Havanna Biennale Essay

8/12/2019 Havanna Biennale Essay

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6/26/2014 www.nyu.edu/classes/tourist/wineland.pap

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/tourist/wineland.pap 1/12

John Wineland

The Havana Bienale

Ideally, a biennial is an opportunity to redraw the global mapwith the center newly located. As new areas log on to theglobal contemporary circuit, a biennial can magnetize alocation, drawing in attention, ideas and

works from faraway places andaligning them with the local reality.(Rachel Weiss)

Cuba's brutal reinsertion into the capital circuit came in 1989, as aresult of the fall of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent anatomizing ofthe Eastern Block countries-its largest trading partners. Up to thatpoint, the island had been one of the most highly centralized, leastmarket dependent countries in the world. Consequently, Cuba was illequipped to handle GDP drops of 25, 14, and 10 percent in the years thatfollowed. This situation was of course, exacerbated by a senseless, U.S.embargo that has been in place almost thirty years. In response to therapid economic contractions, Castro called for "a special period in timesof peace," a belt tightening the equivalent of a total wartime effort.The deep crisis led to a search for market-based solutions and models, newinternational partners, and the experimentation with mild forms ofcapitalism.

Enter tourism. Beginning in 1992, Cuba began intensenegotiations Spanish, Canadian, German and Italian companies to developpartnerships on hotels and resorts around the island. The ensuing touristpolicies became the primary focus of Cuba's economic development. Unableto spend precious resources on developing new attractions, the Ministry ofthe Interior took stock of the island's already existing tourist friendly

assets. These enticements included Cuba's beaches, the oldest colonialhistoric district in the Americas (Habana Vieja), a number of art decostyled mansions and hotels left from the heyday of U.S tourism in the1940's and 50's, a thriving music scene, an internationally acclaimed filmfestival called the Havana Film Festival and a modest, but well-respectedBiennial of contemporary art. Five years later, the June 1997 issue ofSalon Wanderlust Magazine focused upon travel to the island nation ofCuba. The design of the cover story, written by Mark Shapiro, containedcentered on the magazine cover in large black letters, the title, CubaLibre. It was offset against a sizzling red background. Underneath theeye catching marker on the cover, was the subtitle, "A Hot Art SceneBrings the World to Havana's Door." Shapiro is of course, talking aboutthe throngs of collectors, curators, artists and museum professionals thatdescend upon the island from Europe, Canada, Latin America and even theUnited States every three years to see the crown jewel of so-called ThirdWorld Biennials, La Bienal de la Habana. . Setting aside for the moment adeeper reading of this provocative cover, I would like to focus upon thequestion of how the Havana Biennial-originally inaugurated in 1984 as amodel of alternative exhibition practice-has metamorphosed into one of theisland's most prestigious tourist attractions. Kurt Hollander, in aspecial issue of Poliester magazine dedicated solely to the mega-Biennial,noted that: One of the Biennial's functions is to attract tourism andtourist dollars to the island, and it accomplishes this in part by fillingup the five star hotels with artists and others of the art world to suchan extent that the hotel lobbies, restaurants and bars serve as the

unofficial centers of interaction among the participants.

Indeed, as Hollander argues, "art tourism," has become an integralcomponent of Cuba's development policies. These include a permanentinfrastructure makeover, a four hundred million-dollar a year investmentin hotels and other foundational necessities, joint venture enterprises


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with foreign capital totaling over six hundred million dollars and thecreation of environmental tourism programs. And the Biennial, as theengine that lures the international art market to Cuba, has seen itscachet grow with every occurrence. .

This essay will investigate the relationship between the HavanaBiennial and the island's new dependency upon tourist development. Inorder to do so, I will need to examine the transformation of the eventfrom its origins as a laboratory of visual experience, to an internationalmega-exhibition that rivals its mainstream counterparts of Venice, Kasseland Sao Paulo. Relying upon a multiplicity approaches, especially the newthought surrounding mega-events and tourism (Getz:1991 and Roche: 1994),recent exhibition theory (Ferguson: 1996, Ramrez: 1996), and theory ofheritage tourism (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: 1997), my inquiry is primarilydriven by two questions. First, how is the event staged and what doesthat staging reveal? I am not really interested in the usual criticalanalysis given to such events. What artists were left out? What are thestrengths and weaknesses of the curatorial premise? etc. Instead, I willapproach the Biennial as a site in its entirety, or as what James Cliffordwould call a "contact zone."(Clifford: 1997) For it is in the productionof such special events that nuances in local and global relations emerge;and that the underlying objectives of the Cuban government, the Biennial

