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‘The Cuban art crisis’

Guardian Arts & Entertainment Blog

11 December 2006

The Cuban art crisis

Current restrictions on exports from Cuba mean that it is very hard for work by Cuban artists to reach the international market. Will this change when Fidel Castro’s health finally fails?

Lisa Blackmore

December 11, 2006 2:59 PM

Ever wanted to get your hands on a nice little Wilfredo Lam painting, or maybe a Tomas Sanchez? OK, so if you don’t have half a million dollars to spare, what about a work by some budding talent from the island?

The future of Cuban art – long ago proclaimed “a weapon of the revolution” – is, along with a certain bearded octogenarian’s ailing health, hanging in the balance. While some are busy cooking up visions of messy regime change, eminent Miami-based gallery owner Ramon Cernuda thinks the only coup in Cuba could be had by the international art community.

“When Castro’s gone, Cuba can open up economically and Chinese-style reforms can be put in place. I think a lot of people inside the government think along the same lines and this could mean a greater commercialisation of Cuban art,” says the owner of Cernuda Arte, the gallery he founded over 25 years ago in Florida.

Put into context, this is a man who says the work he does is “almost a miracle.” Cernuda has spent decades promoting Cuban art from a spot on a government blacklist, which means he can’t travel to visit the 12 artists he represents.

It’s not that the state prohibits the sale of Cuban art any more and Cernuda is all too ready to praise the initiatives in place to promote it. The problem, he says, is that it’s all too “half-arsed”.

For now one option of buying Cuban art in Cuba through official channels is the Subasta Habana auction, where a registration fee of 50 euros gets you the chance to bid for pieces, typically range from 3,000-6,000 euros. This state-run affair was set up in 2002 and works are hand picked by the Cuban authorities, who get a nice cut of the profits.

Cernuda’s not the exception, but he’s certainly not the rule either. Artists who live in Cuba but are represented by international agents are a rare breed and this means that foreign galleries struggle to get art off the island and into circulation. Cuban artists are stuck in a system that “only links them to existing markets, tourism and local institutions,” complains Cernuda. For him, private galleries can coax Cuban art out of its hermetic shell and into the booming market of Latin American art sales.

But wait. Don’t prepare the space on your wall just yet. Subasta Habana’s website gets right on the defensive with the mere suggestion that Cuba is selling its heritage off to foreigners. Even if international galleries are cut some slack and the immediate changes that Cernuda predicts come about, one thing that probably won’t happen is a sudden exodus of Cuban art headed for the global market – at least not while Fidel is still around.

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