Translated from the original Spanish by Lourdes Molina
In the last few decades, we have seen a growing appreciation for mid-20th century Cuban abstract art in and beyond Cuba. There have been several exhibitions in Havana, such as Hotel Habana Libre’s 2001 exhibit, A tono, and a series of homages and retrospectives hosted by the National Museum of Fine Arts. Additionally, exhibitions outside of Cuba reflect the international recognition of Cuban artists such as Carmen Herrera, Zilia Sánchez, Sandú Darie, Zilia Sánchez and Loló Soldevilla, among others. International exhibitions include: the Concrete Cuba exhibition (David Zwinger Gallery, January-February 2016); Constructivist Dialogues in the Cuban Vanguard, an exhibit dedicated to Zilia Sánchez, Amelia Pélaez and Loló Soldevilla (Galerie Lelong, March 2016); and Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight, which honors the centennial of Herrera’s birth (Whitney Museum, September 2016-January 2017). This institutional recognition is long overdue, as it arrives more than six decades after these abstract tendencies—along with modernist architecture—burst onto the Havana art scene.
The first manifestations of abstract art in Cuba can be traced back to the 1930s in the work several isolated artists. Most of them—except for the understudied artist José Bernal, who created abstract art as young as 12—discovered abstraction in their travels to Europe or the United States. By the mid-20th century, young contemporary artists became interested in non-figurative expression. Abstraction was in vogue, fashioned by outstanding avant-garde artists such as Amelia Peláez, Mariano Rodríguez, and Wifredo Lam. Abstract painters and sculptors, particularly those whose work was expressionist, played a central role in exhibitions such as Homenaje a Martí (1954) and the so-called Anti-Salón (late 1956), both of which were protests against Batista’s government. The impact of abstraction, at least in part, was that the artists understood the need for a collective. Two groups emerged: Los Once, which was without a doubt the most provocative of its time; and 10 Pintores Concretos, established in 1959 by artists interested in geometric abstraction. In the 1950s, newspapers and magazines extensively discussed abstract trends and represented non-figurative artists as individuals who had broken away from the previous vanguard movement.
The triumph of the Cuban Revolution produced a drastic change in aesthetic discourses that had previously legitimized abstraction. The demands of committed revolutionary art, along with the pressure from the orthodox Marxists for social realism, resulted in the marginalization of non-figurative trends in government-imposed cultural politics. Between 1959 and 1968, a considerable number of abstract painters and sculptors abandoned the island, while others abandoned abstraction. After the 1963 Expresionismo abstracto exhibit, non-figurative trends surrendered the leading role they had enjoyed a decade earlier. Nevertheless, unlike what happened in Eastern Europe, abstract artists were not forced to work in secret, nor was their work censured. In fact, institutions such as La Casa de las Américas, ICAIC, EGREM, and La Galería de La Habana supported abstract art. Some artists found work in schools of art and architecture, and others worked as designers. But abstraction—which was only reluctantly tolerated by radical Marxists and marginalized in art education, where it was often relegated to a formalist diversion—nonetheless endured against the artistic trends that prevailed during the last five or six decades. The current vitality of non-figurative trends on the island is surprising, given that contemporary Cuban abstract art is not very desirable in the current global art market.
In the last ten years, we have gained access to many texts and images that in the past were only available in libraries and archives. The work of scholars such as Beatriz Gago, José Veigas, Elsa Vega Dopico, Osbel Suárez, Luz Merino-Acosta, and Abigail McEwen has recovered the history of Cuban abstraction after many decades of institutional neglect. We have started to locate works (many scattered in private collections), to restore pieces, to compile texts, to develop catalogs, and to interview those who witnessed the Havana art scene of the 1950s. As a result of this effort, not only do we now have access to a considerable bibliography, but we are also able to appreciate the profound impact of geometric abstraction within the context of Cuban art history and its place in the development of non-figurative trends in Latin America.
Revolutionary Horizons: Art and Polemics in 1950s Cuba (2016), by University of Maryland professor Abigail McEwen, introduced Cuban abstraction to readers of English and subsequently sparked an interest in North America. It was a commendable investigative effort, and included interviews with several predominant artists and critics of the mid-century Cuban art scene, and it referenced many valuable and little-known sources. McEwen subsequently published Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s (2016), as part of an exhibition with the same title hosted by the David Zwinger Gallery of New York from 2015-2016. This exhibit highlighted the geometric side of non-figurative art in an effort to promote the history of abstraction in Cuba. Concrete Cuba is an essay based on the works of the exhibition, rather than an independent research effort like Revolutionary Horizons. Even so, Concrete Cuba offers a comprehensive study about concrete art in Cuba, and represents the vitality and diversity that geometric abstraction enjoyed in its time.