organizers, and the artists themselves can be examined. Of particularimportance is that the mega-exhibition assists the Cuban government innavigating the "neoliberal moment" within the global socio-political andeconomic sphere. Specifically, the event's critical curatorial approachgives the organizers and Cuban officials an arena for maintaining atrenchant stance against capital expansion, while simultaneously utilizingthe magnetism of the Biennial to negotiate with the international artcommunity and the capital it represents. On the other hand, the mega-exhibition ironically has become a forum for Cuban artists to critique thephenomenon of tourism as it invariably transforms Cuban economic andcultural life. My second question concerns how the Biennial is consumed.By framing the event's reception in terms of consumption, I ampurposefully situating the Biennial within the postmodern discourses ofcultural consumption. I would therefore, like to suggest that the eventis no longer simply about viewing art or making business deals- althoughas Rachel Weiss points out, "a significant amount of business get done".All one need do is examine some of the Biennial reviews to see that theexperiential aspect of attending the event is almost as important as theartwork. "Behind me is Havana," described Mark Shapiro, "a crumblingmuseum of fifty year old mansions, fine lattice work balconies and artdeco archways, peeling away in layers of grandeur." From testimonies likeShapiro's (and there are plenty), it is clear that the Biennial has helpedto transform Havana into what tourist theorists call a destination. Iwould posit, therefore, that the authentic experience for the Biennialtraveler revolves not only around the adventure of visiting one of the

Western Hemisphere's most notorious cities, but includes the viewing andmaybe purchasing of the what is symbolically presented as the legacy ofthe Revolution-Cuba's young artists. . The Havana Biennial belongs tomultiple players. To look at the event simply as an opportunisticcreation of the Castro regime is to oversimplify the complex relationshipbetween the various global and local actors. In addition, that kind ofhegemonic approach limits the ability to understand the ambivalentrelationship Cuban artists have with tourism-as the necessary evil thatkeeps their economy afloat, gives them access to the international artworld and pressures the Castro regime into ever so slowly liberalizing theCuban economy. In the case of Havana, what makes the tri-annual happeningsuch a rich site for analysis is that there are so many competing visions,so many productions within productions. It is therefore, moreilluminating perhaps, to approach the Biennial as what Arjun Appadurai andCarol Breckenridge would call a "zone of contestation." In thissemi-globalized, semi-public space, national forms of heritage dovetailwith transnational ideologies of development, citizenship andcosmopolitanism. And various national and international groups-includingBiennial officials, government actors, transnational collectors, and


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representatives of the international art community, as well as Cuban andother so-called Third World artists- converge with a complicated, oftencontradictory set of objectives.

From the perspective of the Castro regime the Havana Biennialserves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it satisfies the practical needfor capital inflow in a time of devastating economic pressure. Itliterally draws hundreds and thousands of dollars to Havana's currencystarved infrastructure. Not only do the visitors spend money inrestaurants, hotels and transportation, but they also buy art; and theyprovide a means to promote Cuba's young artists, thereby ensuring theinflow of more capital in the future. On the other hand, and perhaps thisis a more important, if less quantifiable point, the event presents aprogressive facade that supports the country's position within asuspicious international community. From the perspective of the artistsand organizers however, it is intended as a means to legitimatecontemporary Cuban work, and to present an alternative to the mainstreamhistories of art. Consequently, for these groups there is a performanceof intervention-a specific posturing vis--vis the international art worldand the Cuban censors-that must also be considered. One such example isthe performance booth maintained by two of the participating artists,Carlos Garicoa and Bernardo Prieto, called Tiendas Abulaye. Modeled as a

tourist gift shop, the artists sold their pseudo-religious offerings toAbulaye, the patron saint of the market that they recently incorporatedinto the Afro-Cuban pantheon of Santeria. The piece is both a comment onthe artist's relationship to the art market and the tragic reality ofCubans forced to sell their personal and religious belonging to touristsfor much needed dollars. As Garicoa explains, "the foreigner sees theexoticism in these objects, but he doesn't realize what these objectsreally mean." (Fusco:1997-See Figure Opposite) The first section then,will outline some of the theoretical parameters that frame this study.Here it is essential to situate the Biennial within the growing field oftourist theory, especially as it relates to event tourism. By utilizingthis approach, I will be able to clarify the Biennial's production value,in other words, its ability to construct an authentic experience for theviewer. In addition, I will examine the discourses surrounding thephenomenon of the international Biennial itself-both as a component of newthinking on exhibitions, but also as historically specific appearance.Why, at this specific historical moment, are Biennials gaining suchprominence on the global cultural stage? Finally, I will briefly considerthe role of heritage, more specifically, the heritage of the CubanRevolution, in the framing of contemporary art. What does it mean tocombine the two within the context of a cultural spectacle like theBiennial? This latter practice is perhaps interrelated with Cuba'ssacralization of revolutionary sites for tourist consumption. Forexample, the Museo de la Revolucin or the Granma, the now infamous yachtthat brought Fidel and Che from Mexico to Cuba to launch the Revolution,

