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John Wineland
The Havana Bienale
Ideally, a biennial is an opportunity to redraw the global map
with the center newly located. As new areas log on to the
global contemporary circuit, a biennial can magnetize a
location, drawing in attention, ideas and
works from faraway places and
aligning them with the local reality.
(Rachel Weiss)
Cuba's brutal reinsertion into the capital circuit came in 1989, as a
result of the fall of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent anatomizing of
the Eastern Block countries-its largest trading partners. Up to that
point, the island had been one of the most highly centralized, least
market dependent countries in the world. Consequently, Cuba was ill
equipped to handle GDP drops of 25, 14, and 10 percent in the years that
followed. This situation was of course, exacerbated by a senseless, U.S.
embargo that has been in place almost thirty years. In response to the
rapid economic contractions, Castro called for "a special period in times
of peace," a belt tightening the equivalent of a total wartime effort.
The deep crisis led to a search for market-based solutions and models, new
international partners, and the experimentation with mild forms of
capitalism.
Enter tourism. Beginning in 1992, Cuba began intense
negotiations Spanish, Canadian, German and Italian companies to develop
partnerships on hotels and resorts around the island. The ensuing tourist
policies became the primary focus of Cuba's economic development. Unable
to spend precious resources on developing new attractions, the Ministry of
the Interior took stock of the island's already existing tourist friendly
assets. These enticements included Cuba's beaches, the oldest colonial
historic district in the Americas (Habana Vieja), a number of art deco
styled mansions and hotels left from the heyday of U.S tourism in the
1940's and 50's, a thriving music scene, an internationally acclaimed film
festival called the Havana Film Festival and a modest, but well-respected
Biennial of contemporary art. Five years later, the June 1997 issue of
Salon Wanderlust Magazine focused upon travel to the island nation of
Cuba. The design of the cover story, written by Mark Shapiro, contained
centered on the magazine cover in large black letters, the title, Cuba
Libre. It was offset against a sizzling red background. Underneath the
eye catching marker on the cover, was the subtitle, "A Hot Art Scene
Brings the World to Havana's Door." Shapiro is of course, talking about
the throngs of collectors, curators, artists and museum professionals that
descend upon the island from Europe, Canada, Latin America and even the
United States every three years to see the crown jewel of so-called Third
World Biennials, La Bienal de la Habana. . Setting aside for the moment a
deeper reading of this provocative cover, I would like to focus upon the
question of how the Havana Biennial-originally inaugurated in 1984 as a
model of alternative exhibition practice-has metamorphosed into one of the
island's most prestigious tourist attractions. Kurt Hollander, in a
special issue of Poliester magazine dedicated solely to the mega-Biennial,
noted that: One of the Biennial's functions is to attract tourism and
tourist dollars to the island, and it accomplishes this in part by filling
up the five star hotels with artists and others of the art world to such
an extent that the hotel lobbies, restaurants and bars serve as the
unofficial centers of interaction among the participants.
Indeed, as Hollander argues, "art tourism," has become an integral
component of Cuba's development policies. These include a permanent
infrastructure makeover, a four hundred million-dollar a year investment
in hotels and other foundational necessities, joint venture enterprises
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with foreign capital totaling over six hundred million dollars and the
creation of environmental tourism programs. And the Biennial, as the
engine that lures the international art market to Cuba, has seen its
cachet grow with every occurrence. .
This essay will investigate the relationship between the Havana
Biennial and the island's new dependency upon tourist development. In
order to do so, I will need to examine the transformation of the event
from its origins as a laboratory of visual experience, to an international
mega-exhibition that rivals its mainstream counterparts of Venice, Kassel
and Sao Paulo. Relying upon a multiplicity approaches, especially the new
thought surrounding mega-events and tourism (Getz:1991 and Roche: 1994),
recent exhibition theory (Ferguson: 1996, Ramrez: 1996), and theory of
heritage tourism (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: 1997), my inquiry is primarily
driven by two questions. First, how is the event staged and what does
that staging reveal? I am not really interested in the usual critical
analysis given to such events. What artists were left out? What are the
strengths and weaknesses of the curatorial premise? etc. Instead, I will
approach the Biennial as a site in its entirety, or as what James Clifford
would call a "contact zone."(Clifford: 1997) For it is in the production
of such special events that nuances in local and global relations emerge;
and that the underlying objectives of the Cuban government, the Biennial
organizers, and the artists themselves can be examined. Of particular
importance is that the mega-exhibition assists the Cuban government in
navigating the "neoliberal moment" within the global socio-political and
economic sphere. Specifically, the event's critical curatorial approach
gives the organizers and Cuban officials an arena for maintaining a
trenchant stance against capital expansion, while simultaneously utilizing
the magnetism of the Biennial to negotiate with the international art
community and the capital it represents. On the other hand, the mega-
exhibition ironically has become a forum for Cuban artists to critique the
phenomenon of tourism as it invariably transforms Cuban economic and
cultural life. My second question concerns how the Biennial is consumed.
