March2017-Flipbook

CT: Can you explain a little about your
work here?
AL: I was nine years old when the Revolution
occurred. When I opened my eyes
to think and to know that I was a human
being, a new life had begun in Cuba. And
one of the new things that happened to
me was that I knew that I had an aptitude
for the arts. I was able to enter a professional
art school for thirteen years and I
discovered the art world…[And] I never
left, because I realized that it was a paradise,
with all its intricacies. That’s where I
can feel, studying painting and sculpting.
CT: Was this in Havana or in Santiago
de Cuba?
AL: I graduated from the art academy
here in Santiago, and then I worked a few
months before I went on to graduate from
the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana.
I was then selected to go to study in the
Soviet Union and spent six years in the
Academy of Leningrad [present-day St.
Petersburg].
CT: When exactly?
AL: From 1973 to 1979, and upon my
return, I decided to live in Santiago. The
most important project for me in that
era, in 1982, was the competition for the
Antonio Maceo monument. [Note: Maceo
was born in Santiago and was killed near
Havana in 1896 during Cuba’s War of
Independence from Spain.] We built an
interdisciplinary team from sectors of engineering,
architecture, and design and we
won the contest. We had the honor and
the right to conduct that work for over 9
years… It was a very complicated work,
very large in theory, almost unrealizable.
But Antonio Maceo was the Bronze Titan
and he had to be cast in bronze.
CT: And how did the project unfold?
AL: The first thing I did was to investigate
the history of the attempts to make
a Maceo monument, and it was very
interesting. [They started] practically as
soon as he died, since he was killed in the
war… It was a debt, really, that Santiago
de Cuba had with Maceo. And that debt
was resolved by Fidel and Raúl [Castro]
on the occasion of the Fourth Communist
Party Congress in Santiago. I remember
explaining to Fidel that by holding the
Congress here it was a pretext for Santiago
to have some of the things it lacked as
a city: A theater, an airport with the possibility
of receiving international flights,
and a hotel—a three-star hotel—that Santiago
did not have. And it lacked a great
monument to Antonio Maceo, made by a
Cuban.
CT: And how about the sculpture
institute?
AL: When I came up with the idea of ​
creating an institution to develop the
applied arts, the monumental arts, with
the resources that remained from the
experience (of creating the monument), I
wrote a letter (to Fidel Castro) saying that
I wanted to develop this foundation. And
he approved it. The commitment was that
I was going to contribute knowledge and
provide solutions to the country, and I was
not going to ask for anything material…
This institution is celebrating its 20th
anniversary, and the workshop itself, where
the work is done, is almost thirty years old
and is working as a unique, professional
foundry in Cuba. We do work not only for
Cuba, but for other countries as well. Even
in the United States our works are there.
CT: Is it possible to talk a little about
changes with Cuban artists now that we
have this opening between the U.S. and
Cuba?
AL: The situation is the same… The
professional artists in Cuba often live and
paint with the materials we bring back
when we travel, and that comes with all
the inconvenience that you know: The
weight, the payment, everything. The
drawbacks in this regard are very large.
88 CUBATRADE MARCH 2017