/ARTS WEEKLY/FINE ARTS-CUBA: Women Claiming Greater Space

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 15 2002 (IPS) - Women occupy a growing space in the world of visual arts in Cuba, not only in the variety of styles and trends they offer, but also in what has begun to be recognised as the feminine discourse within the arts.

The existence of a gender identity in the creative arena was demonstrated recently in Havana with two exhibitions by young women painters, Aimee García and Yami Martínez.

The shows, organised independently at the Casa de las Americas and the Wifredo Lam Centre, two of Cuba’s leading cultural institutions, caught the attention of fellow artists, art critics and the local media.

Martínez’s exhibition, titled "A presión" (under pressure, as in a pressure cooker), employs household items, utensils, pieces of newspaper and rustic materials, to reflect on alcoholism, power, the angst of being a woman, and fear.

The works by García, meanwhile, united under the title "Sabor del silencio" (Taste of Silence), follow the path of the late Mexican artist Frida Kalho in that she has repeatedly used her own image. García’s self-portraits serve to delve into the female identity within the domestic space.

Her art is marked by the presence of lead, thread and blood, which one local art critic said "question the concepts traditionally codified by society about what is considered feminine."

"Yes, there is a feminine discourse within Cuban arts, and this process has been gathering force since the 1980s," Ileana Sánchez, a painter and sculptor who lives in the eastern Cuban city of Camagüey, said in a conversation with IPS.

She is currently working on a series titled "Ciudad" (City), in which women "nearly always appear alone, or with their animals, their homes, their surroundings. Always from a very independent perspective, emphasising their individual identities."

"If there is a man who eyes her, she is the one who takes the initiative. The same occurs when it comes to sex. She conquers and wants to be conquered," explained Sánchez, adding that she has received criticism for this untraditional approach.

In her opinion, the works of women artists are "very easy to spot" in any gallery in Cuba. "You realise immediately if a painting was done by a woman or by a man," she says.

Art expert Lázara Castellanos states that "a critical and realistic position within Cuban visual arts today cannot ignore the emergence of an imagery that expresses the sum of the experiences of the woman artist."

Contemporary women artists, in a counter-weight to the "phallo-centrism" of traditional Cuban artistic trends, often base their works on "their breasts, vagina, uterus or clitoris, the localities of their pleasure, their shame, and their pain," she adds.

These are young creators who "grow deeper in their experiences, tell their stories, illustrate their autobiographies and use their bodies as models in the formulation of an intense discourse," explains Castellanos.

The most important figure of this movement has been Antonia Eriz (1929-1995), an artist who challenged Cuban cultural circles in the 1960s with her paintings and installations about the reality that the Caribbean island was living at the time.

Eriz’s works, now on exhibit at the National Museum of Fine Arts, served as a reference point for the artists of the so-called 80s Generation, a group that revolutionised Cuban visual arts in the last decades of the 20th century.

"Antonia Eriz is the leader. the professor. She was the boldest, and that cost her many years of anonymity. No one expected a woman to be as capable of putting forth an artistic discourse as forceful as hers, and even less so in the 1960s," comments Sánchez.

Among the most recognised contemporary Cuban women artists, including on the international level, is Zayda del Río, also known as "the bird woman" for her artistic excursions into the world of the woman and her body and in constant relation with the surroundings.

"Nobody can escape the magical power of these figures. Not even those who would never know how to interpret them. These works are alive, and there is movement among them similar to that which guides the stars and nature," wrote Cuban author Miguel Barnet.

Also forming part of the generation that marked the 1980s are the artworks of Magdalena Campos, Consuelo Castañeda, Sandra Cevallos and Marta María Pérez. In the 1990s, the works of Sandra Ramos, Tania Brugueras and Belkys Ayón emerged as part of the movement.

According to the criteria of art expert Castellanos, "very few of these feminine discourses are placed voluntarily in the arenas of artistic debate in Cuba."

But if one takes into account women’s participation in the country’s art institutions and schools, society "seems to be ready to take up the study of a phenomenon that is present in full maturity," she adds.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FINE ARTS-CUBA: Women Claiming Greater Space

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 15 2002 (IPS) - Women occupy a growing space in the world of visual arts in Cuba, not only in the variety of styles and trends they offer, but also in what has begun to be recognised as the feminine discourse within the arts.
(more…)