In Concrete Cuba, McEwen identifies two artists’ cohorts. The first, which includes individuals such as Mario Carreño, Sandú Darié, José Mijares and Luis Martínez Pedro, began to exhibit abstractions in 1949. Younger artists such as Pedro de Oraá, Salvador Corratgé, and José Ángel Rosabal joined the movement toward the second half of the 1950s. McEwen also highlights two trends that are not necessarily exclusive. The first, represented by Mario Carreño and Luis Martínez Pedro, was a search for aesthetics to represent national identity. The second, which included artists such as the Romania-born Sandú Darié, Wilfredo Arcay, and Loló Soldevilla, sought to participate in a global movement. Carreño and Martínez Pedro were interested in nationalistic representations and even attempted this with non-figurative approaches. Darié, on the other hand, kept close ties with the Argentine group MADI, and especially with artist Gyla Kosice, and so many of his experiments have a madista quality. Soldevila and Arcay were trained in Paris and were influenced by European concrete art. This is one of the keenest observations of the text.
Concrete Cuba contains prints of artists such as Pedro Álvarez, whose work is practically unknown on the island, and work from little-known artists like Alberto Menocal. It includes a considerable number of Loló Soldevilla’s work and several pieces from Sandú Darié’s Estructuras transformables, all of which are early examples of what Umberto Eco called “open work” in Cuban art. Following MADI ideology, Darié’s creations transgressed traditional formats of Western painting and proposed alternative ways in which to exhibit art in a gallery space. These notions proved to be innovative in early 1950s Havana. Today, when artists are attempting to reconcile installation with abstract art, Cuban abstract artists from the 1950s appear to be surprisingly contemporary. Concrete Cuba also mentions A (1961), a volume of prints in which concrete painters show their support of the nascent revolution.
Concrete Cuba concludes with a timeline of Cuban geometric abstraction which was compiled by Susanna Temkin. It starts off in 1939, with Carreño’s exhibit of figurative paintings in a Parisian gallery, and ends in 1964, with Cosmorama, Enrique Pineda Barnet’s film short that is based on Sandú Darié’s work. The decision to begin the timeline with Carreño’s exhibit may be due to a desire to center the artists that appear in the book. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to question if these dates are not arbitrary. The beginning of abstract art in Cuba could be traced back to at least 1930, and it could also be argued that there were important accomplishments in Cuban geometric abstraction after 1964. Darié, for instance, exhibited his Cosmorama, with electro-acoustic music by Juan Blanco, in 1966, and Salvador Corratgé’s traveling exhibit explored the synthesis between music and abstract painting in 1970. The timeline also omits the emergence of Op art, artists like Ernesto Briel and Jorge Fornés, and Darié’s public sculpture of the 1970s.
Artists like Sandú Darié, Luis Martínez Pedro, and Loló Soldevilla, who are central figures in the text and now draw commercial interest, have been undervalued for too long and deserve recognition in the history of Latin American art. Concrete Cuba contributes to situating Cuban abstraction in the global art market. Contemporary exhibits like the comprehensive Adios Utopia, which gathers six decades of Cuban art and is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, is a sign of this recuperation.
Title: Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s
Publisher: David Zwirner Books
Artist(s): Pedro Álvarez, Wifredo Arcay, Mario Carreño, Salvador Corratgé, Sandú Darié, Luis Martínez Pedro, Alberto Menocal, José Mijares, Pedro de Oraá, José Ángel Rosabal, Loló Soldevilla, Rafael Soriano
Contributor(s): Abigail McEwen, Pedro de Oraá, Susanna Temkin, Lucas Zwirner
Designer: Henk van Assen
Printer: VeronaLibri, Verona, Italy
Publication Date: 2016
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 9 3/4 x 11 in (24.8 x 27.9 cm)
Pages: 192
Reproductions: 122 color, 55 b&w
ISBN: 9781941701331
Retail: $55 | £40