are now essential stops on virtually every tour (most of which aregovernment lead). The second section will trace the development of theBiennial as an international art event, from its humble beginnings in1984, to its current status. The final section will concentrate on thestaging and production of the most recent Biennial, analyzing, among otherfactors, the organizer's use of symbolic, historical structures as displayvenues. The most prominent example of this practice was thetransformation of El Morro and La Fortaleza de la Cabaa militarycomplexes into Biennials exhibition sites (Images on the following pagesrespectively). El Morro, which Che Guevara captured in 1959, triggeredthe final expulsion of Bautista loyalists from Havana. It was also thelocation where the Castro regime executed the first wave of revolutionaryopponents. La Fortaleza was an infamous prison for political dissidentsduring the most strident years of Revolutionary authoritarianism. Theirimportance in the production of the Biennial is only one example of theevent's performative nature. There are other illustrations that I willdiscuss shortly. But for now, suffice it to say that it is no coincidencethat the majority (two out of three sites) of this year's exhibition waslocated outside the city of Havana, virtually inaccessible to Habaneros.


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Theorizing the Biennial

In August 1997, the Rockefeller Foundation and ArtsInternational/IIE gathered an international group of curators, artsprofessionals, artists and cultural theorists in Bellagio, Italy, todiscuss the recent explosion of International Biennials. The conferenceaddressed the importance of Biennials in relation to current thoughts ontransnationalism, identity politics, curatorial practices, andinternational politics. Recognized as especially important is thecurator, who is no longer an arbiter of taste, working behind the scenesof an exhibition, but a culture broker-a central player on the broaderstage of global politics. (Brenson: 1997, Ramrez: 1995) Although I agreewholeheartedly with this assertion, I feel that to focus solely on the arthistorical and curatorial aspects of Biennial creation is to lose sight ofthe underlying motives for creation of these mega-exhibitions in the firstplace.

What the Belagio conference participants only mentioned tangentiallyhowever, was the importance of tourism (as well as the liberal economicmodel that espouses it) in the formation of the Biennial circuit. AsBarbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett explains, "tourism is a powerful medium of

transnational encounter. There is hardly a place on earth not part of therecreational geography of tourism. A powerful engine for moving peoplefrom one place to another, tourism produces itself with ever greatercomplexity." And Biennials are consummate manifestations of culturaltourism, a form of travel usually centered around heritage industries ormuseums, or both. Biennial bring prestige to the cities that host them,legitimation to the artists that participate, and the concentratedeconomic clout of the international art world to their door for a focusedperiod of time. Just witness the recent emergence of these artsexhibitions in developing countries such as South Africa, Turkey, Brazil,Peru, and Ecuador, all of which are using mega- exhibitions as catalystsin the creation of urban infrastructures and as capital magnets.Biennials, like art museums, have become what Carol Duncan calls"necessities in First and Third World relations." "Now more than ever,"she continues, "having a bigger and better art museum is a sign ofpolitical virtue and national identity--of being recognizably a member ofthe civilized community of modern, liberal nations" (Karp andLevine:1990). Although Duncan wrote this before the crush of recentBiennials, I am sure she would agree that the political efficacy is thesame.

Moreover, the Biennial belongs to a special category of culturaltourism-mega- event or special event tourism. According to Donald Getz,special events such as the Havana Biennial, function in the same capacityas community festivals, world fairs and Olympic games, and serve a number

of tourism related purposes. These happenings, Getz argues, can "create aunique ambiance which powerfully motivates travel, animate otherwisestatic attractions, create positive images of destinations, act as acatalyst for development, and mobilize community tourismplanning"(Getz:1991). In order to maximize the event however, thecreation of a specialness of place and the promise of authenticity areessential. The attention to ambiance helps to codify the visitor'sexperience by developing a series of cultural signs-in this case, thesymbolic capital of Cuban art enveloped by the colonial architecture ofHavana-which inevitably links the event to a symbolic history of power.This may explain why, out of all the locations that could have been chosento hold the Biennial, that the colonial historic center was selected. Asone critic observed, "it was pleasant to wander through Old-Havana and toadmire the architectural restoration. In the end, it was two tours inone: one touristic and the other artistic." Location therefore, is a keycomponent to this mode of planning. People, local color and symboliccapital are also important. Usually, spaces that are alive with "localcolor" are used to frame and enhance the participatory experience. And thehistorical district, which is teeming with street vendors, musicians, and


