Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 83

[harshly restricted] because they were accused of
being anti-social, homosexuals or other contemptuous things.
The MINICULT’s Office of Plastic Arts and Design, which was under the direction of architect,
poet and sculptor Fernando Salinas, liked and
supported the Antillean group, founded in 1978
by sculptor and engraver Rafael Queneditt Morales. Two members of the Origen group joined
it, in addition to researchers, historians and other
renowned, prestigious intellectuals like Rogelio
Martínez Furé, Juan Benemelis, Ivette Altarribay
and Guillermina Ramos Cruz, along with wellknown plastic artists who shared reference points
regarding Afro-Cuban themes: Manuel Couceiro,
Larrinaga, Leonel Morales, Ever Fonseca, Manuel Mendive, Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas, Ramón
Haití, Ángel Laborde and Clara Morera. Later on,
other artists joined by invitation, among them
René Portocarrero, Rita Longa and Luis Martínez
Pedro. Wifredo Lam would be named the group’s
Honorary President and was with them during extremely important meetings and moments of creativity.
The Antillean group emerged on the nation’s
plastic arts scene with an expressive force contained within a discourse of Afro-Antillean identity. It revitalized the black theme within Cuban
culture, the role of Africa and Africans in the creation of the national ajiaco and identity known as
Cubanness that Fernando Ortiz highlighted during his legendary conference presentation at the
Enrique José Varona Amphitheater, at the University of Havana, on November 28th, 1939 (it
was published in Revista Bimestre Cubana
[March-April 1940]. (Figures 6a, 6b, 6c)

Fig. 6b. Ever Fonseca 1977.
“El nacimiento del Jigüe” [The Birth of Jigüe].
Painting. Oil on canvas

Fig. 6c. Oscar Rodríguez Lasseria 1973.
“Matacongo”. Polychromatic ceramic

The black consciousness movement tried to communicate the African Diaspora’s traditions in the
Americas and Antilles in art, through its content
and form, despite the fact most of the group’s
members were fairly up there in age and had been
professionally trained with a certain formalist
aesthetic..
The Antillean group enjoyed official and institutional support from its very inception, and established ties with the Fondo Cubano de Bienes
Culturales [Cuban Fund for Cultural Goods]

Fig. 6a. Manuel Couceiro (N/D). N/T.
Painting. Oil on canvas
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