By framing the event's reception in terms of consumption, I am
purposefully situating the Biennial within the postmodern discourses of
cultural consumption. I would therefore, like to suggest that the event
is no longer simply about viewing art or making business deals- although
as Rachel Weiss points out, "a significant amount of business get done".
All one need do is examine some of the Biennial reviews to see that the
experiential aspect of attending the event is almost as important as the
artwork. "Behind me is Havana," described Mark Shapiro, "a crumbling
museum of fifty year old mansions, fine lattice work balconies and art
deco archways, peeling away in layers of grandeur." From testimonies like
Shapiro's (and there are plenty), it is clear that the Biennial has helped
to transform Havana into what tourist theorists call a destination. I
would posit, therefore, that the authentic experience for the Biennial
traveler revolves not only around the adventure of visiting one of the
Western Hemisphere's most notorious cities, but includes the viewing and
maybe purchasing of the what is symbolically presented as the legacy of
the Revolution-Cuba's young artists. . The Havana Biennial belongs to
multiple players. To look at the event simply as an opportunistic
creation of the Castro regime is to oversimplify the complex relationship
between the various global and local actors. In addition, that kind of
hegemonic approach limits the ability to understand the ambivalent
relationship Cuban artists have with tourism-as the necessary evil that
keeps their economy afloat, gives them access to the international art
world and pressures the Castro regime into ever so slowly liberalizing the
Cuban economy. In the case of Havana, what makes the tri-annual happening
such a rich site for analysis is that there are so many competing visions,
so many productions within productions. It is therefore, more
illuminating perhaps, to approach the Biennial as what Arjun Appadurai and
Carol Breckenridge would call a "zone of contestation." In this
semi-globalized, semi-public space, national forms of heritage dovetail
with transnational ideologies of development, citizenship and
cosmopolitanism. And various national and international groups-including
Biennial officials, government actors, transnational collectors, and
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representatives of the international art community, as well as Cuban and
other so-called Third World artists- converge with a complicated, often
contradictory set of objectives.
From the perspective of the Castro regime the Havana Biennial
serves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it satisfies the practical need
for capital inflow in a time of devastating economic pressure. It
literally draws hundreds and thousands of dollars to Havana's currency
starved infrastructure. Not only do the visitors spend money in
restaurants, hotels and transportation, but they also buy art; and they
provide a means to promote Cuba's young artists, thereby ensuring the
inflow of more capital in the future. On the other hand, and perhaps this
is a more important, if less quantifiable point, the event presents a
progressive facade that supports the country's position within a
suspicious international community. From the perspective of the artists
and organizers however, it is intended as a means to legitimate
contemporary Cuban work, and to present an alternative to the mainstream
histories of art. Consequently, for these groups there is a performance
of intervention-a specific posturing vis--vis the international art world
and the Cuban censors-that must also be considered. One such example is
the performance booth maintained by two of the participating artists,
Carlos Garicoa and Bernardo Prieto, called Tiendas Abulaye. Modeled as a
tourist gift shop, the artists sold their pseudo-religious offerings to
Abulaye, the patron saint of the market that they recently incorporated
into the Afro-Cuban pantheon of Santeria. The piece is both a comment on
the artist's relationship to the art market and the tragic reality of
Cubans forced to sell their personal and religious belonging to tourists
for much needed dollars. As Garicoa explains, "the foreigner sees the
exoticism in these objects, but he doesn't realize what these objects
really mean." (Fusco:1997-See Figure Opposite) The first section then,
will outline some of the theoretical parameters that frame this study.
Here it is essential to situate the Biennial within the growing field of
tourist theory, especially as it relates to event tourism. By utilizing
this approach, I will be able to clarify the Biennial's production value,
in other words, its ability to construct an authentic experience for the
viewer. In addition, I will examine the discourses surrounding the
phenomenon of the international Biennial itself-both as a component of new
thinking on exhibitions, but also as historically specific appearance.
Why, at this specific historical moment, are Biennials gaining such
prominence on the global cultural stage? Finally, I will briefly consider
the role of heritage, more specifically, the heritage of the Cuban
Revolution, in the framing of contemporary art. What does it mean to
combine the two within the context of a cultural spectacle like the
Biennial? This latter practice is perhaps interrelated with Cuba's
sacralization of revolutionary sites for tourist consumption. For
example, the Museo de la Revolucin or the Granma, the now infamous yacht
that brought Fidel and Che from Mexico to Cuba to launch the Revolution,
are now essential stops on virtually every tour (most of which are
government lead). The second section will trace the development of the
Biennial as an international art event, from its humble beginnings in
1984, to its current status. The final section will concentrate on the
staging and production of the most recent Biennial, analyzing, among other
factors, the organizer's use of symbolic, historical structures as display
venues. The most prominent example of this practice was the
transformation of El Morro and La Fortaleza de la Cabaa military
complexes into Biennials exhibition sites (Images on the following pages
respectively). El Morro, which Che Guevara captured in 1959, triggered
the final expulsion of Bautista loyalists from Havana. It was also the
location where the Castro regime executed the first wave of revolutionary
opponents. La Fortaleza was an infamous prison for political dissidents
during the most strident years of Revolutionary authoritarianism. Their
importance in the production of the Biennial is only one example of the
event's performative nature. There are other illustrations that I will
discuss shortly. But for now, suffice it to say that it is no coincidence
that the majority (two out of three sites) of this year's exhibition was
located outside the city of Havana, virtually inaccessible to Habaneros.