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restaurants, most certainly qualifies as this type of location. On theother hand, spaces are often re-programmed. Historic cultural andmilitary sites are frequently transformed and sacralized, creating a senseof hereness that reminds the visitor where he or she is, or better yet,symbolically links the viewer to an historic or cultural past. If thisstaging is successful, the place in which the event is held becomes asimportant as the event itself, creating the aura of a dynamic event. Thisin turn leads to a regeneration of visits and subsequent happenings.Local and national symbolic capital is valorized and given the omnipresentnature of mass media. It is then, promoted beyond national borders. Theevent planners receive international acclaim and the host country islegitimized in the transnational community. A sense of local pride isfostered. The surrounding economy is stimulated through restaurant,entertainment and shopping excursions. Local economies are reorganizedfrom a failing post-industrial to service economies using the specialevent as an impetus for change. Most importantly however, the event siteand its adjoining environs enter the pantheon of international touristdestinations-thereby ensuring future capital inflows. A lucent example ofthis phenomenon in Cuba is the paledera, the private home that doubles asa semi-legal restaurant/inn during and sometimes after these specialevents. For many visitors, the paledera is considered a more authenticmeans of experiencing Cuban culture and an alternative to the overly

touristic Cuban hotels. In tourist jargon, these palederas are the "backstages" of the site. They represent a more "intimate and real" experienceof Cuban life and are therefore, sought after by the most experiencedtourists (MacCannel:1989). Artists too, have established their own"back-stages" as alternatives to the official program, but I will discussthis practice further in the final section. How do we utilize this modelof analysis for better understanding the Havana Biennial and theaccelerated diffusion of other such international exhibitions throughoutthe world?

First of all, it is important to position Biennials within the historicalmoment of the late twentieth century, where globalization pressures haveled to the reconstruction of national cultural markets, creating atransnational circuit of legitimation and exchange for cultural capitalwhich parallels global capital expansion. Add to these pressures thereverent adoption of IMF sanctioned neoliberal economic policiesthroughout the developing world, the emergence of "The City" as key sitefor diffusion of global economic power relations, and the environment forspectacular exhibitions has been actualized. It may also be fruitful tocompare and contrast the postmodern exhibitionary complex with that of thelate 19th century. What similarities exist between the conditions thatspawned World Fairs and International Exhibitions in the liberal/colonialera and those that envelop their post-colonial, neoliberal cousins?Recent work on mega-events and tourism, particularly that of MauriceRoche, has shown that the current post-industrial move towards

liberalization carries with it an implicit component dedicated to tourism.In both the First and Third Worlds, nations can utilize emerging touristsectors to provide jobs for whole sectors of the population that have beenreorganized under what we now call neoliberalism; where nationalindustrial models are reformatted into post-national information andservice ones. Furthermore, as part of the drive towards economicmodernization and capital attraction, the tourist industry provides whatMaurice Roche calls, "the rare virtues of simultaneously (a) requiringcontinuous technological development, capital investment and renewal,(b)being comercially attractive both to consumers and investors, and (c)being significantly labor intensive. (Roche: 1992 and 1994).

Roche's model is of course, intended for post-Industrial capitalistnations, specifically Britain and the U.S. I would argue however, that itis just as applicable, if not more so, to Cuba's desperate situation.

The Rise and Transformation of the Havana Biennial

At this point, a brief tracing of the Havana Biennial's history is


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in order. The first Bienal de la Habana was inaugurated in 1984 as analternative venue for artists from Latin America whose work was not wellknown internationally. While it went almost completely unnoticed inEurope and the U.S., it was an extremely popular local event. Theorganizing institution, El Centro Wilfredo Lam, in conjunction with theCuban Ministry of Culture, hoped to construct a discourse based on thecollective experience of "marginalized artists affected byunderdevelopment. As Biennial director Lillian Llanes explained,

The Biennial was created to serve artists from countries lacking both logistic andfinancial resources and thus unable to guarantee participation in art events suchasthose that take place in Venice and Sao Paulo. Names with unfamiliar spellingscan now be seen in the catalogs of international biennial exhibits and in majorinternational expositions. Before the Havana Biennial, few could be found andfew were the shows that exhibited the work of artists from Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica together.

As Llanes explained, the second and third Biennials expanded theircuratorial premises to include the rest of the "Third World:" namely,Africa and Asia. In this way, the event was conceived as a visuallaboratory diametrically opposed to the dominant U.S./European exhibition

circuit. The curatorial rhetoric was staunchly anti-imperialist and inmany ways foreshadowed the post-modern impulse to de-center the art world(Weiss:1997).

