Political Influences in Cuban Art
“A question of major importance in Cuban culture is the link between radical political and artistic positions…where culture carries a marked social edge attuned to the circumstances in which it is produced and where it is forced to construct a national identity in the face of colonial and neo colonial powers.”
In the 1980s when the New Cuban Art Movement was consolidated many still hoped to establish the Third World utopia of social justice promised by the Cuban revolution. While Cuba shares many characteristics with other Latin American countries three factors guarantee it a unique placement amongst the formerly colonized countries of the Americas: 1. Spain continued emigration to Cuba in large numbers until the middle of the twentieth century. 2. The native population was eliminated in the 17th century. 3. Cuba possesses the most varied cultural traditions of all the African diaspora in America.
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Famous quotes containing the words political, influences, cuban and/or art:
“I’m not into smoke-filled rooms. I don’t have the time for byzantine political intrigues.”
—Benazir Bhutto (b. 1953)
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
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“Because a person is born the subject of a given state, you deny the sovereignty of the people? How about the child of Cuban slaves who is born a slave, is that an argument for slavery? The one is a fact as well as the other. Why then, if you use legal arguments in the one case, you don’t in the other?”
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“To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth ... but only a problem of art is solved in poetry.”
—Laura Riding (1901–1991)