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Theorizing the Biennial
In August 1997, the Rockefeller Foundation and Arts
International/IIE gathered an international group of curators, arts
professionals, artists and cultural theorists in Bellagio, Italy, to
discuss the recent explosion of International Biennials. The conference
addressed the importance of Biennials in relation to current thoughts on
transnationalism, identity politics, curatorial practices, and
international politics. Recognized as especially important is the
curator, who is no longer an arbiter of taste, working behind the scenes
of an exhibition, but a culture broker-a central player on the broader
stage of global politics. (Brenson: 1997, Ramrez: 1995) Although I agree
wholeheartedly with this assertion, I feel that to focus solely on the art
historical and curatorial aspects of Biennial creation is to lose sight of
the underlying motives for creation of these mega-exhibitions in the first
place.
What the Belagio conference participants only mentioned tangentially
however, was the importance of tourism (as well as the liberal economic
model that espouses it) in the formation of the Biennial circuit. As
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett explains, "tourism is a powerful medium of
transnational encounter. There is hardly a place on earth not part of the
recreational geography of tourism. A powerful engine for moving people
from one place to another, tourism produces itself with ever greater
complexity." And Biennials are consummate manifestations of cultural
tourism, a form of travel usually centered around heritage industries or
museums, or both. Biennial bring prestige to the cities that host them,
legitimation to the artists that participate, and the concentrated
economic clout of the international art world to their door for a focused
period of time. Just witness the recent emergence of these arts
exhibitions in developing countries such as South Africa, Turkey, Brazil,
Peru, and Ecuador, all of which are using mega- exhibitions as catalysts
in the creation of urban infrastructures and as capital magnets.
Biennials, like art museums, have become what Carol Duncan calls
"necessities in First and Third World relations." "Now more than ever,"
she continues, "having a bigger and better art museum is a sign of
political virtue and national identity--of being recognizably a member of
the civilized community of modern, liberal nations" (Karp and
Levine:1990). Although Duncan wrote this before the crush of recent
Biennials, I am sure she would agree that the political efficacy is the
same.
Moreover, the Biennial belongs to a special category of cultural
tourism-mega- event or special event tourism. According to Donald Getz,
special events such as the Havana Biennial, function in the same capacity
as community festivals, world fairs and Olympic games, and serve a number
of tourism related purposes. These happenings, Getz argues, can "create a
unique ambiance which powerfully motivates travel, animate otherwise
static attractions, create positive images of destinations, act as a
catalyst for development, and mobilize community tourism
planning"(Getz:1991). In order to maximize the event however, the
creation of a specialness of place and the promise of authenticity are
essential. The attention to ambiance helps to codify the visitor's
experience by developing a series of cultural signs-in this case, the
symbolic capital of Cuban art enveloped by the colonial architecture of
Havana-which inevitably links the event to a symbolic history of power.
This may explain why, out of all the locations that could have been chosen
to hold the Biennial, that the colonial historic center was selected. As
one critic observed, "it was pleasant to wander through Old-Havana and to
admire the architectural restoration. In the end, it was two tours in
one: one touristic and the other artistic." Location therefore, is a key
component to this mode of planning. People, local color and symbolic
capital are also important. Usually, spaces that are alive with "local
color" are used to frame and enhance the participatory experience. And the
historical district, which is teeming with street vendors, musicians, and
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restaurants, most certainly qualifies as this type of location. On the
other hand, spaces are often re-programmed. Historic cultural and
military sites are frequently transformed and sacralized, creating a sense
of hereness that reminds the visitor where he or she is, or better yet,
symbolically links the viewer to an historic or cultural past. If this
staging is successful, the place in which the event is held becomes as
important as the event itself, creating the aura of a dynamic event. This
in turn leads to a regeneration of visits and subsequent happenings.
