Cuba - Lonely Planet [38]
Engaging and visceral, modern Cuban art combines lurid Afro–Latin American colors with the harsh reality of the 50-year-old Revolution. For visiting foreign art lovers it’s a unique and intoxicating brew. Forced into a corner by the constrictions of the culture-redefining Cuban Revolution, budding artists have invariably found that, by co-opting with (as opposed to confronting) the socialist regime, opportunities for academic training and artistic encouragement are almost unlimited. Encased in such a volatile creative climate, the concept of graphic art in Cuba – well established in its own right before the Revolution – has flourished exponentially.
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Havana’s modernist Edificio Focsa is considered one of the seven wonders of Cuban civil engineering, along with two tunnels, two roads, a bridge and an aqueduct.
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Serigraphy was first employed on the island at the beginning of the 20th century, but this distinctive style of silk-screen printing didn’t gather ground until the 1940s when, in connection with film and political posters, it enjoyed a wide distribution. The genre exploded after the 1959 Revolution when bodies such as Icaic and the propagandist Editora Política were enthusiastically sponsored by the Castro government to create thousands of informative posters designed to rally the Cuban population behind the huge tasks of building a New Society. Eschewing standard Soviet realism, Cuban poster artists mixed inherent Latin American influences with the eye-catching imagery of 1960s pop culture to create a brand new subgenre of their own. This innovative form of poster art can best be viewed at the Taller de Serigrafía René Portocarrero in Habana Vieja.
In the international context, art in Cuba is dominated by the prolific figure of Wilfredo Lam, painter, sculptor and ceramicist of mixed Chinese, African and Spanish ancestry. Born in Sagua La Grande, Villa Clara province in 1902, Lam studied art and law in Havana before departing for Madrid in 1923 to pursue his artistic ambitions in the fertile fields of post-WWI Europe. Displaced by the Spanish Civil War in 1937, he gravitated toward France where he became friends with Pablo Picasso and swapped ideas with the pioneering surrealist André Breton. Having absorbed various cubist and surrealist influences, Lam returned to Cuba in 1941 where he produced his own seminal masterpiece La Jungla (The Jungle), considered by critics to be one of the developing world’s most representative paintings.
Post-Lam Cuba’s unique artistic heritage has survived and prospered in Havana’s Centro Wilfredo Lam and the Instituto Superior de Arte Click here in outlying Cubanacán. The capital is also blessed with a splendid national art museum, the sprawling Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, housed in two separate buildings. Outside Havana further inspiration can be found in scattered artistic communities in the cities of Santiago, Camagüey and Baracoa. Diehards can also uncover notable artistic work hiding beneath the surface in other less heralded cultural outposts such as Las Tunas (known locally as the ‘city of sculptures’).
Theater & Dance
Described by aficionados as ‘a vertical representation of a horizontal act,’ Cuban dancing is famous for its libidinous rhythms and sensuous close-ups. It comes as no surprise to discover that the country has produced some of the most exciting and dexterous dancers in the world. Inheriting a love for dancing from childbirth and able to replicate perfect salsa steps by the age of two or three, Cubans are natural performers who approach dance with a complete lack of self-consciousness; a notion that leaves most visitors from Europe or North America