IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 139

These creators are going to selflessly
reveal without assent the task of the
demystifying of rhetoric’s symbols using the iconography of the aesthetic of
bad painting and graffiti. These contain
fractured messages loaded with criticism of the attitudes and conduct of
those who abuse their power, the arrogant offense and attitude of certain public figures regarding the use of sex as a
symbol of authority and conceited power.

tesque, along the lines of popular Cuban
chauvinism, and achieve a mythological
dimension that concomitantly seems to
display both elements of art’s origins
and also growing undesirability.
By challenging habitual censorship, this
new generation of creators, which received their training via Cuba’s national
system of education, broke with the
previous era. They rejected its sappy
landscapes and fictitious realities, and
chose to conduct its criticism via an
aesthetic of worlds symbolic or parallel
to reality.

The provocative of these works base
themselves on a tradition of the gro-

The great 1989 performance, “Listos
para vencer.” CSO.
“José Antonio
Echevarría”

Then came a call for participation in the
Third Havana Biennial, in NovemberDecember, 1989, in the midst of all these complex, socio-cultural conditions.
Some new generation Cuban artists participated. The event offered a spectrum
of diverse visual culture: Tradition and
Contemporaneity was the thematic organizing concept for this Biennial. It
was conceived of as an organic and integrating project with a view to the
training of professional critics and theorists representing the institution of art.
The goal was to help them develop an

incessant and complex search for information, and the discovery of find ing
new paths or spaces in which to reform
their own underpinnings.
An elaborate installation by Glexis Novoa (from her so-called “practical period”) was exhibited at the Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) during the Third Biennial. It was an allusive exhibit whose goal was to ironically point to the art system’s mechanisms
and gears. Its own techné was itself a
sharp critique: he paints slogans that say

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