Local and national symbolic capital is valorized and given the omnipresent
nature of mass media. It is then, promoted beyond national borders. The
event planners receive international acclaim and the host country is
legitimized in the transnational community. A sense of local pride is
fostered. The surrounding economy is stimulated through restaurant,
entertainment and shopping excursions. Local economies are reorganized
from a failing post-industrial to service economies using the special
event as an impetus for change. Most importantly however, the event site
and its adjoining environs enter the pantheon of international tourist
destinations-thereby ensuring future capital inflows. A lucent example of
this phenomenon in Cuba is the paledera, the private home that doubles as
a semi-legal restaurant/inn during and sometimes after these special
events. For many visitors, the paledera is considered a more authentic
means of experiencing Cuban culture and an alternative to the overly
touristic Cuban hotels. In tourist jargon, these palederas are the "back
stages" of the site. They represent a more "intimate and real" experience
of Cuban life and are therefore, sought after by the most experienced
tourists (MacCannel:1989). Artists too, have established their own
"back-stages" as alternatives to the official program, but I will discuss
this practice further in the final section. How do we utilize this model
of analysis for better understanding the Havana Biennial and the
accelerated diffusion of other such international exhibitions throughout
the world?
First of all, it is important to position Biennials within the historical
moment of the late twentieth century, where globalization pressures have
led to the reconstruction of national cultural markets, creating a
transnational circuit of legitimation and exchange for cultural capital
which parallels global capital expansion. Add to these pressures the
reverent adoption of IMF sanctioned neoliberal economic policies
throughout the developing world, the emergence of "The City" as key site
for diffusion of global economic power relations, and the environment for
spectacular exhibitions has been actualized. It may also be fruitful to
compare and contrast the postmodern exhibitionary complex with that of the
late 19th century. What similarities exist between the conditions that
spawned World Fairs and International Exhibitions in the liberal/colonial
era and those that envelop their post-colonial, neoliberal cousins?
Recent work on mega-events and tourism, particularly that of Maurice
Roche, has shown that the current post-industrial move towards
liberalization carries with it an implicit component dedicated to tourism.
In both the First and Third Worlds, nations can utilize emerging tourist
sectors to provide jobs for whole sectors of the population that have been
reorganized under what we now call neoliberalism; where national
industrial models are reformatted into post-national information and
service ones. Furthermore, as part of the drive towards economic
modernization and capital attraction, the tourist industry provides what
Maurice Roche calls, "the rare virtues of simultaneously (a) requiring
continuous technological development, capital investment and renewal,
(b)being comercially attractive both to consumers and investors, and (c)
being significantly labor intensive. (Roche: 1992 and 1994).
Roche's model is of course, intended for post-Industrial capitalist
nations, specifically Britain and the U.S. I would argue however, that it
is just as applicable, if not more so, to Cuba's desperate situation.
The Rise and Transformation of the Havana Biennial
At this point, a brief tracing of the Havana Biennial's history is
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in order. The first Bienal de la Habana was inaugurated in 1984 as an
alternative venue for artists from Latin America whose work was not well
known internationally. While it went almost completely unnoticed in
Europe and the U.S., it was an extremely popular local event. The
organizing institution, El Centro Wilfredo Lam, in conjunction with the
Cuban Ministry of Culture, hoped to construct a discourse based on the
collective experience of "marginalized artists affected by
underdevelopment. As Biennial director Lillian Llanes explained,
The Biennial was created to serve artists from countries lacking both logistic and
financial resources and thus unable to guarantee participation in art events such
as
those that take place in Venice and Sao Paulo. Names with unfamiliar spellings
can now be seen in the catalogs of international biennial exhibits and in major
international expositions. Before the Havana Biennial, few could be found and
few were the shows that exhibited the work of artists from Asia, Africa and Latin
America together.
As Llanes explained, the second and third Biennials expanded their
curatorial premises to include the rest of the "Third World:" namely,
Africa and Asia. In this way, the event was conceived as a visual
laboratory diametrically opposed to the dominant U.S./European exhibition
circuit. The curatorial rhetoric was staunchly anti-imperialist and in
many ways foreshadowed the post-modern impulse to de-center the art world
(Weiss:1997).
In addition, both the planners and the participating artists
theorized the exhibition with a populist mission. The Biennial's
exhibition sites were widely dispersed in order to reach a larger local
audience. Although centered in El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and the
Historical district of Old Havana, various happenings and projects
appeared throughout the province of Havana, into surrounding towns,
factories, and even highways. All night concerts, complete with impromptu
murals painted behind the performers, Chinese Kite festivals and artist
designed fashion shows were just some of the extra-artistic attractions.
Panels, symposia and workshops too were created to facilitate the exchange
of ideas amongst the participants and visitors. The artists also
visualized the Biennial as a venue where the public appeal of the event
would help to broaden the audiences understanding of contemporary artistic
languages. Luis Camnitzer has defined the utopian impulse of the original
artists as "eventism." In Cuba, "eventism" gives priority to the size and
appeal of the event as opposed to the singular benefits any particular
artist may gain from the exhibition's success (Camnitzer:1994).
