Page 59 - Studio International - October 1967

sloping rock-garden, passes through a couple of difficult to discover whether or not they are actually I have already described, is the only real 'American'
rooms on the upper level, then through the office- his work. among the painters whose work is currently on
block itself, and finally into the exhibition space of Mention of posters, however, brings me to one of view in London. Cuban painters have tradition-
the main pavilion. The roof serves to bind all this the most striking aspects of the contemporary ally looked towards Paris, and some, such as
together, and links indoors and outdoors in a re- Cuban scene. The government propaganda Wilfredo Lam, have become an integral part of the
markable way. machine is very thorough, and posters are one of its Ecole de Paris. Perhaps for this reason neither Lam
The Cubans used this imaginative building for all principal methods of communication. Buildings in nor the talented sculptor Augustin Cardenas, who
it was worth, in order to dramatize the show, and the remotest parts of the country are plastered with normally lives in Paris, are represented in the
to emphasize its importance to them. One night them. What is interesting is the imaginative present show. Nevertheless it speaks with a
before the official opening, for example, the quality of the design—these must be the best distinctly French accent.
European artists and some of the writers too, were posters since those which the Russians issued The doyen of the exhibitors is undoubtedly René
asked to join with their Cuban colleagues in paint- immediately following the revolution of 1917. In Portocarerro, who has just been given a large
ing a 'collective picture'. An immense canvas had one way, this seems to indicate a parallel situation retrospective exhibition at the Museo National
been set up at the middle level on the entrance to the one which was to be found in Russia during in Havana. The small pictures on view in London
side. This was marked off in a spiral pattern, divided the immediately post-revolutionary years—not only don't, unfortunately, make much sense because
into about eighty separate spaces, and lots were has the easel picture become, to some extent, a Portocarrero is an artist who needs to be seen in
drawn for these. Great arc-lights were trained on `bourgeois object', but the painters find themselves bulk. He sums up the dilemma of the Cuban
the scene from across the street, innumerable film somewhat pinched for want of private patronage artist who is trying to integrate himself with the
and television cameras recorded the event, and a —and also for want of artist's materials—and have modern movement in Europe, and yet at the same
huge crowd gathered on the street below. On a to turn to poster-design in order to make ends meet. time to preserve 'national' elements in his work.
platform at a lower level, entertainers from the It is much to be hoped that a representative The retrospective showed an attempt to assimilate
famous La Tropicana night-club sang and danced exhibition of these posters (not all are political one European style after another: Rouault, Ernst,
until three in the morning. It was an event of a —leading artists also design posters for films and Klee, Picasso, Kokoschka. Often, however, these
kind almost unimaginable in Europe—the scaffold- plays) will soon be shown in England. There has styles were deliberately applied to Cuban material.
ing in front of the picture groaned with artists already been an exhibition of this kind in Italy. There was, for instance, a group of paraphrases of
almost all night long, while below the showgirls But in spite of all difficulties, there are still an the primitive religious paintings which one sees in
pushed their way through a surging mob of re- immense number of professional painters and Catholic churches. There were also some large
porters, cameramen, honoured guests (everyone sculptors in Cuba, producing work in a very wide ceramic plaques which took their inspiration from
from Haidée Santamaria, the revolutionary variety of styles. The visitor to Cuba to-day, nearly traditional techniques of house decoration in
heroine and director of the Casa de las Americas, eight years after the revolution, must still be very Havana. Portocarrero seems to be an artist who
to Belinda Wright, the English ballerina). much struck by the degree of American influence. has never quite been able to find his feet, though
With this kind of support behind it, it's not It is not only coca-cola which the Cubans have his strangest work (large Archimboldesque heads,
surprising that the show has excited immense inherited from the United States. Oddly enough, and a series of flattened, stylized townscapes) is
interest among Cubans. The squad of soldiers who the one field where this influence is not powerful is certainly his strongest. His variety has, at least,
helped to hang it, and who (while neatly whipping that of the visual arts. Raul Martinez, whose work presented a useful challenge to his colleagues.
the tops off coca-cola bottles with their pistols)
asked the exhibition committee innumerable
questions about the exhibits, have been followed
by an immense crowd of equally curious visitors.
The show is said to have drawn as many people in
the first week, as it did during the whole of its run
in Paris.
The Salon de Mai, however, while it contained
work by a few Cuban artists—most of them domi-
ciled in Paris—isn't precisely representative of art
in Cuba itself. One of the interesting things about
this is the way that some of the younger artists have
harnessed themselves to revolutionary, and even
propaganda purposes, without losing all modernist
identity. Just before the Salon de Mai opened, for
instance, the Casa de las Americas was showing an
exhibition called Pintores y Guerillas, which cele-
brated, both in paintings and in photographs with
a few real rifles scattered here and there, the Cuban
cult of the guerilla fighter. It made a strange im-
pression—as if Pop art had changed sides, from
capitalism to communism. Characteristic were the
paintings by Raul Martinez, three of whose works
can now be seen at the Ewan Phillips Gallery.
Born in 1927, Martinez is a representative of the
`revolutionary generation' — he is about the same
age as Castro himself. His work, with its repeated
images, seems to owe a good deal to Andy Warhol,
though it's interesting to see that he hasn't chosen
to use Warhol's characteristic device of the silk-
screen. The kind of thing he does obviously adapts
very readily for use on posters, and one sees posters
in his style all over Havana—though it's a little