In the eighties a number of important changes begin to occur, very interesting in art worldwide. Already in the seventies the great moment of conceptualism and minimalism had been lived, and the resources to a language level were draining; a sort of monopolization of hegemony and homogenization of certain trends in contemporary art dominated. In Cuba something like that was happening to the landscape, some aspects of the portrait, and other traditional genres that had taken hold in the previous decade and had fallen into a stream that was not already providing large fruits beyond what contributed to early and mid seventies. Then things in Cuban art start moving; an effervescence in some recently graduated artists ISA, teachers of that institution and also in cities of the country is felt in the heat of what was already happening in Europe: the tendency to the installations, interventions, actions to plastic, the happening, the performance ...
Nor can we forget that in Venice, Italy, in the year eighty postmodernism is released through especially architecture and the transavantgarde in the field of painting. That came curdling worldwide since the late seventies and Cuba also feels these echoes. Thus arises a new movement in our country -at the heat of the international influence giving rise to the exhibition Volume I, an exhibition that renews the form mainly of Cuban art, also a thematic level and content, but brings especially a very large formal renewal. In 1982, Wifredo Lam unfortunately dies and it is decided to create-by the top leadership of the state, an institution with his name, and in this context, apropos the creation of the Wifredo Lam Center, the Biennale is founded, which is an international event of visual arts that Cuba had not until then.
At that time there were only four biennials in the world, a five-year event that is Documenta, the largest of all. But the Havana Biennial fills a void that others had, which is the presence of artists from the Third World, to promote the work of these artists who make up three-quarters of humanity. In the others they could see many European artists, American, Japanese and none of the rest of the world. The Havana Biennial fills that void and, indeed, was a major blow not only to the first, but the second, which was truly a global event: never had met artists from many parts of the world as in the Biennale 1986. The maturity of this concept is given in the third one, from 1989, which is still remembered as one of the most important of all and is evaluated as a turning point, a rupture between all world events, not only biennials. There is a before and after the Biennial.
From my point of view the Havana Biennial has become a significant event for Cuban art, for Cuban artists, because it showed the possibilities they had and had not been able to develop perhaps until then with an event of great scale, a global event. It gave them the chance to show a lot of public scale pieces, which had not been displayed in a gallery. Everyone knows that our galleries are small, have very limited space, then the Cuban artist cannot develop a large project if an event of this magnitude it not provided. Therefore, with the Biennial the Cuban artist began to dream big. That is the reality of the Havana Biennial, which was born from traditional spaces -museums, galleries ... - and goes to military fortresses, convents, churches, cultural centers, educational and tourist institutions, in short, of all kinds. Seeing it from a different perspective, that has been an impact on the urban fabric, the social fabric of Cuba and particularly of Havana.
From the first editions of the Havana Biennial, such events began to appear in the world, in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the Biennale of Santo Domingo arises, for example: they are organized in places that it never dreamed that there might be such meetings. So ours was the trigger, which triggers the proliferation in mass from the eighties, to the point that at one point there were about two hundred biennials in the world, not to mention that national, who also arise and still some of them they remain today. A country like Brazil, for example, which had nothing more than Sao Paulo, invented the Mercosur, the Curitiba; Argentina, the End of the World; Chile triennial arose because the biennials give visibility not only to the artists involved, but the country and its culture. People in the world realized that art had to show a high scale and I think, too, they were influenced by a sense of spectacle in which television, cinema, had taken the lead. I think our Biennial feels equally certified by the society of the spectacle, the show of civilization, which is the result of contemporary culture worldwide. I will not stop now if it is banal or trivial, but it is a consequence of that culture. So biennials have to compete in a global context among themselves and with other expressions of entertainment and culture. In this respect many took to the search for a personal profile, but many have not survived. About a hundred biennials are currently being awarded. But I think the greater thing is that biennials, while promoting themselves, they promote their artists and their country, but all have failed to survive because it is a huge effort, very difficult to sustain itself for a long time.
Headlines
GRANMA: VISUAL ARTS seize HAVANA
"... You can discover a lot of people of all ages who appreciate with inquisitive mind works in dialogue with the Cuban reality and put the human being in front of themselves to find some answers to the essential questions that humans make to themselves anywhere in the world. "
TRABAJADORES: AS EVER, THE ART
"Art as never before invaded Havana. It is an unprecedented festival in the thirty years of existence of the Biennial. Mega encounter with much better results, because of the high level of the curators, and the possibility of turning this event in the main platform for projection of the insular art. "
BBC Mundo. THE BIENNIAL THAT TOOK THE MALECÓN AS Gallery
"Something distinguishes the Havana call: the close link with a spacious and casual public, men and women who rarely visit art galleries and more or less conventional exhibition spaces. Because an important part of the proposals of the Havana Biennial, obviously, are in the galleries, museums and art centers ... but in open spaces very interesting works that surprise pedestrians are located. "
EL PAIS. THE BIENNIAL OF THAW
"... A marked date by the current time of political distension between Washington and Havana and beyond artistic qualities will go down in history as the Biennial of dialogue and encounter".
Juventud Rebelde. The world is in its entire dimension
"A tour of Havana, because this is a Biennale of the Neighborhoods, communities, Jorge Fernandez invited during the opening of the 12th Biennial ... in these days the city of Havana has become the world capital of contemporary art. The city is a huge gallery. "
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