Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

Performing Revolution 129
from within the Revolution, that we could do things with the State, with
the government.” 86 Nonetheless, Arte Calle got into more hot water politically
than Grupo Provisional largely because, unlike Provisional, they broke
the art institution’s intellectual and spatial membrane. This was the line that
could not be crossed with impunity, and the severe ofWcial reaction seems
to have been incited by the artists’ entry not only into public space but also
into public concerns: as the Juventud Rebelde review said, “But when the matter
becomes known throughout the community, then, that is a problem.” 87
Strangely, although both Novoa and Cárdenas, individually, were
producing works that were sharply critical of the regime’s XimXammery, pomposity,
and ossiWcation, their work as Grupo Provisional limited itself to
existence within the art system and critique of it. Nonetheless, Grupo Provisional’s
overall vision, echoed by Arte Calle in its “Tachado” phase, was
perhaps the more radical element, in framing the critique that the artists were
engaged in as something societal rather than linked to the limited scope of
artistic identity. This generational unity was eventually made explicit in two
projects (one realized, the other thwarted), leaving no further doubt about
the scope of dissatisfaction and the consequences of its articulation.
During these years the relationships between the artists, state
control, and the Havana public were in continual negotiation and Xux. The
artists became more and more aggressive and they attracted more and more
notice, for better and for worse, converting art into a popular voice for
social and political criticism. A special charisma accrued to these bands of
youngsters, a fact that probably made them seem to be even more of a threat
(the “Grand Monologue” of Cuban state power being, as Desiderio Navarro
has noted, “paradoxically anti-charismatic in the sphere of art and charismatic
in the political sphere”). 88 For the artists this evolved as something
“natural, intuitive,” the logical continuation of Volumen Uno’s most precious
legacy: an art “free of any concessions or complexes.” Nonetheless the
galvanizing effect of the artists also served a useful purpose for the state,
an “escape valve” that released some of the pressure of popular discontent.
According to Novoa, “there was a tolerance for all that on the part of the
state. A tolerance that seemed perfect, but that had very well-deWned limits.
Within those limits everything could happen and appear, but you couldn’t
go beyond those limits. And that created an impulse, and the people kept
coming closer [to the limit] each time. The artists became more clever, more
ingenious at creating a work that would not exceed the limits, but at the same
time would provide a strong discourse and would try to make it.” 89
Paramount among those “clear limits” were a couple of prohibitions:
no images of Fidel, and no transgression from art into politics (the
old form-and-content problem). Alongside the escalating artistic challenges