Cuba's Artistic Revolution

By Alexander Nixon

My favorite piece in the  collection of the Center for Cuban Studies is a sculpture by Cuban artist William Pérez. It is a wooden mannequin made up of tiny carved pieces that resembles a kind of human-scale 3D puzzle. When I look at it, I am reminded of how we are the sum so many random and often contradictory thoughts, desires, expectations, and impulses. It is only by a miracle of the mind that we can make coherent sense out of all the parts and keep ourselves from falling to pieces.

Such a Herculean effort is required to make sense out of the incendiary rhetoric in America about Cuba. But if you aren't up to the task, the Center for Cuban Studies is here to help.

In June 2010, the Director of the Center for Cuban Studies, Sandra Levinson, as well as videographer Jenny Hellman, sat down with Mr. Pérez to do an interview (see interview below) about his art and the vicissitudes of the art scene in Cuba.

Halfway through the interview he is asked about how he manages to work in such a small studio. He looks around his tiny work space and states that "a fish grows according to the aquarium in which it lives."

This struck me as an apropos metaphor for how the Cuban government has allowed the arts to flourish in Cuba.

Unfortunately, most Americans only hear the hackneyed, Cuban exile-driven discourse about the lack of political freedom in Cuba. But artists like William Pérez and the numerous other artists interviewed in the Cuban Art Space’s interview series offer a refreshing counter-narrative to this viewpoint.

Indeed, the Cuban aquarium has provided Cuban artists plenty of space in which to swim.

To be sure, early in the revolution Cuban government had a more ambivalent attitude towards the arts than it does now. The Beatles were famously outlawed, we recall. But that was before John Lennon wrote You Say You Want a Revolution. ;)

If we were over-cynical, we might claim that Cuban artists and the Cuban government supporting them are just capitalizing on the temporary buzz about Cuba in an ever capricious international art market.

That may be true, to some degree. But watching Mr. Pérez’ interview and the other Cuban Art Space interviews, --> click here for more Cuban artist interviews <-- we learn that the Cuban government’s support for free arts education goes back decades.

Behind the wonderful, imaginative, and sui generis art coming out of Cuba is the free education, scholarships, and institutional support of the Cuban government.

Furthermore, as Mr. Pérez explains in his interview, Cuba is rapidly expanding the dimensions of its creative aquarium, giving more space to artists for workshops, galleries, and allowing the arts to blossom in neglected and overlooked spaces that the government does not have the funds to restore.

Just as much as Cuba’s well-documented success in the fields of education and public health, the success of Cuban artists like Mr. Pérez serves as an excellent advertisement for the overlooked positive narrative of the Cuban Revolution.

The Center for Cuban Studies won a landmark lawsuit against the US Treasury Department in 1991 (Dore Ashton v. Newcomb) that granted the Center the right to import Cuban artwork. Ever since, the Center has been an epicenter of access to the contemporary world of Cuban art for curious Americans.

Please check out Mr. Pérez’ interview below as well as the others in the Cuban Art Space Interview Series. Cuban artists are not, in fact, asphyxiating in a tiny communist aquarium. On the contrary, it is we Americans who are trapped inside the thick glass of a failed foreign policy that keeps the wonderful artistic renaissance of Cuba just beyond our view.

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William Pérez is one of Cuba's most celebrated sculptors and installation artists. Born in Cienfuegos, he moved to Havana a few years ago, thus fulfilling a dream of having his own small workspace in the capitol city. Mr. Pérez has shown in the Cuban Art Space before, in a one-man show (2000) and together with Adrian Rumbaut in an installation exhibit "Entre Nos/Between Us" (2002). In November 2003, William was invited to participate in the prestigious Havana Biennial. In October 2011 William  Pérez and his Cuban collaborator, Marlys Fuego (see blog post about her), will be exhibiting new works at The Cuban Art Space.

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 Alexander Nixon is the Organizational Development Coordinator for the Center for Cuban Studies / The Cuban Art Space.

Cuba In Transition

By Alexander Nixon

When I read a new blog, article, report, or testimonial by an American academic, scholar or anyone else about Cuba “in-transition” (from communism to capitalism, supposedly), I worry that too many of these writers are forgetting that our country’s violation of Cuban sovereignty was the primary cause of the Cuban Revolution.

As historians point out, the United States seized control of Cuba in 1898 after entering the Spanish American War. Prior to US intervention, Cubans had waged a decades-long war for independence against the Spanish Empire. At the point of victory by Cuban rebels, the efforts toward success and independence were thwarted by its powerful neighbor to the north.

If you don’t know the story behind the sinking of the Maine and the rallying battle cry, “Remember the Maine,” let’s revisit the circumstances. Publisher Randolph Hearst tricked the U.S. into going to war against Spain in 1898 by blaming the explosion of the U.S. battleship Maine which was anchored in Havana’s harbor on the Spanish. Eerily foreshadowing the Bush Administration’s machinations for invading Iraq under the pretense of finding WMDs, Hearst famously stated ‘you provide the photos and I’ll provide the war.’ His newspaper rallied Americans to war against the Spanish and transformed the United States from a fledgling nation to a global empire.

