Asked by Reuters about the arrest in a news conference, the head of Cuba’s National Council of Visual Arts, Norma Rodriguez, said “as far as I know he is an activist not an artist”. The Havana Biennial runs until May 12.”Some artists who are critical of the government however have subverted that slogan.This year, 80 Cubans will exhibit their work, including a performance by Manuel Mendive, considered the Caribbean island’s top living artist.“Not even in the most difficult moments have we ever given up on staging one of these kind of events,” he told Reuters.S..“They turned my home into an artwork,” said Silvia Perez, smiling at the paper sprouting from the colonnade of her home, a piece by Cuban artist Elio Jesús Fonseca.Cuba considers dissidents to China TYPE-4B SEMI RIGID PVC HOSE be mercenaries in the pay of the United States trying to subvert the government. “The artist said it meant peace.Havana’s 13th Biennial kicked off this weekend with works by more than 300 contemporary artists from 52 countries taking over the city’s museums, galleries and open-air spaces, and many more collateral exhibits.Some Cuban artists feel the Havana Biennial itself is a facade papering over simmering tensions between them and authorities. artists including Cuban-Americans like Enrique Martínez Celaya and Emilio Perez.
Still, it also includes a large contingent of European and U. Havana: Cones of white paper sprout from the sea salt-eroded pillars of one colonial building along Havana’s seafront, elaborately painted curtains cascade from another while out front children play with an installation of multicoloured hoses.“It fits a lot with the Cuban government these days and how the system is working – there is a lot of facade,” he said.Cuba’s Communist government, which has heavily promoted the arts since the country’s 1959 leftist revolution, created the Havana Biennial in 1984 to promote artists from the developing world, especially Cuban ones.In one piece on the Malecon called “Potemkin Village”, Cuban-born artist Juan Andres Milanes Benito who lives in Norway has propped what appears to be the perfect facade of a building on another that is falling into disrepair. “The slogan of this year’s edition, ‘the construction of the possible’, is related to our ideal that a better world is possible.Along the sidewalk this year are smooth boulders encased in volcanic slabs by Mexican artist Jose Davila, while a swirling light installation by Peruvian artist Grimanesa Amoros protudes from a building.
Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, who led a campaign against a controversial new decree on the cultural sector last year, was arrested last Friday after staging a small yet politically charged performance in his neighborhood.Biennial Director Jorge Alfonso said it had been a challenge to stage the biennial given Cuba’s difficult economic situation – authorities postponed it half a year – but that it had succeeded underscored the importance Cuba placed on culture. “Inside it is not so perfect.”The transformation of the Malecon seafront boulevard into an open-air, interactive gallery, has become one of the most popular venues of Cuba’s most important arts event. Originally he had wanted to replicate the facade of a renovated government building but authorities would not allow him, he said.His whereabouts remain unknown, his friends say.Havana’s 13th Biennial kicked off this weekend with works by more than 300 contemporary artists from 52 countries taking over the city’s museums, galleries and open-air spaces.
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