With regards to these objectives, the first three Biennials were
enormously successful. The inaugural exhibition drew two hundred thousand
visitors, almost all from the city of Havana. The second drew five
thousand attendees it's opening night and three hundred thousand total.
The corresponding "buzz" among Latin American critics and artists was that
the Biennial was The Showcase for contemporary Latin American, and
particularly Cuban art. U.S. critics also began to take notice. By the
Second Biennial (1986), Art in America, Artforum, and Arts Magazine sent
correspondents to cover the event-although U.S. and European attendance
was still at a minimum. And it was the utopian, de-centering and
democratizing aspirations that first appealed to foreign critics.
Characterized by what Luis Camnitzer called Cuban Ecclecticism, the
production of the first generation of artists born and raised in
post-Revolutionary Cuba was simultaneously ideological, self-referential
and visually experimental. In addition, artists maintained clearly
political positions and ethical stances that were admired by contemporary
art critics in Europe and the United States.
In other words, it was "the political" that drew the first wave of
First World critics to the event. The first three Biennials especially,
seemed to convey an almost heroic modernist aspiration that had been all
but forsaken in the exhibition spectacles taking place in Europe and the
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U.S. at the time. For example, one of the early discussions found in
arguably the most influential art publication in the world, Art in
America, made more than one mention of the Biennial as "resistance to
cultural colonialism" and as a "powerful sociopolitical event"
(March:1987) As Rudolf Baranik stated in that article, "there were enough
works which we could admire through that (our formalist) taste, but more
works that said to us, `we are something else.'" I refer to this quote to
point out that the notion of difference-fundamental to the practice of
cultural consumption-came to be defined not only in racial or ethnic
terms, but political ones as well. And although the conditions and
specificities of the political discourses surrounding the Biennial shifted
as Cuba moved into its "special period," its reception continued to be
colored by Cuba's unusual location within the global, socio-political
spectrum.
As I mentioned earlier, the post-1989 period is crucial to
understanding the formation of the complex global and local relations that
now define the Biennial as an event. The failure of the sugar harvest,
coupled with the disappearance of Soviet subsidies and the tightening of
the U.S. embargo, created a number of challenges for the Biennial
organizers and participating artists in the early 1990's. The Biennial's
budget was slashed and materials for artist's work became more and more
difficult to find. The traumatic and highly publicized balsero
immigrations and increased anti-Cuban sentiment in the U.S., as well as
the international success and subsequent exodus of Cuba's most renowned
artists brought Cuba's art scene even more into the global spotlight.
Ironically, the Third and Fourth Biennials garnered even more
international attention and respect for the event. U.S. coverage expanded
to prominent newspapers like The New York Times, who, not surprisingly,
focused on the supposedly adversarial relationship between the Castro
regime and the Cuban artists-thereby remaining true to the United States
discourse on Cuba. The number of European curators and collectors that
came to the Biennial increased. Based on the strength of their Biennial
work, Cuban artists received numerous travel grants, exhibition
commissions and residency offers abroad. Very quickly, Cuban artists
became the darlings of the European exhibition circuit: and with the
support of the government, traveled throughout the world simultaneously as
emissaries and critics of Cuba's socio-economic and political situation.
It is no coincidence that the European "discovery" of Cuban artists
paralleled the intense business negotiations taking place between Fidel
and European capital in the early 1990's. Beginning in 1992, over two
hundred joint ventures with European companies were organized. In 1993,
the Castro regime basically converted to a dollar economy-essentially
setting the stage for tourism's entry. By 1994, West European tourism
accounted for 49 percent of visitors to the island and almost 45 percent
of trade (Font:1997). Although I can not examine the complexities between
Cuba's cultural policies and the experiment with liberalizing its economy,
it is important to stress that the post-1989 "special period" witnessed
the frenzied confluence of tourist development and cultural policies.
Central to this convergence of course, was the Havana Biennial. Despite
having to operate on a shoestring budget, the Fifth Biennial (1994) was
miraculously able to transform crucial elements of its presentation while
maintaining it highly politicized tone. As I will argue shortly, this
incarnation marked the shift of the event from a specialized arts festival
(which one could argue had tourist aspirations from the start), to an
international tourist production. Gone was the engagement with local
participation and the diffuse utilization of site specific projects. The
Biennial had considerably professionalized its approach and virtually the
entire event was focus in Habana Vieja, the area most gentrified for
tourism. Rather than take advantage of the innumerable unoccupied
buildings, a move that would have sincerely democratized the proceedings,
the Biennial opted for a more tourist friendly structure. To compound
matters, certain exhibition venues were even closed to all except those
with Biennial accreditation. The Fifth Biennial also marked the beginning
of the organizer's use historic, military compounds as exhibition sites.