In addition, both the planners and the participating artiststheorized the exhibition with a populist mission. The Biennial'sexhibition sites were widely dispersed in order to reach a larger localaudience. Although centered in El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and theHistorical district of Old Havana, various happenings and projectsappeared throughout the province of Havana, into surrounding towns,factories, and even highways. All night concerts, complete with impromptumurals painted behind the performers, Chinese Kite festivals and artistdesigned fashion shows were just some of the extra-artistic attractions.Panels, symposia and workshops too were created to facilitate the exchangeof ideas amongst the participants and visitors. The artists alsovisualized the Biennial as a venue where the public appeal of the eventwould help to broaden the audiences understanding of contemporary artisticlanguages. Luis Camnitzer has defined the utopian impulse of the originalartists as "eventism." In Cuba, "eventism" gives priority to the size andappeal of the event as opposed to the singular benefits any particularartist may gain from the exhibition's success (Camnitzer:1994).

With regards to these objectives, the first three Biennials wereenormously successful. The inaugural exhibition drew two hundred thousandvisitors, almost all from the city of Havana. The second drew five

thousand attendees it's opening night and three hundred thousand total.The corresponding "buzz" among Latin American critics and artists was thatthe Biennial was The Showcase for contemporary Latin American, andparticularly Cuban art. U.S. critics also began to take notice. By theSecond Biennial (1986), Art in America, Artforum, and Arts Magazine sentcorrespondents to cover the event-although U.S. and European attendancewas still at a minimum. And it was the utopian, de-centering anddemocratizing aspirations that first appealed to foreign critics.Characterized by what Luis Camnitzer called Cuban Ecclecticism, theproduction of the first generation of artists born and raised inpost-Revolutionary Cuba was simultaneously ideological, self-referentialand visually experimental. In addition, artists maintained clearlypolitical positions and ethical stances that were admired by contemporaryart critics in Europe and the United States.

In other words, it was "the political" that drew the first wave ofFirst World critics to the event. The first three Biennials especially,seemed to convey an almost heroic modernist aspiration that had been allbut forsaken in the exhibition spectacles taking place in Europe and the


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U.S. at the time. For example, one of the early discussions found inarguably the most influential art publication in the world, Art inAmerica, made more than one mention of the Biennial as "resistance tocultural colonialism" and as a "powerful sociopolitical event"(March:1987) As Rudolf Baranik stated in that article, "there were enoughworks which we could admire through that (our formalist) taste, but moreworks that said to us, `we are something else.'" I refer to this quote topoint out that the notion of difference-fundamental to the practice ofcultural consumption-came to be defined not only in racial or ethnicterms, but political ones as well. And although the conditions andspecificities of the political discourses surrounding the Biennial shiftedas Cuba moved into its "special period," its reception continued to becolored by Cuba's unusual location within the global, socio-politicalspectrum.

As I mentioned earlier, the post-1989 period is crucial tounderstanding the formation of the complex global and local relations thatnow define the Biennial as an event. The failure of the sugar harvest,coupled with the disappearance of Soviet subsidies and the tightening ofthe U.S. embargo, created a number of challenges for the Biennialorganizers and participating artists in the early 1990's. The Biennial'sbudget was slashed and materials for artist's work became more and more

difficult to find. The traumatic and highly publicized balseroimmigrations and increased anti-Cuban sentiment in the U.S., as well asthe international success and subsequent exodus of Cuba's most renownedartists brought Cuba's art scene even more into the global spotlight.

Ironically, the Third and Fourth Biennials garnered even moreinternational attention and respect for the event. U.S. coverage expandedto prominent newspapers like The New York Times, who, not surprisingly,focused on the supposedly adversarial relationship between the Castroregime and the Cuban artists-thereby remaining true to the United Statesdiscourse on Cuba. The number of European curators and collectors thatcame to the Biennial increased. Based on the strength of their Biennialwork, Cuban artists received numerous travel grants, exhibitioncommissions and residency offers abroad. Very quickly, Cuban artistsbecame the darlings of the European exhibition circuit: and with thesupport of the government, traveled throughout the world simultaneously asemissaries and critics of Cuba's socio-economic and political situation.It is no coincidence that the European "discovery" of Cuban artistsparalleled the intense business negotiations taking place between Fideland European capital in the early 1990's. Beginning in 1992, over twohundred joint ventures with European companies were organized. In 1993,the Castro regime basically converted to a dollar economy-essentiallysetting the stage for tourism's entry. By 1994, West European tourismaccounted for 49 percent of visitors to the island and almost 45 percentof trade (Font:1997). Although I can not examine the complexities between

