12/26/2009 Cuba through Cuba's Eyes

Exhibition of contemporary Cuban art is informative though not exhaustive

Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection, now showing at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, raises questions about Canadians' idealized notion of Cuba as a vacation spot and socialist paradise.

The expansive exhibition contains many viewpoints from contemporary Cuban artists that can expand and enrich our understanding of Cuba, drawn as they are from a private collection. State oppression, impoverishment, exodus, religion, gender and race are all addressed. However, it's interesting to note that the Farbers have taken care to distance their collecting activities from any political stance.

The artists themselves are direct in addressing Cuban politics. Artist Ángel Delgado was imprisoned for a performance that included defecating on the state newspaper. Using the humble materials available to prisoners, Delgado continued to create. His prison number, referencing the erasure of individual identity, is stencilled onto one handkerchief; three men, their tongues intertwined in a complex knot depicting networks of communication and, possibly, eroticism amongst inmates, is inked onto a second square of cloth.

Unsurprisingly, Fidel Castro is a recurringfigure in many of these works. His iconic bearded head floats disembodied above a man naked but for a top hat in one of Carlos Cárdenas' naive, comic book-like drawings.

A stumpy, lumpy version of Castro appears again in Fernando Rodriguez Falcón's five carved wooden panels, Nuptial Dream. The series depicts the wedding of Fidel Castro to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobro. Falcón adopts an outsider artist identity as his alter ego Fransisco de la Cal, and strives to create an aura of authenticity for his works using rustic and folksy subjects and aesthetics. The scenes are amusing, though no one - Castro, Our Lady of Charity or the artist's stand-in - looks happy. Different moments in the courtship and wedding between church and state are represented, including a blindfolded Castro playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and the newlyweds dressing as the artist spies on them from a window. The artist disarms these powerful entities by making them seem foolish and notes the role of the artist to expose those in power.

Repression by the instruments of the state is not the only injustice documented in Cuba Avant-Garde. A series of photographs entitled White Things by René de Jesús Peña Gonzàlez foregrounds racial divisions in the supposedly raceless and classless society. In one photograph, a cigarette rests between the artist's lips, hinting at the erotic power of the black phallus, his face powerful and impenetrable behind sunglasses. In Black Man's Underwear, the artist appears vulnerable, his backside presented to our gaze, white underwear tucked between his ass cheeks.

While by no means a complete overview of contemporary Cuban art, the Farbers' collection reveals a commitment to learning about Cuba through artistic expression.

Sandee Moore left the mild climes of her B.C. home for the warm embrace of the Winnipeg arts community six years ago. She is an intermedia artist, a former director of Video Pool and occasional arts writer.

CUBA AVANT-GARDE
Until Jan. 10, Winnipeg Art Gallery