To and from Utopia in the New Cuban Art

The new Cuban art grew up in the supercharged and conflicting currents of revolution, sometimes tracking to its optimism and at others scalded by it. But even more than that it was an art with extraordinary relation and relevance to the life of the country across social, domestic, cultural, and psychological registers: aggressive, protean, and perennially restless within an extraordinary conviction about the possibilities of art.-from the IntroductionIn 1981, Volumen Uno, an exhibition at a Havana gallery, inaugurated a new chapter in the rich history of Cuban art. Featuring an eclectic mix of works by eleven young artists filtered through a variety of styles-informalism, Pop, minimalism, conceptualism, performance, graffiti, and povera-the art was a sharp break with the past in both form and content. More of a phenomenon than a formal movement, the new Cuban art was both a reaction to the sovietization of Cuban culture in the 1970s and the dynamic entry of a generation of artists born around the Revolution and formed by its orthodoxies and its poetic idealism.In this spectacularly illustrated volume, Rachel Weiss offers the definitive critical history of the new Cuban art, exploring its remarkable artistic accomplishments and its role as catalyst for, and site of, public debate. Weiss draws on two decades of engagement with Cuban art and on the statements of the artists themselves to read individual artworks against the complex relationships between artists, their local and global audiences, and the Cuban state.Tracing the shift from the optimism of the early 1980s to the cultural cynicism that paralleled the near-collapse of Cuban society in the 1990s, To and from Utopia in the New Cuban Art identifies a renewed idealism among the artists about the potential role of culture in Cuban society.

Arts & Photography

Weiss, Rachel

History & Criticism

Univ. of Minnesota Press

The new Cuban art grew up in the supercharged and conflicting currents of revolution, sometimes tracking to its optimism and at others scalded by it. But even more than that it was an art with extraordinary relation and relevance to the life of the country across social, domestic, cultural, and psychological registers: aggressive, protean, and perennially restless within an extraordinary conviction about the possibilities of art.-from the Introduction In 1981, Volumen Uno, an exhibition at a Havana gallery, inaugurated a new chapter in the rich history of Cuban art. Featuring an eclectic mix of works by eleven young artists filtered through a variety of styles-informalism, Pop, minimalism, conceptualism, performance, graffiti, and povera-the art was a sharp break with the past in both form and content. More of a phenomenon than a formal movement, the new Cuban art was both a reaction to the sovietization of Cuban culture in the 1970s and the dynamic entry of a generation of artists born around the Revolution and formed by its orthodoxies and its poetic idealism. In this spectacularly illustrated volume, Rachel Weiss offers the definitive critical history of the new Cuban art, exploring its remarkable artistic accomplishments and its role as catalyst for, and site of, public debate. Weiss draws on two decades of engagement with Cuban art and on the statements of the artists themselves to read individual artworks against the complex relationships between artists, their local and global audiences, and the Cuban state. Tracing the shift from the optimism of the early 1980s to the cultural cynicism that paralleled the near-collapse of Cuban society in the 1990s, To and from Utopia in the New Cuban Art identifies a renewed idealism among the artists about the potential role of culture in Cuban society.

Now What?: Quandaries of Art and the Radical Past

Now What? is an innovative exploration of artworks and films that return to radical histories subject to erasure or otherwise lost or occluded over time. The moments returned to--the Cuban Revolution, Chile's 1973 coup d'état, the ambiguous 1989 "revolution" in Romania, and the mayhem surrounding the Red Army Faction in 1970s West Germany--stand as historical watersheds, foundational and precipitate moments in the history of radical politics. Delving into these key historical moments by way of Tania Bruguera's 2009 performance Tatlin's Whisper in Havana, filmmaker Patricio Guzmán's decades-long cycle of returns to Allende's Chile, Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica's Videograms of a Revolution, Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest, the film Germany in Autumn, and Gerhard Richter's October 18, 1977 suite of paintings, Rachel Weiss convincingly threads these works together through subtle and illuminating reflections on the complex dynamics involved in historical trauma and memory, addressing key questions about the meanings and uses of the past.

Fordham University Press

Now What? is an innovative exploration of artworks and films that return to radical histories subject to erasure or otherwise lost or occluded over time. The moments returned to―the Cuban Revolution, Chile’s 1973 coup d’état, the ambiguous 1989 “revolution” in Romania, and the mayhem surrounding the Red Army Faction in 1970s West Germany―stand as historical watersheds, foundational and precipitate moments in the history of radical politics. Delving into these key historical moments by way of Tania Bruguera’s 2009 performance Tatlin’s Whisper in Havana, filmmaker Patricio Guzmán’s decades-long cycle of returns to Allende’s Chile, Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica’s Videograms of a Revolution, Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest, the film Germany in Autumn, and Gerhard Richter’s October 18, 1977 suite of paintings, Rachel Weiss convincingly threads these works together through subtle and illuminating reflections on the complex dynamics involved in historical trauma and memory, addressing key questions about the meanings and uses of the past.

Juan Franciso Elso

Fusco, Coco

Viso, Olga

Moreno, Gean

Durham, Jimmie

Hernández, Orlando

Matamoros, Corina

Gómez, Fernando

Medina, Cuahtemoc

James, Erica Moiah

Iturbide, Gabriela

Tellez, Javier

Lara, Magali

Suter, Gerardo

Miami : [NAME] Publications

Do you like us?[ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Maybe?A collection of comic strips and shorts created by the 6dp team during their 2009 run on The Daily Texan, the university of Texas' college news paper.

[ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Maybe?

Comics & Graphic Novels

please, 6 dollars

Barceló Iñiguez, Jonathan

Graphic Novels

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

The second installment in Afterall's Exhibition Histories series, Making Art Global, Part 1 focuses on the third Havana Biennial, which took place in 1989. In the core essay, Rachel Weiss examines the ways in which this exhibition extended the global territory of contemporary art and redefined the biennial model. Gerardo Mosquera, a key member of the curatorial team, contributes a reflection on the project, and its constituent exhibitions and events are documented photographically. The book also includes a paper delivered by Geeta Kapur at the Biennial conference and republishes reviews of the Biennial by Coco Fusco and Luis Camnitzer. It opens with an introduction by Charles Esche and brings together recent interviews with participating artists Alex Ángeles, José Bedia, Alfredo Márquez and Lázaro Saavedra. Key texts from the time are complemented by new material.

Making Art Global (Part 1): The Third Havana Biennial 1989, Exhibition Histories Vol. 2

Esche, Charles

Kapur, Geeta

Camnitzer, Luis

Afterall Books

CIFO is pleased to present Adiós Utopia: Art in Cuba Since 1950, a publication that offers a new vision of artistic development and production and which centers on associations with the utopian spirit that defines Cuba's revolutionary period and its impact on art. Through research and critique, the publication establishes a meaningful dialogue that demystifies the preconceived narratives that have characterized Cuban art during the Revolution. Aesthetics, politics and culture are often inextricably interlinked in the artworks created during this period, which in turn exemplify the global transcendence of how art can respond to a dynamic context. This publication reveals a broad range of trends and approaches from the 1950s until the present, covering a variety of mediums such as painting, sculpture, installation, photography and poster art, among others. With over 150 images of artworks produced in Cuba during this time and more than 100 images from archival documents spanning over 60 years, the book includes essays by historians, art critics, curators, artists and other academics as well as a comprehensive chronology.

Adios Utopía. Art in Cuba since 1960

Mosquera, Gérardo

de La Nuez, Iván

Eligio Tonel, Antonio

Vega, Elsa

Francisco, René

This Side Up

Adiós utopía: Arte en Cuba desde 1950

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