Roberto Matta´s useful lesson

Roberto Matta had a fruitful identification with the Cuban social and cultural process in its first decades. He created, in the Escuela Nacional de Arte (National School of Art,) a workshop with a group of plastic arts students. When the very important Cultural Congress of Havana in 1968, held in the halls of the Hotel Habana Libre, those of us present there had the opportunity to listen to his speech about the «internal guerrilla» that should operate in one´s conscience.

To have the opportunity to know in practice the method that made Matta´s office a germinator of languages was a useful lesson. And so was to be able to appreciate how his creativity used to feed on the experiences and concerns of the dreamer and the fighter for the right that he was. To listen to him alerting us about the dangers of following guidelines derived from the market or neglect imagery itself was also a useful lesson that we will never forget. The effectiveness of all these lessons is such that today they may also be assumed as valid for the growth of professional ethics, creative spirit and artistic daring in fledgling artists from Cuba, Latin America and any spot of the planet.