Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

Performing Revolution 139
which consisted of—since they would no longer let us make art—then we
would play sports, which was what the Commander-in-Chief liked. So, we
organized a ballgame, and I think it was one of the most beautiful works of
the whole movement of Cuban visual art because every artist who mattered
in the entire country attended. All the artists, all the critics, everyone related
to the visual arts made themselves present, people who had not spoken
to each other in years played on the same team, you know.” 122 With the
(thwarted) exhibition and then the game, the collective solidiWed as a body
of protest. The baseball game was a kind of swan song for the era, followed
not only by the facilitated emigration of many artists but also by the exhibition
“Kuba OK” at the Städtische Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf in April–May
1990, which signaled, in earnest, the opening of the international commercial
market for Cuban art. 123 Also in May, the “El objeto esculturado” exhibition
opened, and then closed, after an impromptu performance by Ángel
Delgado (consisting of defecating on a copy of Granma, the Communist Party
newspaper) during the exhibition’s opening: the ensuing scandal landed
the artist in prison for six months, an unambiguous indication of what the
response would be, henceforth, to the artists’ troublemaking.
FIGURE 5.5. La plástica cubana se dedica al béisbol, September 24, 1989. Photograph by
José A. Figueroa.