paintings

Exhibicion Operativa. Miejsce Projektów Zachęty Warszawa,Poland 2012
 

The mural-text piece comes from an exhibition presented in the Cuban State Security Headquarters to show some operative techniques (intelligent and surveillance) used against intellectuals, religious, university groups and foreign diplomats. The document was found in the archives of Stasi by the Jorge Luis García Vázquez. It reveals the interchange between Cuban and German Democratic Republic intelligence service in the decade of 70's. On the top of the mural there is added a quote that says: Our revolution has demonstrated that is capable to defend itself and it defended itself with powerful instruments*. This quote is accompanied with the logos of communist organizations and institutions that has an active role in orientation and indoctrination of student, youth’s organizations and communist militants.  Basically this entire text focuses on those activities that represent ideological deviations in some intellectual’s circles.  The ideological confrontations were particularly intense against some artists, specifically literature groups. Here in this document the attacks were addressed to two well known writers Jose Lezama Lima or Heberto Padilla.

 In some murals of the Cuban communist propaganda there is a well-structured system of preventive and scientific explanations that shows how to operate in case of "counterrevolutionary behaviors" and “hostile activities”. It was the criteria to measure some attitudes presented as the so called Ideological Diversionist Factor (Diversionismo Ideologico). Also in these Orientation Murals there are elements and practices associated to methodological analysis of manifestations, activities and terminologies that were used by the state security organisms to repress some independent and spontaneous cultural activities.

Operative Exhibition is an approximation of all those aesthetic elements that shape a certain visuality of “preventive operations” (prophylactic operations). This series of works are in some way the imaginary of repression.

* Nuestra Revolucion ha demostrado que es capaz de defenderse y se difiende con poderosos instrumentos.

 

Consejo Nacional de Educacion y Cultura (CNEC), 2011-2012
 presented at the exhhbition Arte no es Facil, Links Hall Chicago
  


 I presented a fragment of the closed speech of Fidel Castro at the Congreso Nacional de Educaion y Cultura. Here in this text there is some approaching to some "ideological aesthetic manifestation" in which F. Castro  emphasize,  it was the case of a some reference to a  numbers of tendencies consider hostile and subversive to the normal  standard and development of  life in the socialist society. Basically the speech is conducting in a  very aggressive  way against some intellectuals that were to been  focuses at that time in conductas contrarrevolucionarias,(counterrevolutionary behaviors)  or diversionismo ideologico (ideological diversionism). At the end of the seventies in Cuba  sought a reemergence of the term diversionismo ideologico,. This term was used widely by government hard-line Marxists officials as kind of “description”of individuals that, in trying to represent themselves as Marxists, still carried traces of bourgeois ideas and capitalist preconceptions. All forms of “leftism” were, in fact, expressions of anti-Marxism. But the most interesting aspect around this concept was that “the aesthetic dimension”, as could be read in many documents and conferences of period such as those by Raul Castro, Gaspar Garcia Gallo, José Antonio Portuondo and “Theses and Resolutions of the First Communist Party Congress of 1976”, places a solid emphasis in the way that the new cultural and aesthetic revolutionary program must confront all diversionist ideas. It was during this time that and later on, during the 1980’s, that dressing in “hippie fashion”, having long hair, or listening The Beatles was understood as "diversionist behavior" , thus placing the everyday citizen at risk of incarceration and a heavy counterrevolutionary personal profiling.

The question of censorship is a long term debate in the Cuban cultural policy but nobody can say exactly    what are the expressed policies the government uses to censure literary, theatrical, cinematographic or visual activity. In 1971 in the darkest period of Stalinization in Cuba's cultural life when the expressed will of the government was to persecute artists and intellectuals for their supposed counterrevolutionary activities, The Congress of Education and Culture (April 23 of 1971) marked the path of the so called “cultural policies of the Cuban revolution”. At this time the state had the total control of all the cultural institutions  in Cuba, a few institutions are the Consejo National de Cultura (CNC), la Union Nacional  de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC) , Casa de las Americas and Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematograficas (ICAIC) and the state political police, Departamento de Seguridad del Estado (DSE). The most polemic episode was  in march of  1971 when the poet Heberto Padilla  was detained and later self-proclaimed being a counterrevolutionary. But it was in the Congress of Education and Culture when the explicit will of Fidel Castro determinated very clearly the difference between what kind of artistic expression would be able to be represented.

Humillate conmigo 2010, at Liverpool Biennial

 La instalación consta de una serie de textos extraídos de la ley # 62 del Código Penal, publicado por el órgano de Divulgación del Ministerio de Justicia en abril de 1989 y que aun continua vigente.

La obra se basa en  varios capítulos, así como disposiciones complementarias sobre el sistema legal en Cuba, la presentacion de dichos textos tratan de hacer un balance con algunas de las practicas juridicas a  nivel global y que forman parte natural del cuerpo legislativo de  la (Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos, 1948), pero que en todo caso son contempladas en la ley cubana como actos ilegitimos, en muchos casos hostiles y relacionados con actos de desestabilización  interna. Es interesante observar el amplio margen de interpretación dado por el sistema jurídico cubano.Tales son los casos de las disposiciones entorno a  la ley de Peligrosidad Predelictiva, o como el Capitulo IX, Articulo 210 sobre la Clandestinidad de Impresos, etc.

