Vol. 76/No. 17      April 30, 2012

The exhibition, sponsored by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, will include works by Gerardo Hernández and Antonio Guerrero, two of the five. They, together with Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González were arrested by the FBI in 1998. They were living in Florida where they were monitoring and keeping the Cuban government informed about the activities of U.S.-backed armed counterrevolutionary groups in Florida. (See article on page 7.)

The U.S. government convicted Hernández of “conspiracy to commit murder,” claiming he bore responsibility for the Cuban government’s shooting down of two planes that had entered its airspace heading toward Havana on Feb. 24, 1996. He is serving two life terms plus 15 years. Hernández’s cartoons have been published since 1982 in Cuba.

Guerrero is sentenced to 21 years and 10 months for conspiracy to commit espionage. He learned to draw and paint in prison.

Their work will be accompanied by contemporary Cuban art by renowned artists, including Manuel Mendive and Alexis Leyva (Kcho), photographers Ernesto Fernández and Roberto Salas, as well as artwork by mainly U.K.-based artists, including John Keane, Derek Boshier, Susan Hiller and Mona Hatoum.

All artists have donated their work to raise funds for the ongoing campaign to win freedom for the five.

Cuban artists Eduardo Roca Salazar (Choco), Lesbia Vent Dumois and Gustavo Díaz Sosa and members of the families of Guerrero and Fernando González will participate in events related to the exhibition. The artists have been invited to the University of Essex on April 25, to Birkbeck College in London on April 27, and to a seminar at the University of York on May 2. Dumois, Sosa, Rosa Aurora Freijanes (Fernando González’s wife), and Toni Guerrero (Antonio’s son) will speak at a public meeting at the Anthony Burgess Centre on Cambridge Street in Manchester on May 4. The two relatives will also attend the May Day march and rally in Glasgow.

For more information, visit http://www.cubabeyondtheframe.com or call Beyond the Frame UK: 07958 169 627, Beyond the Frame Glasgow: 07850 437 549, or the Cuba Solidarity Campaign: 020 8800 0155.
 
 
Related articles:
Puerto Rico, Cuba: ‘same enemy, shared struggle’
Free the five Cuban revolutionaries!
‘Exploited of America have begun writing own history’  
 
 
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