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By Elaine De Valle. Edevalle@herald.com. Posted on Tue,
Sep. 17, 2002 in The
Miami Herald.
One poster has a hand coming out of Latin America to cut an eagle's throat.
Another targets Tio Sam.
They're part of the political posters that are coming to New World School of
the Arts as part of a traveling show this week. Propaganda! Cuban Political and
Film Posters, 1960-1990, which has been shown in Boston, Chicago and Atlanta,
will close in Miami.
''In other cities where the exhibit has been, Americans have noticed how
since 1960, the Cuban government has made posters against the U.S.,'' said
Alejandro Rios, a Miami-Dade Community College professor and director of the
school's Cuban film series.
The exhibit, which aims to educate more than entertain, is the brainchild of
New World School of the Arts Professor Maggy Cuesta, who wrote her graduate
thesis on the Cuban government's use of posters to spread its message and
revolutionary appeal.
''I was able to show how the country had gone full circle from being
influenced by America through advertising to being under the Russian control,''
said Cuesta, who succeeded in bringing in the original Cuban posters when the
island nation was under Russian control.
''This is an exceptional opportunity to find out how far a totalitarian
regime will go in its effort to utilize expressions of culture, such as the
visual arts, for brain-washing and control of independent thought,'' said Dr.
Eduardo J. Padrón, president of MDCC, which is co-sponsoring the show
with the Miami chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
The posters marked a new chapter in Cuban history, Cuesta said: "There
wasn't really an aggressive graphic arts tradition until after the revolution.''
Cuesta's thesis was accompanied by an exhibit of about 100 posters she
borrowed from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C.
Fast-forward to last year: The American Institute of Graphic Arts Gallery
contacted Cuesta to re-create the show in New York. On display were 80 posters
-- 20 from Cuesta's collection, 20 from the Cuban Institute of Art and
Cinematographic Industry and 40 from the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage
Collection.
The exhibit opening Thursday includes Cuesta's collection, the UM pieces and
some loaned by Hialeah photographer Jose Tonito Rodríguez and his wife,
Irina Cristóbal. The couple, who collect the posters, say they've sold
them over Internet sites for $25 or $30 -- although some very limited edition
ones fetch up to $400.
Organizers know that in Miami the show could become controversial. People
have already been put off, Cuesta said, by a photograph in the invitation that
features a poster with the image of Ernesto ''Ché'' Guevara.
''It's funny to me because I grew up in Texas and it's surprising sometimes
how sensitive all these issues are,'' said Cuesta, who has been teaching graphic
design at New World for nine years. "This is not to promote the revolution.
It's to make people aware.''
Not everybody who's seen the show gets it, Cuesta said. She wants people to
learn how in the early 1960s and '70s, Fidel Castro was spreading communism
throughout the world -- to Angola, Vietnam, Cambodia and Lebanon.
''I feel that had these posters been shown earlier, maybe something could
have been done to help stop his attempt to spread communism,'' she said. "A
lot of the propaganda was anti-American and, unfortunately, until September 11,
I think we were all a little innocent about how people felt toward the United
States.''
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