By Vivian Sequera Associated Press.
The Sun-Sentinel. Web-posted: 5:40 a.m.
Dec. 26, 2000
HAVANA -- A small group of Cuban artists sat on an aging terrace, chatting
quietly in the dimness of the cool Havana night.
Beers in hand, the friends shared their experiences about an art show in
Istanbul, an exhibition in Colombia, plans to travel to New York City.
In years past, almost none of these artists had been to the United
States, and few had journeyed to Mexico or Europe, says Holly Block, who runs
Art in General in New York.
"Now, they are international travelers," she says. "They
have been in many expositions around the world, including the United States."
Block, who seeks out new talent and periodically rents a house in
Havana, was entertaining her artist friends on her terrace.
"Anything Cuban is of interest these days; it is a fascinating part
of the world, where contrasts reign," says Manuel Gonzalez, director of
Chase Bank's art program in New York. Gonzalez collects Cuban art.
With their provocative works and surrounded by the "Cuban aura"
born of the island's agitated political history, these young artists are among
the hottest on the market today.
And they are riding high with the current Havana Biennial, which runs
through Jan. 5.
The show comes amid a great international interest in the Cuban arts,
starting with the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago to the more recent
success of Ry Cooder's documentary, The Buena Vista Social Club, about a band of
elderly Cuban musicians.
"We are the beneficiaries of this trend, this fashion that exists
now with Cuba," says Nelson Herrera, director of the Wilfredo Lam Center of
Contemporary Art in Havana, who organized the biennial.
Much of the interest in Cuba's visual arts surged with the 1994 biennial
that came during a severe economic crisis brought on by the collapse of the
Eastern bloc, and on the heels of massive migration of Cubans to the United
States earlier that year.
Among those who attended in 1994 was Block, who visited Cuba for the
first time, along with a group of American curators and gallery representatives.
Impressed by the quality of the work they found, Block and several other
Americans organized a program in 1997 to regularly bring Cuban artists to the
United States to work seven weeks at universities and cultural centers in five
different cities.
During the 1994 biennial, some artists used scraps of wood from small
boats and other simple rafts to create works focusing on the rafters -- an
exodus of more than 30,000 people across the Florida Straits.
Begun in 1983, the biennial was created to promote Third World and Cuban
art.
After that first Havana biennial, similar celebrations were organized by
other cities, including Johannesburg, South Africa; Istanbul, Turkey; and Lima,
Peru.
The Havana biennial was initially aimed at presenting the work just of
Latin American and Caribbean artists.
It later expanded to include works from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
This year's show includes more than 170 artists whose works will be
shown at 20 sites throughout Havana.
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