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Canberra Today 12°/16° | Saturday, March 30, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Cubanity comes to Canberra

Angel Ramirez, "Move Around 90 degrees"
EVER since the Cuban Ambassador, Pedro Monzon Barata, arrived in town, Cuban arts seem to have been flourishing  around Canberra, with concerts, dances and competitions highlighting the cultures of the Caribbean island nation.

Now Barata has instigated a large exhibition of contemporary art, to open at the High Court of Australia this weekend in a move that addresses the fact that, while many of Cuba’s leading contemporary artists, are celebrated internationally, their original works have never been seen here.

Curator Anita Pisch, an ANU PhD candidate, writes that today’s Cuba has been “forged from a history of invasion by  foreigners, of revolution and struggle, and a blending of diverse  peoples, cultures and spiritual practices into a unique and dynamic  specifically Cuban identity, or ‘Cubanity’.”

The country  has battled against the hardships caused by US economic, commercial and financial  embargoes, but nevertheless followed Fidel Castro’s imperative, “one of the fundamental aims of the revolution is to develop art and culture, precisely so that art and culture truly become the patrimony of the people”.

Belkis Ayon, "Let me Out"
Every provincial town in Cuba has a Casa de Cultura which stages everything from comedy to theatre and live music and there are other many cultural institutions that bring art and culture to the people at no cost.

This exhibition will show how Cuban art today has emerged from early post-revolutionary art to a vibrant modern art scene concerned  with the current environment, everyday life, popular culture, and religious practice, while also  highlighting  the diversity of Cubo-African and European or Euro-American cultural traditions.

This is a genuinely contemporary show. All but one of the artists whose works appear in “Made in Cuba” is living.

“Made In Cuba: Contemporary Cuban art inAustralia”, at the High Court of Australia until  May 15.

 

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Helen Musa

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