In 1901 Congress passed the Platt Amendment which granted the U.S. military the right to intervene in Cuba and establish a naval base in Guantánamo.  In effect, these amendments made Cuba a U.S. protectorate, a bitter pill for the tiny but proud island nation to swallow.  Sixty-one years later Fidel Castro framed the Cuban Revolution as a struggle against a US-sanctioned dictator and an independence movement from the United States.

In terms of an understandable wariness of U.S. intervention, the U.S. Embargo of Cuba still allows Castro to portray the current Cuban Government as the defender of Cuban sovereignty.

On March 24th author Keith Bolender will be signing copies of his book Voices from the Other Side, An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba at The Center for Cuban Studies in New York City. Bolender’s book chronicles how the CIA trained and financed Cuban exile terrorist groups who wanted to assassinate Castro and terrify the Cuban people. 

Scores of innocent Cubans died during numerous covert operations, including twenty-four Cuban citizens who were onboard a Cuban passenger airliner carrying the entire youth fencing team back to Cuba from Jamaica in the 70s. In total, seventy-three passengers died as collateral damage in this relatively unknown act of terrorism.
 

In retrospect, Cuba is stuck between the Scylla of the U.S. Embargo and the Charybidis of terrorism by CIA-trained exile groups, making Cuban very wary of the behemoth to the north. Many Americans are not aware of the historic context of the Spanish American War, the tragedy of the Maine, the imposition of dictatorship in Cuba, the reasons for Castro’s rebellion, or the continued intrusions into Cuban sovereignty.

Cubans want to live in peace and to participate in the world economy as a sovereign nation. The recent economic reforms by Raul Castro that favor privatization demonstrate that Cuba is, in fact, in-transition. We should hope for and expect that careers, money, and prize-winning scholarships will flourish during Cuba’s transition process from a state-controlled economy to a free market economy.

After a century of abusive intrusion we should hope that most of the people making the reputations, money, and scholarships are Cubans, not Americans.
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Alexander Nixon is the Organizational Development Coordinator of the Center for Cuban Studies/The Cuban Art Space in New York City. Keith Bolender's book Voices is available for purchase at the Center for $17.

Comparing Cuba and Guatemala

By Alexander Nixon

I finished my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala a few months ago. When I got my assignment I secretly wished I was being sent to Cuba, a destination of long-standing interest.  I have a B.A. from Stanford in Cuban Studies and an M.A. from NYU in Cuban Studies. Growing up in Florida is to blame, I guess, where Cuba Cuba Cuba has been a non-stop conversation.

Prior to graduation and during the Clinton administration, I traveled to Havana three times armed with a license from the U.S. Treasury Department and an undergraduate research grant to conduct an honor’s thesis research about the country’s food security and the economic crisis.

At the time, Cuba was isolated economically because of the combined effects of the U.S. Embargo and the collapse of the Soviet Block. When the Berlin Wall fell, it was like a game of musical chairs and Cuba was last one standing. The island nation responded by investing heavily in tourism and sustainable development.

Anti-Castro forces in the in the U.S. weren’t pleased with the Cuban government’s recalcitrance and did whatever it could to tighten the imposed economic and political noose. Still, the Cuban government stayed in power. After September 11th it became almost impossible to go back to Cuba.  I remember watching on television the vigorous and false claim by anti-Castro Congresspeople that Cuba’s innovative bioengineering research was a façade for a chemical warfare.  Fortunately, better minds prevailed on that one.

In spite of this aggressive diplomacy and effort to restrict travel, I managed to go back to Cuba with an NYU research grant in 2007. The Herculean paperwork challenges required for authorization from the Treasury Department were analogous to cleaning the Augean stables.

When political currents changed in 2008, I became more optimistic about changes in our relationship with Cuba. It had been ten years since my first trip to Cuba in 1996 and no improvements had occurred between the US and Cuba! After a decade of working in New York City and waiting for an elusive Cuban glasnost, I decided to apply to the Peace Corps.

I was assigned to the Agricultural Marketing Program in in urban Guatemala. Although I had secretly wished for an assignment to Cuba, my experience in Guatemala led to unexpected discoveries about Cuba.

In terms of geography and population, Cuba and Guatemala are very similar. Cuba is 42,803 square miles in size and Guatemala is 42,042 square miles. The same holds true for population. According to Un estimates Cuba’s population is about 11 million people and Guatemala has about 12.5 million people.

Cuba and Guatemala also share a similar economic history: economies based on agricultural exports like sugar and coffee (as well as tobacco, in Cuba’s case). Up until the mid-twentieth century, a wealthy minority--both foreign and native—dominated in both countries and controlled all the good land. For example, The United Fruit Company produced bananas in Guatemala and U.S. Sugar controlled much of the Cuban sugar industry. The vast majority of the population in both countries lived in squalor, remained  illiterate, and worked as cheap labor for the rich landowners.

