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Performing Revolution 161
structures of production intact in the new contexts; we simply moved from one place
where we were showing to another.” Interview with the author, Havana, March 20,
2002.
130. Proyecto Paidea, “A manera de introducción,” unpublished typescript dated
July 26, 1989.
131. Ibid.
132. In Ernesto Leal’s words, “in reality they were not interactions that were
meant to improve concrete situations in particular places . . . it was, rather, a destabilizing
work, work that was supposed to be totally destabilizing of structure, that
was supposed to be a STOP, an aggression. ‘Why is all this happening?’ the people
were asking, why do they let them do this? And later, perhaps they would be able
to think about what their attitude was at that moment.” Interview with the author,
Havana, March 18, 2002.
133. Proyecto Paidea, “Objetivos, tareas y programa,” unpublished typescript.
134. “with creative liberty, and an organic commitment to the historical project
of the emancipation and dis-alienation of man, the socialization of culture and the
democratization of politics.” Ibid.
135. Lázaro Saavedra likens this to “the cathartic phenomenon of theatre in
ancient Greece, where art was a medium for presenting and criticizing problems that
belong to us all. So here you went to a gallery to Wnd that effect.” Interview with
the author, Havana, December 12, 2002.
136. In a meeting to discuss the project at the proposal stage, Gerardo Mosquera
declared it the most revolutionary artistic proposal generated until that moment.
Lázaro Saavedra, interview with the author, Havana, December 12, 2002.
137. This is Ernesto Leal’s phrase. Interview with the author, Havana, March
18, 2002.
138. Hart’s support of the project was both strong and visible: “He went to Santiago
de Cuba for the 20th of October, which is the Day of Cuban Culture and he
made an ofWcial appearance in Pilón, in the Hotel Marea de Portillo; he sponsored
a luncheon and we went and had a meeting with Armando Hart, in that place.”
Lázaro Saavedra, interview with the author, Havana, December 12, 2002.
139. Saavedra explains the situation thus: “The conXict came to light with Tomás
Esson’s exhibition in the 23 y 12 Gallery that was censored, where the political structures
of the Communist Party went over the Ministry of Culture—that is, there was
an exhibition that was censored by the municipal government of the party, and the
Minister of Culture wasn’t able to prevent them from doing it. That is, he allowed
it to be censored.” Interview with the author, Havana, December 12, 2002.
Critic Iván de la Nuez explains the rift as follows: “This faction [i.e., Armando
Hart, Haydée Santamaría, and Alfredo Guevara] supported patronage in the traditional
middle class manner. It might even be said that their style came from that
middle class which during the 1950s was never able to implement its own cultural
program and practically used the revolution as a platform for carrying it out . . . Now
at last . . . anti-Soviets but devoted to Fidel and Che Guevara, eager to connect
with Latin America and Europe, this group was offered the chance to further cultural
policy in the ‘Cuban way,’ which had raised such high hopes among leftist
intellectuals in the West and in the Third World as a whole. While this faction
took its mainly institutional positions, and the orthodox group took its mainly party
or ideological positions the artists censured by one or another faction sought comfort
and support in the rival camp, although taking care that their ‘failings’ stayed