Cuba's cultural policies and the experiment with liberalizing its economy,it is important to stress that the post-1989 "special period" witnessedthe frenzied confluence of tourist development and cultural policies.Central to this convergence of course, was the Havana Biennial. Despitehaving to operate on a shoestring budget, the Fifth Biennial (1994) wasmiraculously able to transform crucial elements of its presentation whilemaintaining it highly politicized tone. As I will argue shortly, thisincarnation marked the shift of the event from a specialized arts festival(which one could argue had tourist aspirations from the start), to aninternational tourist production. Gone was the engagement with localparticipation and the diffuse utilization of site specific projects. TheBiennial had considerably professionalized its approach and virtually theentire event was focus in Habana Vieja, the area most gentrified fortourism. Rather than take advantage of the innumerable unoccupiedbuildings, a move that would have sincerely democratized the proceedings,the Biennial opted for a more tourist friendly structure. To compoundmatters, certain exhibition venues were even closed to all except thosewith Biennial accreditation. The Fifth Biennial also marked the beginningof the organizer's use historic, military compounds as exhibition sites.


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The 1994 edition also marked the arrival of important players from theinternational art market. The most infamous was German IndustrialistPeter Ludwig, a prolific art collector known for his anti communiststances. Ludwig founded the first non-Cuban art center on the island andprovided a large, albeit unused donation for the Biennial. In a move thatsignified the unquestionable shift in attitude, a private sale wasorganized for Ludwig before the event officially opened. It is also thefirst time that an official group of collectors, curators and critics fromthe National Association of Artist's Organizations (NAAO) traveled to theevent. Even the lavish catalogue-a must for any would bemega-exhibition-was provided by Spain, the island's largest partner intourist development. The commercialization and touristization of theFifth Biennial was not lost on the organizers or the artists however. Infact, both were painfully aware of the cultural contradictions inherent inthe theory and practice of the event. A number of artists and groupsproduced work that scrutinized the effect of tourism and the market on theevent. Lillian Llanes, the driving force behind all but the firstBiennial, even threatened to boycott a Sixth Biennial if it became a"sales outlet" for Cuban artists. Llanes' position pointed to the growingtension between the Biennial organizers and the Ministry of Culture,headed by Armando Hart. More than one observer, in fact, remarked on thegrowing lack of autonomy between the Biennial and the Cuban tourist

industry (Hollander:1996, Camnitzer: 1996). And in the years between theFifth and Sixth editions of the Biennial, the latter's power and prestigewithin the Cuban government grew considerably.

Legacy and Legitimation: Consuming the Revolution

I spent a good amount of time tracing the development of theBiennial because I feel that it is important to underscore some of thecultural contradictions surrounding its growth and transformation:utopianism vs. professionalization, social agency vs. economic utility,ethical autonomy vs. political necessity, tourist consumption vs. culturalresistance. I do not mean to imply that these are all mutually exclusivepoles, but by the time the Sixth Biennial opened in May 1997, thesepolemics had matured into problems that could not be ignored.

In what follows, I would like to expound some of the ideas laidout at the beginning of this essay. Specifically, I would like to revisitthe question, how is the Biennial staged and what does that stagingreveal? Furthermore, what is a proper methodology for analyzing thecontemporary art Biennial within the framework of tourist discourse? Forreasons I have yet to understand, contemporary art has been exempt fromthe critical analyses usually reserved for anthropology museums andheritage festivals. But as the proliferation of contemporarymega-exhibitions accelerates, it will be increasingly difficult to ignore,

on one hand, the process of cultural consumption that takes place; and onthe other, the inherent conflicts within what James Clifford and MaryLouise Pratt call the "contact zone." According to Pratt, these zones aredefined as "the space in which peoples geographically and historicallyseparated come into contact with each other and establish ongoingrelations (i.e exhibition spaces), usually involving conditions ofcoercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict." This contactperspective emphasizes "how subjects are constituted in and by theirrelations to each other. It stresses copresence, interaction,interlocking understandings and practices, often within radicallyasymmetrical relations of power" (Clifford: 1997). In the case of theHavana Biennial, the contact zone is largely mediated by local actors incharge of their own identity formation; whereas the zones Clifford andPratt discuss are museums, which are often mediated by an unconnectedoutside party (i.e. the curator) What is immediately apparent in this,the most recent exhibition is that the amount of visitors was at an alltime high. Although no official numbers were kept, original figuresestimated that over a half million visitors would sojourn to the Biennial.This section therefore, will examine Revolution heritage, the symbolic


