The definitive critical history of the new Cuban art.

The definitive critical history of the new Cuban art.

Starting with the groundbreaking 1981 exhibit called "Volumen I," New Art of Cuba provided the first comprehensive look at the works of the first generation of Cuban artists completely shaped by the 1959 revolution. This revised edition includes a new epilogue that discusses developments in Cuban art since the book's publication in 1994, including the exodus of artists in the early 1990s, the effects of the new dollar economy on the status of artists, and the shift away from socialist themes to more personal concerns in the artists' works. Twenty-four new color plates augment the more than 200 b&w illustrations of the original volume.

Transformations in Cuban art, literature and culture in the post-Fidel era Cuba has been in a state of massive transformation over the past decade, with its historic resumption of diplomatic relations with the United States only the latest development. While the political leadership has changed direction, other forces have taken hold. The environment is under threat, and the culture feels the strain of new forms of consumption. Planet/Cuba examines how art and literature have responded to a new moment, one both more globalized and less exceptional; more concerned with local quotidian worries than international alliances; more threatened by the depredations of planetary capitalism and climate change than by the vagaries of the nation’s government. Rachel Price examines a fascinating array of artists and writers who are tracing a new socio-cultural map of the island.

Artist, educator, curator, and critic Luis Camnitzer has been writing about contemporary art ever since he left his native Uruguay in 1964 for a fellowship in New York City. As a transplant from the "periphery" to the "center," Camnitzer has had to confront fundamental questions about making art in the Americas, asking himself and others: What is "Latin American art"? How does it relate (if it does) to art created in the centers of New York and Europe? What is the role of the artist in exile? Writing about issues of such personal, cultural, and indeed political import has long been an integral part of Camnitzer's artistic project, a way of developing an idiosyncratic art history in which to work out his own place in the picture. This volume gathers Camnitzer's most thought-provoking essays—"texts written to make something happen," in the words of volume editor Rachel Weiss. They elaborate themes that appear persistently throughout Camnitzer's work: art world systems versus an art of commitment; artistic genealogies and how they are consecrated; and, most insistently, the possibilities for artistic agency. The theme of "translation" informs the texts in the first part of the book, with Camnitzer asking such questions as "What is Latin America, and who asks the question? Who is the artist, there and here?" The texts in the second section are more historically than geographically oriented, exploring little-known moments, works, and events that compose the legacy that Camnitzer draws on and offers to his readers.

Following the trajectories of two pioneering artist groups, this groundbreaking book explores the development of abstract art, and its political stakes, in 1950s Cuba.

A stunning visual survey of the arts scene of Cuba since the 1980s, this is a must-have book for all contemporary art lovers. This unique volume describes how powerful the Cuban art experience has become, especially after the emergence of Cuba's strong generation of young creatives on the Latin American art scene in the 1980s. It includes twenty-eight artists selected by the curators and introduced through contributions and interviews. Today, many of the contemporary Cuban artists can be found in the collections of some of the world's premier museums and art galleries. Now that Cuba and the United States have opened a new chapter in their relations, Cuban art is poised to be the next big thing in the art world.

In Cuba something curious has happened over the past fifteen years. The government has allowed vocal criticism of its policies to be expressed within the arts. Filmmakers, rappers, and visual and performance artists have addressed sensitive issues including bureaucracy, racial and gender discrimination, emigration, and alienation. How can this vibrant body of work be reconciled with the standard representations of a repressive, authoritarian cultural apparatus? In Cuba Represent! Sujatha Fernandes—a scholar and musician who has performed in Cuba—answers that question. Combining textual analyses of films, rap songs, and visual artworks; ethnographic material collected in Cuba; and insights into the nation’s history and political economy, Fernandes details the new forms of engagement with official institutions that have opened up as a result of changing relationships between state and society in the post-Soviet period. She demonstrates that in a moment of extreme hardship and uncertainty, the Cuban state has moved to a more permeable model of power. Artists and other members of the public are collaborating with government actors to partially incorporate critical cultural expressions into official discourse. The Cuban leadership has come to recognize the benefits of supporting artists: rappers offer a link to increasingly frustrated black youth in Cuba; visual artists are an important source of international prestige and hard currency; and films help unify Cubans through community discourse about the nation. Cuba Represent! reveals that part of the socialist government’s resilience stems from its ability to absorb oppositional ideas and values.

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