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From Scandalous Sincerity
to a

Metaphor of Cynicism
M Sc. José Clemente Gascón Martínez
Visual artist and art critic
Havana, Cuba

T

he emergence of so-called New
Cuban Art brought with it a
new, experimental, critical perspective involving a social reflection
and insertion in the arts. It was influenced by post-modernity’s modes of
expression through the language of universal art. Cuban artistic trends from
that period were a factor in novel and
creative production. As an avant-garde
movement, it was one of the most creative in Latin America and the Third
World. Historiography and art criticism
must still refer to it and consult it, despite the fact that most of the information about it was not documented by
the very agents involved in it, what information there is, has been published
in personal catalogues published both
inside and outside Cuba. Thus, it is dispersed.

something not seen since the AvantGarde of 1927.
Beginning in the second half of the
1980s, a new mode of artistic production erupted on the scene with creative
collectives such as Puré, Provisional
and Artecalle, among others. This art
problematized issues not put forth in
prior years; a new generation of young
creators was ready to contribute not
only its symbolic production, but also a
confrontational space in which to offer
its own creative answers to Cuba’s social reality. They, too, were the Revolution.

Contemporary Cuban arts’ new creative
styles began cropping up in many of the
era’s productions: they bridge kitsch,
folklore, religious elements, popular
culture, political ideology and postmodernism. They bore the autochthonous
brand of their own syncretic miscegenation, which allows one to talk about a
new movement in Cuban visual art,

Arte Calle Group, 1988. Art 100 Meters from the Cemetery. Calle Zapata
Mural (erased)

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