 Los plantillas de textos impresas directamente en la pared de color negro, funcionan a manera de panel de lectura para todo aquel que le interese. Es importante destacar que son textos oficiales lo cual le da la connotación de documentos intraducibles a otro idioma como quizás alguien pudiera señalar.

La recurrente morfología en dichas propuestas se basa en extraer directamente el texto tal y como se presenta, solo omitiendo las tildes y las minúsculas como forma de expresión, así como por un problema de estructura visual y gramatical dentro de las propuestas. 

He caido en esta porqueria 2009

Estos diálogos corresponden a declaraciones hechas en los diferentes juicios que se realizaron a raíz de la causa #1 de 1989 en Cuba, donde un grupo del alto mando militar fueron acusados de alta traición a la patria, abuso del cargo y trafico de drogas.
Un grupo de ellos fueron ejecutados,(pena de muerte por fusilamiento), entre los que se encontraban Arnaldo Ochoa, Antonio de la Guardia, Amado Padron, Jorge Martinez. Los fragmentos presentados corresponden a declaraciones del juicio oral, tanto de Arnaldo Ochoa como de Fidel Castro sobre los hechos ocurridos.
Este particular evento de la historia entraña grandes interrogantes en cuanto a su desarrollo ulterior, lo que me interesa presentar en estas transcripciones, es el conflicto psicológico de un conjunto de implicados.

Microtraicion o Macrofacción, 2007

taller de reparación Vostock , Centro Habana.

* esta obra fue borrada y sobrepintada con color rosado  horas antes de la exibición por una improvisada brigada de pintores  al mando del Comite Muncipal del Partido Comunista de Centro Habana , el publico que asistio a dicha exposición nunca pudo verla.

A comienzos de 1968 se expone un llamado grupo de conspiración que operaban desde las filas del Partido Comunista de Cuba. Aparentemente una de las funciones de este grupo era reportar e informar a agentes consulares sovieticos y de Europa del este acerca de las actividades economicas e internas del partido , también fueron acusados de "comentarios adversos" contra los lideres de la revolución. Este proceso fue conocido como "La Microfaccion", entre el grupo de implicados se encontraba el líder del antiguo PSP (Partido Socialista Popular), Anibal Escalante entre otros dirigentes como José Matar, Ramón Calcines , que fueron expuestos y "desenmascarados" por Raúl Castro ante el Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba. Esta obra se basa en fragmentos de textos incriminatorios así como pruebas de esos "comentarios adversos"

  

 Early in  1968 a so-called unstructured group of conspiracy that operated from the ranks of the Communist Party of Cuba. Apparently the functions of this group is report about the economical and ideological activities in Cuba to some soviets consular officials, also the were accused of   adverse comments against the the leaders of the revolution. This process was known as the "microfaction"*, among whom was an influential former leader of the old PSP (Partido Socialista Popular), Anibal Escalante, and Jose Matar, Ramón Calcines, among a group of defendants, who were exposed and "unmasked" by Raul Castro at a meeting (or public trial) of Central Committee of Communist Party of Cuba.

In late 1967, the Cuban top leadership discovered what was called a “microfaction” within the Cuban communist party. It was composed primarily of former PSP members who believed that government and party policies at home and abroad were wrong. Led by Anibal Escalante, the microfaction developed  ties to Soviet and East European governments and party officials. Once uncovered, those who belonged to the Central Committee  were dropped; many others were expelled from the party, and the leaders of the microfaction were sent to prison for their crimes of opinion and association , although they had taken no other steps that could be construed as counter-revolutionary. Since their diagnosis of mistaken Cuban policies would eventually prove correct, they were punished for having the right insights at the wrong time.

Microfactionists or not, most former PSP members supported relations with the Soviet Union and correct relations with most governments. They opposed attacks on Latin American Communist parties and were wary of guerrilla movements ; they believed in the need for material incentives during the period of transition to socialism and considered that labour unions had top lay a more prominent role in politics. The microfactionists argued that mere reliance on the will and on subjective  assessments was imprudent and that it was necessary to understand  objective conditions in Cuba and abroad. Arguing that central planning, budgets, financial cost-accounting and other such tools were essential to build socialism, they were skeptical of mass- mobilization campaigns that sought to replace  these conventional policies.The microfaction demanded the greater use and institutionalization of party organs and other political organizations, supporting the reintroduction of elections and Constitution. Former PSP members were not the only ones who held these beliefs, but they constituted the most obvious “ faction”. The changes in policies in the 1970s followed these PSP preferences quite consistently not because the old politicians had defeated their rivals of an earlier day  but because Fidel Castro  and his close associates became persuaded of the wisdom of their arguments.