Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

Performing Revolution 119
strictures of a “national art” or identity, but rather in a more expanded, international
Weld of contemporary practice. As Flavio Garciandía has described
it, “we did things as a group that functioned at a speciWc moment, and there
was still a sort of utopic idea that we might have some impact on the wider
cultural and social level . . . for us it was not so much a matter of being Cuban
or a matter of nationalism, but simply a matter of adapting to the circumstances
and acting accordingly (congruente y consecuente) . . . we were very
much imbued by that spirit. Now, looking back at the work that each of us
did in particular, I believe that we really were a force as a group, but the works
in particular arose from precepts that were very different from one another.” 23
The friendly collectivity of “Volumen Uno” has been romanticized
anecdotally over the years, especially as a type of reprimand to the
more individualized production that has gradually become the norm more
recently. 24 It is therefore important to note the particular socioeconomic
circumstances within which this work was done, and that enabled an artistic
practice based not only in a cooperative, rather than competitive, social
structure but one that also was characteristically process-oriented, gestational,
discursive, and investigative rather than product-oriented—a fact that can be
attached quite directly to the condition of not depending on their artwork
for economic survival. These conditions were propitious for collective-based
working processes that are, among other things, notoriously time-consuming
and therefore difWcult to maintain under the pressures of a market-driven
production. 25 The groups of the 1980s, then, can be understood not only in
terms of an intersubjective ethic, but also as the fruits of an advantageous
(and rare) situation vis-à-vis the pressures of market and livelihood. Until
the radical economic changes that began around the end of the 1980s (with
the emergency conditions of the “Special Period” 26 beginning around 1990
and then the decriminalization, in August 1993, of the dollar), 27 artists could
live, albeit modestly, without Wnancial pressure, and work without taking the
future sale of what they were making into consideration. Moreover, a primary
place of employment for the young artists, the Taller de Serigrafía René Portocarrero,
was also a vortex for the energy and ideas of the general collective
spirit of the time. 28 This idyllic employment situation also facilitated
the kind of extended conversations among artists that were then typical,
and decreased the anxieties, distractions, and conXicts that came later as
artists found themselves in tacit competition with each other. This continually
stimulating and challenging ambience was, in turn, heightened by the
proximity afforded by the tight geographic focus of the art scene in Havana,
the closely overlapping social circles among many of the artists, and the
continuing connection that many of them retained, even after graduation,
to the educational and institutional apparatus.