Population growth in the mid-twentieth century exacerbated this inequality and land reform became a rallying cry for populists and leftists. Unfortunately, the Cold War gave opponents of land reform on the Right cause to condemn such efforts as part of a communist plot to socialize everything.

This reactionary attitude towards land reform caused Guatemalan and Cuban history to diverge.

In Guatemala in 1953 the CIA intervened to topple the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, a leader who had waged a campaign for land reform. The result of this intervention was a protracted forty-year civil war that left two hundred thousand Guatemalans dead.

Compared to such genocide, Cuba’s record of human rights abuses seems over-exaggerated, but more on that later on.

Ever since the CIA invasion, Guatemala remains structured for the benefit the wealthiest members of society. About a dozen families in Guatemala control the sugar, beer, coffee, chicken, and other industries that comprise the lion’s share of Guatemala’s economic output. These powerful families pay very little taxes and, without a tax base, Guatemalan infrastructure, civil society, and education stagnate.

In many ways, post-Revolutionary Cuba is the inverse image of Guatemala.

In 1959 the Cuban Revolution recalibrated the government so that it benefited the weakest, not the strongest. Cubans live much longer than Guatemalans, Cuba’s literacy rate is 99.8%, and the life expectancy is 78 years.  By comparison, Guatemala’s literacy rate is 70% and the life expectancy is 70 years.  After the Revolution, illiteracy was one of the first targets of the Cuban government and the almost overnight “War Against Illiteracy” was immediately effective.

In Guatemala, domestic violence against women is rampant. According to Giovanna Lemus of Guatemala's Network to Oppose Violence Against Women (Red de la No Violencia Contra la Mujer), as reported in El País, Guatemalan society is an environment in which aggression towards women is perceived as "natural.” In Cuba, by contrast, The Family Code of 1975 decrees that men must contribute equally in household responsibilities. Thus, we see a different set of priorities between Guatemala and Cuba.

For further proof of this contrast in priorities, a focus on the amazing art produced by Cuban artists, and supported by the Cuban government, reveals the government’s interest in creating a society that values human resources. At the Center for Cuban Studies in New York City there is an enormous collection of extremely rare Cuban poster art and numerous works by Cuban artists that testify to the way the Cuban Revolution has inculcated Cuban society with a sense of solidarity and humanism.  In Guatemala this kind of expression is difficult to find.  

The following joke illustrates the situation in Guatemala: a fisherman is carrying two buckets of crabs, one with a lid and one without. A passerby asks the fisherman why one bucket doesn’t have a lid. The fisherman replies that the bucket without the lid contains Guatemalan crabs, whereas the sealed bucket contains Japanese crabs. The fisherman explains that the Japanese crabs must be covered-up because they will work together and form a chain and climb out one-by-one. The Guatemalan crabs, on the other hand, don’t need to be sealed-up because, as soon as one of the crabs tries to climb out of the bucket, the other crabs reach up and pull the crab back down. The point of this story is that Guatemalans do not work together.  In large part this relates to the failure of the government to engender civil society and high expectations of its population.

During my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer I saw first-hand how small coffee farmers pool their resources and efforts in order to be competitive with large landowners. There has been some success, but everything insurmountable challenges are associated with getting export licenses, for example, and fair trade certification.

 

The 2009 report about the Cuban economy by the Center for Democracy in the Americas is blunt about Cuba current situation: Cuba is crumbling under the weight of over-centralization and bureaucracy. After two hurricanes and the global financial crisis, Cuba is in dire straits.  As much as Fidel Castro would have us think otherwise, most of Cuba’s problems stem from inherent flaws of communism. Cuba is coming to terms with these flaws under Raúl Castro’s leadership and has embarked upon a course of unprecedented economic reform. It is a tropical perestroika (economic reform) without glasnost (political reforms). 

In spite of the challenges ahead, it is a testament to the Cuban government that everyone, both Cubans and foreigners, have such high standards for Cuba. This seems to relate in part to the dignity and sense of national determinism created by the Cuban Revolution and is expressed vividly in the arts the citizens have produced. 

After completing my Peace Corps service I have joined the Center for Cuban Studies/The Cuban Art Space in New York City. Our mission is to work toward normalization of relations between Cuba and the United State through people-to-people travel, artist residencies, and cultural exchanges.  Based on my own observations about Cuba and Guatemala, the value and importance of visual record keepers and storytellers can illuminate powerfully the circumstances of power and justice. 

                                              For there will be the arts

                                              and some will call them soft data

                                              whereas in fact

                                              they are the hard data

                                              by which our lives are lived. 

                                                                                 - John Stone

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Alexander Nixon is the Organizational Development Coordinator of the Center for Cuban Studies/Cuban Art Space in New York City. This article does not represent the viewpoints of the Center for Cuban Studies.