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The 1994 edition also marked the arrival of important players from the
international art market. The most infamous was German Industrialist
Peter Ludwig, a prolific art collector known for his anti communist
stances. Ludwig founded the first non-Cuban art center on the island and
provided a large, albeit unused donation for the Biennial. In a move that
signified the unquestionable shift in attitude, a private sale was
organized for Ludwig before the event officially opened. It is also the
first time that an official group of collectors, curators and critics from
the National Association of Artist's Organizations (NAAO) traveled to the
event. Even the lavish catalogue-a must for any would be
mega-exhibition-was provided by Spain, the island's largest partner in
tourist development. The commercialization and touristization of the
Fifth Biennial was not lost on the organizers or the artists however. In
fact, both were painfully aware of the cultural contradictions inherent in
the theory and practice of the event. A number of artists and groups
produced work that scrutinized the effect of tourism and the market on the
event. Lillian Llanes, the driving force behind all but the first
Biennial, even threatened to boycott a Sixth Biennial if it became a
"sales outlet" for Cuban artists. Llanes' position pointed to the growing
tension between the Biennial organizers and the Ministry of Culture,
headed by Armando Hart. More than one observer, in fact, remarked on the
growing lack of autonomy between the Biennial and the Cuban tourist
industry (Hollander:1996, Camnitzer: 1996). And in the years between the
Fifth and Sixth editions of the Biennial, the latter's power and prestige
within the Cuban government grew considerably.
Legacy and Legitimation: Consuming the Revolution
I spent a good amount of time tracing the development of the
Biennial because I feel that it is important to underscore some of the
cultural contradictions surrounding its growth and transformation:
utopianism vs. professionalization, social agency vs. economic utility,
ethical autonomy vs. political necessity, tourist consumption vs. cultural
resistance. I do not mean to imply that these are all mutually exclusive
poles, but by the time the Sixth Biennial opened in May 1997, these
polemics had matured into problems that could not be ignored.
In what follows, I would like to expound some of the ideas laid
out at the beginning of this essay. Specifically, I would like to revisit
the question, how is the Biennial staged and what does that staging
reveal? Furthermore, what is a proper methodology for analyzing the
contemporary art Biennial within the framework of tourist discourse? For
reasons I have yet to understand, contemporary art has been exempt from
the critical analyses usually reserved for anthropology museums and
heritage festivals. But as the proliferation of contemporary
mega-exhibitions accelerates, it will be increasingly difficult to ignore,
on one hand, the process of cultural consumption that takes place; and on
the other, the inherent conflicts within what James Clifford and Mary
Louise Pratt call the "contact zone." According to Pratt, these zones are
defined as "the space in which peoples geographically and historically
separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing
relations (i.e exhibition spaces), usually involving conditions of
coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict." This contact
perspective emphasizes "how subjects are constituted in and by their
relations to each other. It stresses copresence, interaction,
interlocking understandings and practices, often within radically
asymmetrical relations of power" (Clifford: 1997). In the case of the
Havana Biennial, the contact zone is largely mediated by local actors in
charge of their own identity formation; whereas the zones Clifford and
Pratt discuss are museums, which are often mediated by an unconnected
outside party (i.e. the curator) What is immediately apparent in this,
the most recent exhibition is that the amount of visitors was at an all
time high. Although no official numbers were kept, original figures
estimated that over a half million visitors would sojourn to the Biennial.
This section therefore, will examine Revolution heritage, the symbolic
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capital of contemporary art, and what John Urry calls the "tourist gaze"
as they converged last May in Havana Vieja (Urry:1991). Primarily I will
concentrate my analysis on the official (and unofficial) staging of the
event by the Biennial committee and the artists. With regards to the
official presentation, the exhibition sites chosen for the event mirrored
the previous Biennial, with the exception of the Museo Nacional de Bellas
Artes, which is ironically, undergoing massive renovation to no doubt make
it a more suitable home for future events. Virtually all of the
exhibitions were held in colonial buildings in Havana Vieja, with the
exception of the 17th century fortresses-turned- gallery-spaces, El Morro
and La Fortaleza de la Cabaa. As I previously explained, both locations
have a specific significance within the history of the Cuban Revolution
and represented what Jacques Derrida might call the frames for the
symbolic capital they contained. From a museological standpoint, placing
the work within the confines of the Revolution's heritage has the effect
of rhetorical linkage and legitimation-colonial power to Revolutionary
power to contemporary symbolic power. This legitimation extends not only
to the artists, but the organizers and supporting institutions as well.
