Cuban Delegation to the Venice Biennial Confirmed

The first press conference of next year’s 11th Havana Biennial was held Saturday May 28 at Wifredo Lam Center for the Contemporary Arts. Within this framework, the roster of Cuban artists scheduled to attend the 54th edition of the Venice Biennial (from June 4 to Nov. 27, 2011) was announced. The artists are Alexandre Arrechea, Yoan Capote, Eduardo Ponjuan and Duvier del Dago. The pieces handpicked for this event are no doubt quality artworks marked by overall minimal estheticism.

As to the talk of the town –the 11th Havana Biennial- let’s remember that the slogan presiding over this event (Artistic Practices and Social Imageries) was officially announced on May 12 by curators at the Lam Center. This time around a few organizational details were revealed and the selection process was equally announced. Keynote speakers in the press conference were Ruben del Valle Lantaron, president of the National Council of Plastic Arts and general manager of the Biennial, and Jorge Fernandez, director of the Lam Center and of the event as well.

Ruben stressed the snags in the way of a large-scale event like this in times of crises and underscored the support provided by the island nation’s Ministry of Culture and the Council, whose experts will be bound to work in coordination with a team provided by the Lam Center and whose members will be at the helm of some of the commissions.

For his part, Jorge Fernandez commented on the election of the topic for this edition. He revealed details of the team’s analysis process over the past 28 years of the Biennial’s history, a span of time in which the event has matured and mutated based on the demands and singularities of previous editions, always in search of complementing and going itself one better, mostly in times marked by perspective changes derived from current lack of definition between the Center and the outer world that call for the disuse of such concepts as “Third World” –an expression that reigned in all previous editions. The Biennial –Mr. Fernandez went on to say- anticipated a thematic election of processes that later were etched in the arts and event and even put certain curatorial axes on the front burner, especially in terms of the organization of an event like this, thus leaving national representation schemes out of the picture for good.

This edition intends to cozy up more closely to the spectators thanks to proposals that can talk with the public sphere, always trying to keep the arts away from the smothering traditional places of cult: galleries and museums. And typologies will go hand in hand with this concept: installations, public interventions, site specific projects and social integration approaches. With that view in mind, the event has conceived a space out of the traditional venue of the Morro-Cabaña Compound mainly to public locations and institutions in Old Havana and Vedado. The organizers don’t rule out the role this locale has played in the history of the Biennial when all proposals of all sizes used to be put together; even some of them melted into the place, like K’cho’s well-known Regatta. However, they now want to find new ways due to the challenges presented by museums and the hassled access to the Morro-Cabaña Park. Once again, the Biennial will count on the support of Logistica del Arte SL.

Photography: reymrtz@hotmail.com