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capital of contemporary art, and what John Urry calls the "tourist gaze"as they converged last May in Havana Vieja (Urry:1991). Primarily I willconcentrate my analysis on the official (and unofficial) staging of theevent by the Biennial committee and the artists. With regards to theofficial presentation, the exhibition sites chosen for the event mirroredthe previous Biennial, with the exception of the Museo Nacional de BellasArtes, which is ironically, undergoing massive renovation to no doubt makeit a more suitable home for future events. Virtually all of theexhibitions were held in colonial buildings in Havana Vieja, with theexception of the 17th century fortresses-turned- gallery-spaces, El Morroand La Fortaleza de la Cabaa. As I previously explained, both locationshave a specific significance within the history of the Cuban Revolutionand represented what Jacques Derrida might call the frames for thesymbolic capital they contained. From a museological standpoint, placingthe work within the confines of the Revolution's heritage has the effectof rhetorical linkage and legitimation-colonial power to Revolutionarypower to contemporary symbolic power. This legitimation extends not onlyto the artists, but the organizers and supporting institutions as well.And the fact that much of the work presented in the Biennial is criticalof the Castro regime and the Revolution's failings only sustained thepositive reflection on the Cuban government. >From a tourist theoryposition, one that relies on what Dean MacCannel has called "the semiotics

of attraction," the exhibition sites in their entirety, become "markers"for larger symbolic dialectics (MacCannel:1989). As a number of criticsstated, visitors to the Biennial could not separate the artwork from thesehistorically rich markers (Weiss:1997, Vuelas:1997). Take for exampleLazaro Saveedra's site specific piece of at El Morro, a series of unnamedtombstones exactly situated where Che Guevara's firing squads eliminatedBautista loyalists (See figure opposite). As Saveedra's piecedemonstrates, the space and the work it contains become one. The bulletholes left in the wall are even part of the piece. The exhibitiontherefore, becomes a series of "signs" that depict the past and presentreality of the Cuban Revolution. Using a semiotic analysis, El Morro andthe work within it becomes the signifier of the Cuban position (thesignified). Following this argument, the artists of the Biennial (whichare of course, highlighted by the Cuban presence) become the symboliclegacy of the Revolution They are not individual artists per se, butproducts of the Revolution-its intellectual capital if you prefer. And itis within this system of signs that symbolic associations are establishedand the logics of staging and reception are played out. A U.S. example ofthis connection might be the relationship between the Statue of Libertyand the concept of liberty itself. (MacCannel: 1989, 121). My point hereis: not only can the Biennial contribute to well being of Cuba through theaforementioned stimulation of economic activity and infrastructurebuilding, but it conveys a legitimizing discourse aimed at the foreignvisitor. The unofficial staging of the Biennial, or what touristtheorists would call the "back region staging" is also worthy of deeper

analysis. Throughout Havana, artist's homes and studios, paladera cafes,and alternative galleries, were appropriated by Cuban artists and curatorswho established satellite exhibitions. Virtually every review of theBiennial discusses these semi-unofficial events as necessary elements ofthe Biennial experience (See Weiss: 1997, Gomez:1997 and Shapiro:1997)Here, the "really risky" work is on display and there is always a "threat"of the Cuban officials shutting down the gathering. And as Los Angelesgallery director, Ana Iturralde explained, art world "insiders" show up indroves. These backstage regions present the visitor with the moreauthentic experience, which in this case I would define as the viewing ofthe most politically charged, critical and ironic work. Aware of that thework shown in the main exhibition sites has a less caustic bite, visitorsare drawn to an area where they can make incursions into the life of Cubansociety, where there is a promise of solidarity with the artists, andwhere they can peak behind the scenes of the Biennial performance. If theBiennial is considered an alternative to mainstream artistic production,then the fringe exhibitions represent an alternative to the alternativeand therefore, a supposedly deeper social meaning.


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To what extent do these fringe shows present a staged authenticity?Unfortunately, this is a difficult question to answer. There are complexand multi-layered relationships at work in the "contact zone" that is theHavana Biennial. It is therefore, problematic to ascribe motives to theorganizers and artists when the Biennial project aspires to such integrity(a point reiterated by Llanes in the Biennial catalogue). Yet, it would benave to assume that the art world's desire for the political, coupledwith the artist's need for hard cash, does not effect what is produced andperformed in the Biennial. Pointing to this irony, Holly Block, who hasbeen instrumental in establishing Cuban residencies in the U.S., describedthe latest trend in popular Cuban art: works that are tailored to thetourists' hunger for explicitly "political message." These could rangefrom anti-imperialist caricatures of U.S. figures like Jesse Helms, tosatirical comments on life in Cuba during the still in effect "specialperiod." As Block decribes, one point is clear. The force of tourism hasinfiltrated the Havana Biennial, maybe irreparably. And to theinternational tourist, Cuban "otherness" is defined in terms of thepolitical-of an unrealized tropical utopia that maintains precariouslybalanced between the ideals of the Revolution and the realities of theneoliberal moment.

Footnotes:

Rachel Weiss, "The Sixth Havana Biennial," Art Nexus, No. 26, 1997

Although the event was originally organized as a Biennial, the economiccondition of post-1989 Cuba has forced the organizers to revert to aTriennial format.

