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Performing Revolution 153
marginal zone, and he saw a lot of things that he considered Cuban.” Interview
with the author, Havana, December 12, 2002. Buergo’s solo exhibition “Roto Expone”
(Broken Exhibition, Castillo de la Fuerza, June–July 1989) was a kind of extended
essay on the broken-down and oft-repaired objects of daily life that are ubiquitous
in Cuban households, including an electric fan that, in Buergo’s treatment, was recognized
as a fully invented, sculptural object.
54. The crucial antecedents for this sensibility in Cuban art are Chago, beginning
in the 1960s, and later Tonel, in the 1980s.
55. This may seem like a very short interval to bother taking note of, but in the
context of the period a year or two was a relatively long time. Remarkably, when
Tonel wrote about Puré’s inaugural exhibition he referred to it as “an assault on the
relative homeostasis achieved in the 5 years following Volumen Uno.” Antonio Eligio
(Tonel), “Acotaciones al relevo,” Temas 22 (1992): 61; reprinted in Memoria:
Cuban Art of the 20th Century, ed. Veigas et al., 475. In other words, the situation
was so dynamic that Wve years was considered a long time for there not to have been
a major new shift.
56. This is Gerardo Mosquera’s term. Gerardo Mosquera, “Nuevos artistas,” El
Caimán Barbudo (Havana) 20, no. 228 (November 1986): 2–4; reprinted in Memoria:
Cuban Art of the 20th Century, ed. Veigas et al., 475.
57. There is an important exception in the work of Leandro Soto, a contemporary
of Volumen Uno, whose work presaged both the political tone of the later 1980s
and also its performativity.
58. Puré was especially inXuenced by Jonathan Borofsky, Keith Haring, and Francesco
Clemente. In fact it was Garciandía, who was their teacher at the time, who
had introduced them to the work of these and other contemporary artists outside
of Cuba. Garciandía, who was a voracious consumer of information, was well informed
about developments in the international art world, and his students and
friends beneWted from his diligence.
59. Eligio (Tonel), “Acotaciones al relevo,” 61.
60. As Saavedra describes it, “when you went into the space of Puré, . . . you did
not go into an architectural space where objects were hung, you went into a space
of virtual reality, into a three-dimensional world where you found a work on the
Xoor, on the ceiling, on the walls, wherever.” Interview with the author, Havana,
December 12, 2002.
61. While the group’s membership changed somewhat over time, those identi-
Wed as members of the group in their self-produced video documentary are Aldito
Menéndez, Pedro Vizcaíno, Erick Gómez, Iván Alvarez, Ernesto Leal, OWll Echevarría,
Leandro Martínez, and Ariel Serrano.
62. Ernesto Leal recalls it as follows: “That was the Wrst, like a kind of opening
salvo . . . That is, I don’t think that either the idea that it was a group existed consciously
or any idea of the importance it would have.” Interview with the author,
Havana, March 18, 2002.
63. Eligio (Tonel), “Acotaciones al relevo,” 61.
64. Ernesto Leal, interview with the author, Havana, March 18, 2002.
65. This one-night event was staged at the Galería L on January 11, 1988.
66. According to Ernesto Leal, “the idea was this notion of an opening, where
people go to have a drink and so on; so what we did was buy a lot to drink and get
everybody drunk, that was more or less the idea.” Interview with the author, Havana,
March 18, 2002.