most startling appearance, the black-and-white photographs of the legendary mobsters Meyer Lansky and Santos Traficante, once implicated in a CIA plot to kill Castro, now on display at the mahogany-paneled bar of the stately, and thoroughly refurbished, Hotel Nacional, the very same place where they used to revel in Havana's wanton delights before 1959. You can go nowhere in Havana without the ghosts of the past over your shoulder. The Russian Embassy looms without subtlety over the soft angles of Havana's rooftops like an upturned wrench. Natives refer unfondly to this 15-story social realist protrusion as Excalibur -- "driven into the heart of the country like Arthur's sword," as one explained to me. The Russians were always a strange fit here, their Slavic stiffness and ideological purities never quite at home in the sensual effervescence of Cuban culture. Though every Cuban child was forced to learn Russian in school, they also had a name for the Russians: los bollos (bowling pins). Arturo, a student in history at the University of Havana, told me why: "Because they only like one position, either standing up or laying down. We in Cuba like all those positions in between." But there are also the far more subtle and infinitely more resonant memories of those left behind by the many tens of thousands of people who have fled the island to Miami and other parts, leaving an imprint of unimaginable loss for those who remain, whether they are supporters of the Revolution or not. I joined a Cuban-American friend, Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte, returning to the island for the first time since leaving with his family at the age of 7, as he revisited a cousin he hadn't seen in almost 30 years. Alexis, 35, is a successful photographer in New York, working for leading New York and European magazines; a meticulous dresser, he wears neat khakis and a bright kerchief wound perfectly around his neck. His cousin, a strong, stout man of 37, looked 10 years older and was working as a baker. His bakery, located in the working-class district of Marinao, produces nothing but small, hard rolls, one of which is allotted daily to each Cuban with a ration coupon. We entered the bakery, a dark, filthy room in the back of a garage. The huge oven was coated in soot; flies hovered above the dough; in the dim light, it felt like the back room of a car mechanic's shop. Alexis' cousin was there, in an apron, dusted with flour from head to toe. And the look in his eye upon their meeting, of gratitude, of embarrassment at his own standing, of the reality of the strange wheels of fortune that have led their lives in such vastly different directions, has lingered like a cloud as I continue to discover the more exuberant sides of Cuba's cultural life.
It is the overarching theme of, simply, "The Individual and Memory" that is at the core of the Havana Biennal, a show of art from Cuba, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America that has taken over the city this May. The Biennal is everywhere: in public plazas, in private galleries that have sprung up in artist's apartments and, most notably, in two old Spanish forts that overlook the city, La Cabana and El Morro. If the most resonating impact of popular culture upon Eastern Europe's sequence of "velvet revolutions" was rock 'n' roll -- who can forget the legions of East Germans poised on the other side of the Wall listening to David Bowie and other rockers playing in West Berlin? -- then in Cuba, it's art, which is flourishing, remarkably, in an atmosphere of deprivation and continuing political repression, and beginning to loosen the corset of isolation represented by the Malecon. In the late 1970s, Castro appointed teams of sociologists and psychologists to provide continuous surveys of the social landscape and maintain a barometer of social discontent. In 1989, as the toppling of the Wall promised to ripple from East Germany to the Soviets' Caribbean outpost, their recommendation was, "Open the safety valve." That valve unleashed a vibrant creative channel; the Cuban state does not dictate an "acceptable" artistic style like its former Soviet counterparts, and artistic expression is widespread and free-ranging -- with the sole and notable exception being renderings of Castro himself. (In the 1970s, many artists were persecuted for their homosexuality, but those prejudices now appear to be ebbing.) In all, there is little sign of political dissent in Cuba, but the arts have been granted wide latitude, and it shows. In 1959, El Morro, a 17th century Spanish castle that towers on the hillside above Havana, was captured by Che Guevara, triggering the final rout of Fulgencio Batista's forces in the country; from here, too, Guevara presided over the first wave of purges of Batista's followers, many of whom were executed alongside the rusting iron cannons lined up on the parapets. Now, this warren of narrow passageways and damp stone chambers is hosting one of the main centers of the Biennal exhibition. Passing through the stone archway entrance to El Morro, I am greeted by an arresting sight: a 20-foot-tall assemblage of battered rowboats, old tables, raft parts and driftwood in a sculpting by Kcho, who lives in Havana and is one of Cuba's leading and most internationally successful artists. The piece is one of a series entitled "The Infinite Column," and the message is evident: Kcho's work stands like a strange totem evoking Cubans' main means of escape, the gruesomely primitive means by which they have left, and the resonating memories of those who remain. A quarter of a mile up the hill from El Morro, the exhibit continues at La Cabana, a second Spanish fort that offers a spectacular view of Havana. The largest Spanish fortress in Latin America, La Cabana also served in the 1970s as a prison for the Castro regime's political opponents. Now, one walks through the clean pathways, lined with narrow vaults, and finds "El Vaceo" (The Void), a haunting installation by Ernesto Pujol. In a barely lit room, Pujol has constructed the interior of an entire apartment of a bourgeois family who left the country. Using furniture donated by those