And the fact that much of the work presented in the Biennial is critical
of the Castro regime and the Revolution's failings only sustained the
positive reflection on the Cuban government. >From a tourist theory
position, one that relies on what Dean MacCannel has called "the semiotics
of attraction," the exhibition sites in their entirety, become "markers"
for larger symbolic dialectics (MacCannel:1989). As a number of critics
stated, visitors to the Biennial could not separate the artwork from these
historically rich markers (Weiss:1997, Vuelas:1997). Take for example
Lazaro Saveedra's site specific piece of at El Morro, a series of unnamed
tombstones exactly situated where Che Guevara's firing squads eliminated
Bautista loyalists (See figure opposite). As Saveedra's piece
demonstrates, the space and the work it contains become one. The bullet
holes left in the wall are even part of the piece. The exhibition
therefore, becomes a series of "signs" that depict the past and present
reality of the Cuban Revolution. Using a semiotic analysis, El Morro and
the work within it becomes the signifier of the Cuban position (the
signified). Following this argument, the artists of the Biennial (which
are of course, highlighted by the Cuban presence) become the symbolic
legacy of the Revolution They are not individual artists per se, but
products of the Revolution-its intellectual capital if you prefer. And it
is within this system of signs that symbolic associations are established
and the logics of staging and reception are played out. A U.S. example of
this connection might be the relationship between the Statue of Liberty
and the concept of liberty itself. (MacCannel: 1989, 121). My point here
is: not only can the Biennial contribute to well being of Cuba through the
aforementioned stimulation of economic activity and infrastructure
building, but it conveys a legitimizing discourse aimed at the foreign
visitor. The unofficial staging of the Biennial, or what tourist
theorists would call the "back region staging" is also worthy of deeper
analysis. Throughout Havana, artist's homes and studios, paladera cafes,
and alternative galleries, were appropriated by Cuban artists and curators
who established satellite exhibitions. Virtually every review of the
Biennial discusses these semi-unofficial events as necessary elements of
the Biennial experience (See Weiss: 1997, Gomez:1997 and Shapiro:1997)
Here, the "really risky" work is on display and there is always a "threat"
of the Cuban officials shutting down the gathering. And as Los Angeles
gallery director, Ana Iturralde explained, art world "insiders" show up in
droves. These backstage regions present the visitor with the more
authentic experience, which in this case I would define as the viewing of
the most politically charged, critical and ironic work. Aware of that the
work shown in the main exhibition sites has a less caustic bite, visitors
are drawn to an area where they can make incursions into the life of Cuban
society, where there is a promise of solidarity with the artists, and
where they can peak behind the scenes of the Biennial performance. If the
Biennial is considered an alternative to mainstream artistic production,
then the fringe exhibitions represent an alternative to the alternative
and therefore, a supposedly deeper social meaning.
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To what extent do these fringe shows present a staged authenticity?
Unfortunately, this is a difficult question to answer. There are complex
and multi-layered relationships at work in the "contact zone" that is the
Havana Biennial. It is therefore, problematic to ascribe motives to the
organizers and artists when the Biennial project aspires to such integrity
(a point reiterated by Llanes in the Biennial catalogue). Yet, it would be
nave to assume that the art world's desire for the political, coupled
with the artist's need for hard cash, does not effect what is produced and
performed in the Biennial. Pointing to this irony, Holly Block, who has
been instrumental in establishing Cuban residencies in the U.S., described
the latest trend in popular Cuban art: works that are tailored to the
tourists' hunger for explicitly "political message." These could range
from anti-imperialist caricatures of U.S. figures like Jesse Helms, to
satirical comments on life in Cuba during the still in effect "special
period." As Block decribes, one point is clear. The force of tourism has
infiltrated the Havana Biennial, maybe irreparably. And to the
international tourist, Cuban "otherness" is defined in terms of the
political-of an unrealized tropical utopia that maintains precariously
balanced between the ideals of the Revolution and the realities of the
neoliberal moment.
Footnotes:
Rachel Weiss, "The Sixth Havana Biennial," Art Nexus, No. 26, 1997
Although the event was originally organized as a Biennial, the economic
condition of post-1989 Cuba has forced the organizers to revert to a
Triennial format.
Kurt Hollander, "La Habana" in Poliester, Vol. 5, No #16, Fall 1996, pg. 22.
The Cuban government is now one of the largest hotel owning companies in
the world. Tourist inflow has grown from 309,000 in 1988, to over 1
million in 1996. Statistics taken from CubaNet.Org.
The term neo-liberal denotes the recent acceptance of the anti-statist
political and economic policies, which include the privatization of state
owned companies, a shrinkage in the social projects of bloated state
beauracracies and the opening up of national markets to foreign
investment. The shift comes after a twentieth century experiment with
economic nationalism has apparently failed. A paradigm espoused by the
Chicago School of economics and introduced by U.S. economist Milton
Freidman, it has thus far, primarily benefited corporate Latin America,
who have profited by purchasing large portions of previously owned state
industries, as well as the European, Japanese and U.S. interests that have
seen barriers to entry into Latin American markets eased and many cases
removed. This shift is especially problematic for Cuba, whose socialist
government holds the significance of being the one of the last nations to
vehemently resist neoliberal reform.
