IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 141

1990 saw the beginning of an economic
crisis titled the “Special Period in Times
of Peace.”

their work had definitely been defined
as filthy and cerebral, political, popular
and not serious, and it was being situated at the center of a dramatic paradox: a
Havana darkened by ever lengthier
blackouts, chock full of uncertainty and
in danger of looming paralysis. Artists
did not delay in deciding where to vanish to, perhaps seeking to reincarnate.

Even though the response to all this was
a complicated process of changes that
attempted to reconstruct the economic
viability of the Cuban socialist process,
the difficulties of everyday survival
brought about a harsh and unstable reality that included blackouts, reduced
public transport, instability regarding
access to enough food and medicine,
and other shortages to which it was difficult to adjust. Despite this misfortune,
Cubans found innovative and humorous
ways to deal with this: this was expressed via the same choteo [raillery]
and irreverence that had remained and
flourished as part of the Cuban way to
talk about problems.

Inquiries revealed a notorious, emerging
issue, something that could be an essential quality of the best of symbolic production: tensions between living tradition and the idioms of contemporary art.
The Fourth Biennial (1991) was designed with “Desafío a la Colonización”
[Challenging Colonization] as its organizing theme. It was a vehement way to
search for authenticity, the autochthonous, localization, regionalism or identity. It was a challenge to better understand our cultures and a controversial
reflection on the present meaning of the
so-called “Discovery of the New
World,” which as an “Encounter,”
served as a com

Given the complexity of the processes
involved in the visual arts, Cuban art
historiography has languished in its
tendency to interpret everything in a
dichotomous and strict manner for decades. In their need to explain the phenomenon, critics imposed—a priori—
temporary barriers at a time during
which the full spectrum of the effect
was not yet known.

plex platform for Cuban culture’s syncretic process—from a hybridity that it
is not enjoyable, if one understands its
real magnitude and consequences.
Colonizing meant more than taking over
the land. It was also the taking over the
bodies and minds of those who were
colonized, which made them ‘Others’
via a changed, implanted, cultural dialogue. The real slave is also a spiritual
slave who not only has his hands tied,
but also is supposed to learn to fear and
imitate, so he can stop hating himself
and trying to live some other way within Western culture.

This uncertainty spread amongst the
artists. The personified epigone of that
era, on the other hand, and its defining
features and evaluative comparisons,
became a confused label at the end of
one era and beginning of another.
A whole new era came into being before 1991. In facing the distancing from
or break with the artistic medium of
these promotions, the cultural authorities were not too sorry. These artists and

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