who inherited what was left behind, he recreates a sitting room, a dining room and a bedroom out of the deep hardwood furnishings that are characteristic in Cuban homes. A white shirt is left hanging over a chair, a vase lies broken on the floor, a map of Cuba made from white puzzle pieces sits fractured on the dining room table. In the dusky light, the installation truly captures the heart-rending void that has been experienced by practically every Cuban family who has seen loved ones, friends or colleagues depart, conveying the legacy of a country long tormented by the isolation imposed from within and without. Many Cubans who view this work are visibly moved by its explicit handling of a subject that is rarely aired publicly, other than in the form of government propaganda, which denounces emigrants as gusanos (worms). Pujol himself is a gusano, a Cuban-American whose family left the country 35 years ago, when he was 4; he is the first artist from an emigrant family ever to be invited back to participate in the Biennal. Over the past five years, he has returned to Cuba seven times in an effort to understand his past; his works, many of which convey the loss inherent on both ends of the emigrant's experience, have been shown previously in galleries here, but this is the first time he has traveled with an official invitation from the Wilfredo Lam Center, Cuba's leading governmental institution for the visual arts and co-sponsor of the Biennal. A few nights ago, I shared a drink with Pujol at the bar of the Hotel Nacional, as the faces of Lansky and Traficante stared belligerently from the wall. "It's interesting," said Pujol, "that the theme of this Biennal is about memory in a country that has manipulated so much of its own memory. There's a fear that, through the Communist experiment, their own memory of themselves will be erased someday. That's why it's become such a big thing." Pujol, who lives in Brooklyn, himself has felt the whiplash of the surreal reality of Cuban-American relations, twisting like a confused helix for 38 years. Since agreeing to participate in Cuban exhibitions, he has received death threats and been blacklisted by the Miami exile community, which has sharpened its own bitter reveries into a virtual culture of memory, and which denounces him regularly for even agreeing to visit the former homeland. Meanwhile, in Cuba itself, he is granted an official invitation to produce works that can hardly be described as supportive of the regime. Elsewhere around the city, more than two dozen collateral exhibitions are being held in private galleries and public spaces -- a radical departure from previous Biennals, which were limited to official sites. In the top floor apartment/gallery of the Peter Ludwig Foundation, which provides support to Cuban artists with funds from a German chocolate mogul, a number of Cuban works demonstrate that humor, irony and raw talent are in abundant supply. Many Cuban painters were trained by Russian-educated professors, who drilled in a sense of classical technique. Aimee Garcia, who at 24 is one of a new wave of Cuban artists adapting such traditions to their own use, paints portraits of herself in Renaissance-style settings, including one as Maria Magdalena in a glittering rococo backdrop. And here we find, on a wall, in vivid color, drawings inspired by comic strips and graffiti, Antonio Elijio (Tonel) conjuring the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci in caricatured meetings with improbable figures, such as himself, Kandinsky and Lenin. This would be akin in the U.S. to dropping Thomas Jefferson into a scene with Andy Warhol. Another piece by Tonel is a simple brick hanging from the wall, painted in the red, white and blue colors of the Cuban flag, his personal rendering of the American blockade. Meanwhile, a clutch of American curators, gallery owners and museum officials are stalking the Biennal, hunting for the tastiest morsels of what has become the hottest new offering on the international collectors' circuit: Cuban art. Partly because of its isolation, partly because of the titillation of art from the world's last Communist redoubt, but largely drawn by the sheer spectacle of Cuban creativity, Americans -- as well as Japanese and Europeans -- have a greater presence here than at any previous Biennal, defying every government effort to limit our exposure to the Cuban arts. And they are leaving with canvases wrapped in cardboard tubes that will soon be on display at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art, New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art and a host of private galleries around the country. In doing so, they are implicitly challenging the U.S. embargo. According to the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, artworks are considered "information," like press materials, and are thus technically exempted from the ban on Cuban-American trade. But that exemption comes with a twist: Americans are prohibited from engaging in commercial relations with Cubans, a situation that leads to some creative sleights-of-hand to ensure that artists are paid for their work. Nevertheless, Cuban artists are now represented by some leading New York galleries -- including Barbara Gladstone, who represents Kcho, and Phyllis Kind, who is showing two Cuban artists represented at the Biennal, Elsa Mara and Belkis Ayan. And, in a sure sign of the arrival of Cuban art, Christie's and Sotheby's have been unloading Cuban artists at a frenetic pace at their Latin American art sales. Ironically, as a result of the hard currency now flowing into the art market, Cuba may be the only country in the world where going into the arts as a profession -- the visual arts, music or dance -- is actually seen as a financially viable choice, since it is one of the few fields that offers the prospect of earning dollars -- and traveling to foreign countries. Thus, while a previous generation of artists saw emigration as their only option, many in the younger generation are choosing to remain at home; most of the artists represented at the Biennal are in their late 20s and early 30s, Cuba's own Generation X.