Some of the curatorial themes explored by the Biennial include: Art,
Society, Reflection, The Challenge of Colonialism, Fragmented Spaces -
Art, Power and Marginalisation, The Other Shore - Migrations,
Apropriations and Crossovers -Hybridisations, the Economic Conditions of
Life and Art and the Individual at the Periphery of Posmodernity.
A number of critics have recently pointed out the has grown from 309,000
in 1988, to over 1 million in 1996. Statistics taken from CubaNet.Org.
Mark Shapiro, "A Hot Art Scene Brings the World to Havana's Door"
Furthermore, Appadurai and Breckenridge argue that exhibitions (both
created in conjunction with and independent of, museums) are
extraordinarily rich sites for observing the complex dynamic between
social actors. These zones in turn, "crosscut a particular colonial and
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post-colonial trajectory where new patterns of visual display intersect
cultural production with spectacle, tourism and entertainment. Arjun
Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge, Museums are Good to Think: Heritage on
View in India, in Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture,
Ed. Ivan Karp and Steven Levine, Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington,
1992: pgs. 35-54.
Here, it needs to be noted that the current group of artists highlighted
in the past two Biennials is the first of the post-Revolutionary
generation that is not opting to leave the island. Therefore, the
international acclaim and success they receive directly effects Cuba-both
in gained prestige and capital inflow.
Intro to her Tourist Production Seminar, Spring 1998. Performance
Studies Dept. New York University
Zuleiva Vivas, Kulturbox, 6th Biennial Havana. Universes in Universes.
Saskia Sassen has provided the best analysis of the importance of
"imaging the city" in the era of globalization. Unpublished conference
paper, Conference on International Exhibitions, Belagio, Italy.
Maurice Roche has argued that tourism must be "seen against the backdrop
of long-term structural economic change in contemporary capitalism."
Furthermore, mega and special events, community festivals and
international arts shows provide an alternative for the obsolete
industrial labor force.
Interview given in Poliester Magazine, Vol.5, No. 16, Fall 1996.
As Jos Bedia, one of the most successful of the early Volumen Uno group
states, I think the three of us (Bedia, Garcianda, and Rodriguez Brey)
are trying to open up the audience. But artists think they can take on
the burden single handedly. In reality, we are part of a mechanism that
is the cultural life of the country, where we are only the workers who
give the finishing touches to a product that will be offered to the
people" See, Luis Camnitzer, The New Art of Cuba, University of Texas
Press: Austin, 1994, pg. 118.

A plethora of international shows highlighting contemporary Cuban art
emerged after 1991; including 15 Artistas Cubanos, in Mexico City, The
Nearest Edge of the World: Art and Cuba Now, shown at the Massachusetts
College of Art and the Bronx Museum, Cuba O.K. in Germany, and Cuba Siglo
XX Modernidad y Sincretismo, organized by the Centro Atl ntico de Arte
Moderno in Spain. Many of these shows are supported by the Cuban Ministry
of Culture, which also consolidates its subsidizing of Cuban art shows in
Cuba at the same time. In 1991 alone, over 1400 exhibitions were shown in
over 136 government supported galleries.
Interview, April 16, 1998.
Personal interview, April 22nd, 1998.
1
Working Bibliography
Books
Caminitzer, Luis. The New Art of Cuba. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
Clifford, James. Routes : Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth
Century, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997
Getz, Donald. Event Management and Event Tourism. New York:
Cognizant Communication Corp., 1997.
_____. Festivals, Special Events, and Toursim. New York: Van Nostrand
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Reinhold, 1991.
Karp, Ivan and Steven Levine, Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public
Culture, Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992.
______., Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Public Display,
Washington, Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992.
MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Schocken
Books, 1989.
Tomassi, Noreen, Mary Jane Jacob and Ivo Mosquita, American Visions:
Artistic and
Cultural Identity in the Western Hemisphere. New York: Allworth Press, 1997
Urry, John. The Tourist Gaze : Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies
London:Sage Publications, 1990.
Journals and Articles
Camnitzer, Luis, "The V Havana Biennial," ArtNexus, No. 14, 1994.
Font, Mauricio A., "Friendly Prodding and Other Sources of Change in Cuba," Social
Research 63, No. 2. (Summer:1997).
Fusco, Coco, "6th Biennial of Havana" Radio Latino U.S.A., date unknown.
Gomez, Edward, "An Art World Emerges into the Cuban Sun," New York Times, May
25, 1997.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, "Destination Museum," from Destination Culture:
Tourism, Museums and Heritage, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Roche, Maurice, "Mega-Events and Urban Policy," Annals of Tourism Research, Vol 21,
1994.
Roche, Maurice, "Mega-Events and Micro-Modernization: on the Sociology of the New
Urban Tourism," The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 43, NO. 4, 1992.
Shapiro, Mark, "Cuba Libre: A Hot Art World Brings the World to Havana's Door,"
Salon Wanderlust, June, 1997.
Weiss, Rachel, "The Sixth Havana Biennial," ArtNexus, No. 26, 1997.