Kurt Hollander, "La Habana" in Poliester, Vol. 5, No #16, Fall 1996, pg. 22.

The Cuban government is now one of the largest hotel owning companies inthe world. Tourist inflow has grown from 309,000 in 1988, to over 1million in 1996. Statistics taken from CubaNet.Org.

The term neo-liberal denotes the recent acceptance of the anti-statistpolitical and economic policies, which include the privatization of stateowned companies, a shrinkage in the social projects of bloated statebeauracracies and the opening up of national markets to foreigninvestment. The shift comes after a twentieth century experiment witheconomic nationalism has apparently failed. A paradigm espoused by theChicago School of economics and introduced by U.S. economist MiltonFreidman, it has thus far, primarily benefited corporate Latin America,who have profited by purchasing large portions of previously owned stateindustries, as well as the European, Japanese and U.S. interests that haveseen barriers to entry into Latin American markets eased and many cases

removed. This shift is especially problematic for Cuba, whose socialistgovernment holds the significance of being the one of the last nations tovehemently resist neoliberal reform.

Some of the curatorial themes explored by the Biennial include: Art,Society, Reflection, The Challenge of Colonialism, Fragmented Spaces -Art, Power and Marginalisation, The Other Shore - Migrations,Apropriations and Crossovers -Hybridisations, the Economic Conditions ofLife and Art and the Individual at the Periphery of Posmodernity.

A number of critics have recently pointed out the has grown from 309,000in 1988, to over 1 million in 1996. Statistics taken from CubaNet.Org.

Mark Shapiro, "A Hot Art Scene Brings the World to Havana's Door"

Furthermore, Appadurai and Breckenridge argue that exhibitions (bothcreated in conjunction with and independent of, museums) areextraordinarily rich sites for observing the complex dynamic betweensocial actors. These zones in turn, "crosscut a particular colonial and


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post-colonial trajectory where new patterns of visual display intersectcultural production with spectacle, tourism and entertainment. ArjunAppadurai and Carol Breckenridge, Museums are Good to Think: Heritage onView in India, in Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture,Ed. Ivan Karp and Steven Levine, Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington,1992: pgs. 35-54.

Here, it needs to be noted that the current group of artists highlightedin the past two Biennials is the first of the post-Revolutionarygeneration that is not opting to leave the island. Therefore, theinternational acclaim and success they receive directly effects Cuba-bothin gained prestige and capital inflow.

Intro to her Tourist Production Seminar, Spring 1998. PerformanceStudies Dept. New York University

Zuleiva Vivas, Kulturbox, 6th Biennial Havana. Universes in Universes.

Saskia Sassen has provided the best analysis of the importance of"imaging the city" in the era of globalization. Unpublished conferencepaper, Conference on International Exhibitions, Belagio, Italy.

Maurice Roche has argued that tourism must be "seen against the backdropof long-term structural economic change in contemporary capitalism."Furthermore, mega and special events, community festivals andinternational arts shows provide an alternative for the obsoleteindustrial labor force.

Interview given in Poliester Magazine, Vol.5, No. 16, Fall 1996.

As Jos Bedia, one of the most successful of the early Volumen Uno groupstates, I think the three of us (Bedia, Garcianda, and Rodriguez Brey)are trying to open up the audience. But artists think they can take onthe burden single handedly. In reality, we are part of a mechanism thatis the cultural life of the country, where we are only the workers whogive the finishing touches to a product that will be offered to thepeople" See, Luis Camnitzer, The New Art of Cuba, University of TexasPress: Austin, 1994, pg. 118.

A plethora of international shows highlighting contemporary Cuban artemerged after 1991; including 15 Artistas Cubanos, in Mexico City, TheNearest Edge of the World: Art and Cuba Now, shown at the MassachusettsCollege of Art and the Bronx Museum, Cuba O.K. in Germany, and Cuba SigloXX Modernidad y Sincretismo, organized by the Centro Atl ntico de ArteModerno in Spain. Many of these shows are supported by the Cuban Ministryof Culture, which also consolidates its subsidizing of Cuban art shows inCuba at the same time. In 1991 alone, over 1400 exhibitions were shown in

over 136 government supported galleries.

Interview, April 16, 1998.

Personal interview, April 22nd, 1998.1

Working Bibliography

BooksCaminitzer, Luis. The New Art of Cuba. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

Clifford, James. Routes : Travel and Translation in the Late TwentiethCentury, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997

Getz, Donald. Event Management and Event Tourism. New York:Cognizant Communication Corp., 1997._____. Festivals, Special Events, and Toursim. New York: Van Nostrand


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Documents

Havanna Biennale Essay