I am sitting in the garden of one of the private restaurants known as paladars that have flowered across Havana over the past three years. This paladar shall remain nameless, however, because it is illegal, operating without an expensive government license. Legally sanctioned paladars operate under extremely strict regulations: The owner can hire only family members as employees, they are subject to taxes of up to 60 percent of their revenue and they are prohibited from serving such foods as lobster, crab or red snapper, which the government hopes to reserve for the grotesquely overpriced and bland state restaurants, most of which are attached to hotels. The garden is explosive with hydrangea and other tropical flowers; as I eat a superb meal of orange-glazed chicken, the owner's 21-year-old son comes by my table. I will call him Ernesto; a painter, he is studying at the country's leading art school, the Institute for the Visual Arts. Ernesto shows me some of his work -- strikingly powerful portraits in the classical Spanish tradition of Goya. He hasn't sold any paintings to foreign buyers yet, but he hopes to, and I have no doubt that he will, soon enough. In the meantime, however, he says that as the government's support to artists is reduced, artists who were once united in a tight community by the government subsidies they all shared are now finding themselves in competition with one another for foreign buyers -- suggesting that Cuba's art scene is becoming far more like the American one than perhaps either side would care to admit. The competition is made even more intense by a new reality of the art scene here, as government subsidies disappear and even students like Ernesto must supply their own work materials -- not an easy task in a country where paint for buildings, not to mention artwork, is a rare commodity. Our discussion brings to mind an exhibit I'd seen back at the Ludwig Foundation. Titled "Provisionality," the exhibit featured a collection of inventions made by residents of Havana out of everyday objects during the period of economic crisis that immediately followed the collapse of Soviet financial support to Cuba, a time marked by frequent electrical blackouts and an unprecedented scramble for survival. There was a clothesline strung together from candy wrappers; a kerosene lamp made from a tin can and a test tube; drinking glasses made from soft drink bottles shaved off at the top; a graceful wine goblet made from a jar top melted onto an old milk bottle. The desire for beauty reflected in these primitive constructions, said Wilfredo Benitez, the Ludwig Center's artistic coordinator, "was its own form of cultural resistance." Dodging a pair of L.A. art dealers as we spoke, he added, "We were looking with the curators of that show for a word that would conjure the visuality of these elements in Cuba, and we came up with "provisionality." There is nothing better than that word. In searching for a solution to solving an immediate problem, then the solution itself becomes permanent." Much, it seemed to me, like Cuba, and the Cuban Revolution, itself. On the Ludwig Foundation's fifth-floor patio, I encountered Holly Block, who
runs the New York gallery Art in General, and left me with another of Cuba's
most succulent ironies. Block organizes cultural exchanges with Cuban artists, and
has played a key role in opening Americans' eyes to the panorama of talent in
the art scene here. She proposed that on my next trip I should
check out the latest trend in Cuban art: works that are tailored to visitors'
hunger for explicitly "political messages," from caricatured renderings of
the heavy hand of America over Cuba to sardonic commentaries on Cuba's
special status in the world. As Cuba balances precariously between
self-preservation and a new opening to the outside world, this
seemed to portend the birth-pangs of the next wave of Cubans gesturing
across the Malecon: counter-revolutionary chic.
Mark Schapiro is a frequent contributor to Salon. He also writes for Condé Nast Traveler, Harper's, the New York Times and other publications. Interested in visiting Cuba? If you're a U.S. citizen, you can't just buy a plane ticket and go. For the lowdown on travel restrictions, see Wanderlust Editor Don George's column. If you're not a U.S. citizen, check out the travel information in the Cuba section of Wanderlust Marketplace . Don't forget to join the discussion on travel to Cuba in Salon's Table Talk. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A GALLERY OF IMAGES: ART FROM THE HAVANA BIENNIAL
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