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Spectre
of Censorship Haunts Biennial
Dalia
Acosta
HAVANA, (IPS) - The pluralistic nature
of the Havana Arts Biennial is being
called into question in its eighth
edition since emerging in 1984 as a
space for artists of the developing
South.
The withdrawal of two artists and the
subsequent debate about artistic
freedoms on the socialist-governed
island have cast a shadow over this
year's exhibition.
Rafael Acosta, president of the
governmental National Council for the
Plastic Arts, said last week before
the biennial's opening Saturday that
most of the 100 artists expected for
the show had already arrived in Cuba.
More than 700 gallery directors, art
critics and artists are expected to
attend the event as observers, most
coming from the United States,
reinforcing a trend that was noted at
the last biennial, in 2000.
In addition to the central exhibits,
with works by the invited artists, the
public is enjoying several parallel
events, including 53 individual and 43
collective shows.
With the theme "Art with
Life", the Havana Biennial
includes a gathering of performance
artists, organised by Canada's
"Le Lieu" Contemporary Art
Centre, and other art events that
incorporate the capital's urban spaces
and promote community participation.
But a cloud hovers over the programme
by the intense debate about artistic
freedom in Cuba, triggered by the
decision of artists Alexander Apóstol
of Venezuela and Priscila Moge of
Costa Rica to pull out of the
biennial.
News of their withdrawal circulated
via Internet since August, and with it
the texts of the e-mails that the
artists exchanged with the biennial
organisers -- in both cases regarding
disagreements with written texts
included in the presentation of their
works.
"I think it is unacceptable to
participate in an event where Cuban as
well as foreign artists are being
questioned and censored," Moge
wrote in a message to the Wifredo Lam
Centre, a leading Cuban arts
institution.
Apóstol, meanwhile, opted to pull out
as a result of a dispute with Cuban
curator Margarita Sánchez about a
text by Argentina's Eva Grinstein that
was to accompany his work and which,
according to Sánchez, could have
threatened relations between Venezuela
and Cuba.
An article by journalist Edgar
Alfonso-Sierra, published in the
Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional in
August, stated that censorship had
also extended to Guatemala's Darío
Escobar and Costa Rica's Federico
Herrero.
The result of what Cuban cultural
officials referred to as a "media
campaign" against the island was
the retraction of funds for the
biennial pledged by institutions from
the Netherlands and France.
The biennial's programme, which has
always been one of the most important
venues for non-Western artistic
expression, is not as open as in
previous years, said the Dutch-based
HIVOS (Humanist Institute for
Cooperation with Developing Countries)
in a communiqué. "Censorship is
evident," said the
non-governmental organisation.
The Prince Claus Foundation, also of
the Netherlands, linked its decision
to withhold financial assistance for
the event to the Fidel Castro
government's arrest of 75 dissidents
last March, including several
independent journalists.
A statement from the foundation states
that the stiff sentences given the
dissidents marks a significant
deterioration in the situation of
Cuban intellectuals and artists, and
that it cannot collaborate with a
biennial whose organisers do not
distance themselves from official
policy.
The foundation AFAA, an agency of
France's foreign ministry, cited
bureaucratic difficulties in
allocating funds for artists who were
to travel to Havana from Africa.
"More than 200,000 dollars have
been retracted from the event
financing by foundations like Prince
Claus and HIVOS, which provided 70
percent of the external funding for
the previous Havana Biennial,"
said the president of the National
Council for the Plastic Arts.
According to Acosta, the funding cuts
just four months before the opening of
the biennial created a very difficult
situation and obstructed the
participation of artists who were to
travel from distant countries,
particularly from Asia and Africa.
To confront the crisis, the organisers
turned to the Cuban government, which
at the last minute agreed to provide a
"ridiculously low budget" of
156,000 dollars, less than initially
planned, but enough to go forward with
the exhibition.
Numerous foreign artists decided to
take part in the event in any case,
seeking their own funding for their
stay in Cuba, and with individual
donations, said Acosta.
Contrary to the article in Venezuela's
El Nacional, the Cuban official
maintained that in none of the cases
mentioned by the newspaper were the
artworks or artists censored by the
biennial organisers.
Eugenio Valdés, a Cuban curator
participating in the 4-D project (four
dimensions, four decades) of the Rain
Group, said in comments to IPS that he
has run into "more than a few
bureaucratic obstacles, but nothing at
all related to censorship or limits on
artistic freedom."
Rain is a collective of artists,
architects and curators from several
countries. They have claimed the Cuba
Pavilion expo centre in Havana to
promote reflection about the city and
urban spaces during the course of the
biennial.
"We have put in a lot of work,
especially because in Cuba we are not
prepared to receive art outside the
narrow sphere of the gallery or the
museum. The gallery is seen as a
recipient that contains art, and
doesn't spill out," said Valdés.
Hilda María Rodríguez, director of
the Havana Biennial, says the
inclusion of interdisciplinary and
multinational groups like Rain is
proof of the plurality that she says
characterises the event.
"The nature of the biennial is a
sort of sine qua non. Above all it has
been related to the diversity of
expressions, disciplines, proposals,
expositions, artists and voices,"
said the Cuban cultural official.
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