Invited artists are warned well in advance that they can expect no funding from the Biennale, a circumstance which reportedly led to the last minute withdrawal of at least one of the catalogued artists from South Africa, Johannes Phokela, though accommodation in guest houses is provided for those who do come.
And for those who do come, the experience is salutary. The main exhibition space is the 17th Century fortress El Morro, and the Fortaleza de la Cabana, across the bay from the old city of Havana, but right through the city, dozens of other venues from magnificent to modest open their doors to the public with special exhibitions.
This year, the Spanish came to the party with extensive installation assistance, erecting interior screens in the vaulted spaces and enlivening the ancient buildings of the Fortaleza de la Cabana with handsome graphic signage in the key colour of burnt orange. They also sponsored the cleanly designed and substantial catalogue, which came complete with a second volume carrying the essays around the theoretical discourse of the theme of the Biennale: Integration and Resistance in the Age of Globalization.
All contemporary biennales have an overarching theme, but it seems the Cuban curators, under the overall directorship of Jorge Torres, make more stringent efforts than most to select work which really adheres to the theme.
In its isolation, Cuba has been shielded from many of the more unattractive aspects of globalization, but the republic is at a very interesting point in its history at the moment. An atmosphere of anticipation, a palpable sense of waiting for something to happen hangs over the city, dominates conversation in a way that is almost palpable.
Although Communist daily newspaper Granma still carries regular musings from Comrade Fidel Castro, often along the lines of how the greedy transgressions of US financiers have completely destroyed the economy of the world, his stepping down from the presidency in favour of his brother, Raul in 2008 and the advent of a new American president has raised the possibility of change. Even in the first week of the Biennale, the announcement came from the Obama administration that travel restrictions on Cuban expats wishing to return home to visit would be eased. The thin edge of the wedge? We will have to wait and see.
In the meantime, one of the great charms of Havana is the absence of throngs of American tourists, and the total lack of the ubiquitous chains of fast food outlets and boutiques which have rendered much of the rest of the world one long shopping mall. Imagining a new, globalized future for Havana was the theme of a number of artists on the Biennale. For example, Liudmila & Nelson, a Russian and German artist partnership now living in Havana presented photographs of the city as it is now, superimposed with images from the same streets decades ago, and as it will be once large hoardings advertising international superbrands find their way into the cityscape.
Themes of the tenuous position of refugees and would-be migrant workers occupied a number of artists including Emeka Okereke, Nigeria, and most notably, the Albanian artist Adrián Paci, who hit perfect pitch with his ironically named video projection Centro di permanenza temporanea (2007). In the video, a small crowd of people climb the stairs that normally lead one into a departing aircraft. But these stairs lead nowhere, and so having reached the top stair, the people stand there, immobile on the runway, as in the background planes land and take off and the day draws to a close.
Zimbabwean/South African artist Dan Halter drew attention with his Space Invaders: an installation of empty, well-worn woven plastic zip up bags, of the kind used all over Africa to transport possessions, arranged in the shape of the video game avatar. In Minnette Vári’s video installation Quake, cities rise and fall on the far horizon, as an unending procession of mutating robed figures move towards the camera. Young photographers Hassan and Husain Essop’s intriguing images in which the duo take every role in playing out aspects of the working class area of Cape Town in which they live were also on view.
Taking globalization in a different direction, Cuban artist Glenda León gave consideration to the religions of the world. If you have ever wondered how the name of your God would sound as a musical phrase, the artist provided an answer with her Details de Mundo interpretado 2008. Set in individual cubicles, León used the small automated devices found in music boxes to play over the names of deities like Allah, Buddha and Yahweh as rendered in the Braille versions of the name. The beauty of the concept transformed the gentle tinkling sounds into an almost ethereal experience.
With no local market for conceptual contemporary art, and severe restrictions on international travel, local artists struggle to realize their projects, or if they do, to draw any kind of critical attention to them. In one small early evening performance in a side street entitled Giroscopio, (Gyroscope) Inés Garrido and Teresa Sánchez showed a circular projection of a dancer struggling to keep his balance as the circle spun slowly first one way, then the other. Flanking the projection were postcard stands holding travel postcards - black and white out of focus images of famed world travel spots the artists would probably never be able to experience first hand, at least not under the current dispensation. Taking the postcards off the stands, the artists handed them out to the audience, leaving the stands empty.
For the first time, this year, a group show by United States artists found its way to Havana, under the title ‘Chelsea visits to Havana’, curated by Alberto Magnan at the Museo de Bellas Artes and featuring such big names as Tony Oursler and Marina Abramovic, but also including some of Chelsea’s rising stars, like Michael Waugh.
And at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, one of the highlights of the Biennale was Carlos Garaicoa’s solo exhibition, La Enmienda que Hay en MÍ Garaicoa’s refined aesthetics and acute sensitivity to the faded architectural charms of Havana, and particularly its street signage, with its retro typefaces long since replaced by more contemporary type in the rest of the world fuel the artist’s ongoing interest in representing the charged political landscape of his county through annotated photographs. Disused hoardings in black and white images of banal roadside scenes are extended by the artist with architectural lines suggesting ghostlike buildings or industrial structures, and the artist’s own texts. Nothing is what it appears to be, it seems. The modernist grid alluding to security and control overlays every view.
The biggest sensation of the Biennale was caused by Garaicoa’s compatriot, and fellow international art star Tania Bruguera. In a scheduled evening performance at the Lam Centre in the first week of the Biennale, Bruguera departed from an earlier proposal, one approved by the Biennale, and set up a stage in the courtyard, with a microphone and two ‘guards’ dressed in the olive drab of the Ministry of the Interior, the ministry believed by Cubans to spy on them.
One after another, members of the audience stepped up to the microphone to make a short speech – in each case, the guards would put a white dove on the head or shoulders of the speaker – an ironic visual reference to a 1959 victory speech of Castro’s, when a dove that settled on his shoulder was seen as an auspicious omen.
As a speaker of very little Spanish, I could not follow the speakers’ impassioned words, but their meaning was clear – liberty and freedom of speech were being called for, and atmosphere was electric. The next day the performance was all over the internet, with a major story in the Miami Herald and a video on YouTube.
The organizing committee of the Biennale reacted angrily by posting statements all over the Lam Centre saying that Bruguera’s actions had embarrassed Cuban artists and branding those who had taken the stage as ‘dissidents’ and `individuals at the service of the propagandistic anti-Cuban machinery.’
The Minister of Culture, Abel Prieto, took a cooler view of Bruguera’s performance. In an interview with the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, Prieto was quoted as saying, ‘That is one of the themes of critical art in Cuba. We are encouraging it, so that we may reflect, so that it helps us to discover our distortions, so that it helps us to defend the utopia. When criticism is made the way Tania Bruguera makes it, from a position of commitment to the nation, the results are truly fruitful.’
Prieto’s reasoned words suggest that this most important of biennials for showcasing the work of artists from the developing countries in the magnetic city of Havana is maturing in a way that bodes well for future editions of the event.
Sue Williamson was an invited artist at the 10th Havana Biennale, and has written about her own experiences in Havana in The Diary.
