Vol. 80/No. 44      November 21, 2016

 

Cuban artists in UK: ‘Art isn’t a privilege, it’s a right’

 
LONDON — “Art is not a privilege in Cuba, it’s a right,” Chrislie Pérez told an audience of 60 people here Oct. 14. The meeting “Cuban Arts: Here and Now” heard from artists featured in ¡Presente!, an exhibit of contemporary Cuban art at the GX Gallery. Pérez, one of the curators, and fellow Cuban artists Adislén Reyes, Luis Camejo and Mario González shared the platform with Cuban Ambassador Teresita Vicente and Cuban-born writer Pedro Pérez Sarduy.

“Culture has been central to the Cuban Revolution from its triumph in 1959,” Vicente said. “One of the first initiatives of the revolutionary government was the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of young people in a successful campaign to eradicate illiteracy.

“Today musicians, writers, artists, actors and others are traveling to areas hit by Hurricane Matthew,” she said. “They’re involved in the reconstruction work as well as giving performances.”

“It’s been the same at all major political events,” Pérez Sarduy chimed in. “I was both in the militia and studying literature during the 1962 October crisis,” commonly known outside of the island as the Cuban missile crisis. “At the time Fidel Castro promoted both culture and the struggle against Washington’s invasion plans,” he said.

“There are 25,000 people in Cuba officially designated as artists,” said Reyes, who also works as an art teacher. “Most have gone through art school, but some are just talented individuals. Art is taught at every primary school.”

“We are paid by the state and we have individual clients,” said González. “We pay taxes on what we sell.”

González was famously involved 10 years ago in “Monstrous Devourers of Energy” in which 50 artists turned old fridges into artworks — part of a government-led campaign to reduce energy use through the distribution of more efficient electrical goods and light bulbs.

“What we paint, sculpture, install is up to us — we are not victims of censorship,” he said, in response to a question they were often asked during their stay in the U.K. “It’s totally different from what happened in the Soviet Union.”

Cultural work, like every aspect of Cuban life, is deeply impacted by the U.S. embargo, ambassador Vicente pointed out. “This economic war even extends to access to artists’ materials. We have to get them from China, instead of just 90 miles away from the U.S.”

¡Presente! ran through Oct. 29 and was organized by the Music Fund for Cuba charity with support from the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, which hosted the Oct. 14 event.
 
 
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‘A ‘revolutionary’ who doesn’t behave as such is a charlatan’
 
 
 
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