ART/ECONOMY-CUBA: New Blow to Private Initiative

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Feb 16 2001 (IPS) - The tight limits governing private initiative in Cuba were made even tighter when authorities closed down a number of independent art galleries that emerged on the back of the tourism boom. Nevertheless, several still had their doors half-open this week.

“Two inspectors came, and told us that what we were doing was illegal. They gave us three days to put a halt to our activities,” the owner of the one of the galleries, which had become a profitable business since last year, told IPS.

The galleries received the order to close up shop on Feb 1. The official letter explained that according to law number 226 passed in 1997, artists in Cuba are not authorised to market or sell their work in privately-owned businesses.

Furthermore, art galleries do not figure on the list of privately-owned businesses and services that are permitted in Cuba, and do not pay taxes on their sales.

However, several of the galleries visited by the inspectors remain semi-open, with a few paintings still hanging on the walls, as if inviting passersby to stop in.

“If a foreigner comes in and wants to buy, of course I’ll sell,” commented one man packing away artwork Thursday, who said he was waiting for an Italian visitor who had promised to buy two paintings.

Obispo street, the main thoroughfare running through Old Havana, is where most of the exhibitions of paintings and wood sculptures could be seen, in the living rooms and vestibules of people’s homes.

The art shows and sales also drew tourists who were simply curious to see how a private activity of this kind operated in a country where the state controls almost everything.

In the 1990s, the socialist government of Fidel Castro authorised limited private initiative in around 100 trades and occupations, opened free farmers markets, permitted families to set up small restaurants and cafes, and allowed Cubans to let rooms or rent housing units.

The restaurants, known as “paladares”, are the only small private businesses authorised in Cuba. They are family-owned establishments with a maximum seating capacity of 12, which pay high taxes.

In order to limit the incomes of people making a living in the arena of private initiative, Cuban law stipulates that different activities cannot be mixed together. For example, people who offer rooms to let cannot provide their guests with board nor rent cars.

University graduates, meanwhile, can obtain a licence to exercise a trade, but not one that is linked to their area of study.

The number of people holding a licence for self-employment plunged from 208,346 in 1995 to 112,929 by mid-2000, according to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. Added to that total are 34,600 “transport workers” – mainly taxi drivers – and 11,600 people authorised to rent housing.

The number of paladares also plummeted, from 1,562 in 1996 to 253 today, 151 of which are located in the capital.

Nevertheless, experts say that while the number of people holding licences has diminished, the ranks of those working on the black market in order to evade taxes, or involved in unauthorised activities, have swelled.

Senior officials have acknowledged the government’s lack of interest in encouraging private initiative, admitting that on the contrary, the aim is to increase the role of the state and win back some of the ground lost over the past decade.

The economic crisis that has plagued this Caribbean island nation of 11 million since 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the east European socialist bloc, led to a drastic deterioration in most public services and utilities.

“They lasted quite a long time,” commented Yolaine Vázquez, a resident of Obispo street who said she was “surprised” by the mushrooming of art galleries in recent months.

“At first, it was a very sort of underground phenomenon. You could see them, although they were hardly even noticeable,” she recalled. “But then they began to pick up strength, and each time you walked down Obispo there was a new one, and they even had placards announcing their activities.”

The paintings on display were of brightly coloured Cuban landscapes, brown-skinned women smoking cigars, old cars of the kind that can still be seen driving around Cuba, or the facades of the Havana Cathedral or the Bodeguita del Medio, a famous restaurant in the capital.

The paintings mainly targetted tourists eager to take home a low-cost, original souvenir, at prices ranging from five to 200 or even 300 dollars.

Cuba receives more than one million tourists a year, most of whom visit Old Havana and Obispo street.

The paintings are still on display, but at much higher prices, at the www.artecubano.com web site. The Internet page belongs to Cuban Fine Art, an Obispo street gallery that claims to have been Cuba’s “first independent art gallery.”

The galleries exhibited the work of artists from Havana and other provinces, earning a 30 percent commission on the sales, and were trying to obtain permission from the Culture Ministry to export artwork.

In the independent galleries, it was rare to find works of renowned contemporary Cuban artists, which are generally sold in exhibitions abroad or to foreign gallery owners who make constant trips to the island in search of fine art.

The fate of the private art galleries was apparently decided on in January, after a visit by President Castro to the Academia de Artes Plásticas San Alejandro, a leading arts academy in Cuba.

During his visit, Castro stressed the need to “bring Cuban art to the people,” while culture authorities expressed their concern over the boom in independent galleries, which they said marketed “art that it not representative of the country.”