Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

5. Performing Revolution: Arte Calle,
Grupo Provisional, and the Response to
the Cuban National Crisis, 1986–1989
The big Wsh eats the little Wsh. Moral: Strength is in
union (effective strength). For love of art and in defense
of Cuban culture.
—Carlos Rodríguez Cárdenas, artist and member of Grupo
Provisional, July 1988
RACHEL WEISS
Collectivism as an artistic practice has had an episodic presence
in Cuba throughout the twentieth century and especially since the Revolution
of 1959. Within the time frame of the “new Cuban art,” 1 collective formations
have appeared notably in three approximate moments: during the
Wrst half of the 1980s, in the latter half of that decade, and around the turn
of the millennium (although this third “moment” had its genesis as early as
1990). These moments have tracked to the dynamics of this exceptionally
volatile period, squaring with, Wrst, a moment of apertura facilitated by relative
economic stability and the recent formation of the Ministry of Culture; 2
second, an intensifying sense of ideological crisis prompted by developments
in the U.S.S.R. (glasnost and perestroika) and by stagnation in the Cuban
arena; and third, reaction to the profound disenchantment resulting from the
simultaneous discrediting of European socialism, the lack of political change
within Cuba, and the free fall of the Cuban economy.
The second of these moments was a time in which the collective
became a primary vehicle for a very critical and political art that galvanized
a broader public awareness of, and audience for, visual art in Cuba. Because
of this, and because this work has been a touchstone for much of the subsequent
contemporary art produced on the island, it is this particular moment
that is the subject of discussion here. For the most part the works produced
by these collectives were modest in aesthetic terms, not the more complex
projects that have mostly characterized the new Cuban art. What is most
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