A Rejoicing Museum

The National Museum of Fine Arts turns its first hundred years of life this year, after a risky itinerary that began back in 1913 through several headquarters. Nowadays it has two beautiful constructions located in the Central Park’s surroundings (that old heart of Havana) and it has not stopped exhibiting works of its Permanent Collection (until reaching the enormous figure of almost 47 thousand works, thanks to the generosity of several religious and cultural institutions, as well as private collectors, artists and organisms of the Cuban State) and other works exhibited in a transitory way, arranged to enjoy certain areas of universal art and of an extensive journey throughout the art produced in this Island.

Between 1913 and 1954 the Museum was successively in three different headquarters, none of them truly appropriate. Its initial projection was multifarious since it gathered works, objects and documents from history, archaeology, ethnography, fine arts and plastic arts, all of them concentrated on those headquarters and in the new one the Museum had from 1954, the one for which the museum has been more recognized, located in one of the most populated and urbanized areas in the limits of the Historical Center of Havana. Soon after 1967, the Revolutionary Government decides to create other museums in the capital to exhibit all that was not plastic arts, thus diminishing the load that weighed on the splendid institution and, as another achievement, this way formalizing one of the most ambitious projects proposed by the new leadership: the creation of exclusive rooms for Cuban art.

The foreign collections would be contained under the items of Antiquity and European painting (from the XV to the XIX centuries) on one hand; American art with the sections of United States and Latin America for other part; and then the Asian art (especially the collection of Ukiyo-e engravings), all of which implied a remodeling, not only general in reference to museums, but also physics. It is not until the ends of the XX century that the Cuban State leadership decides to grant the National Museum of Fine Arts another additional headquarter to finally satisfy the disposition and exhibition of the so vast and growing collection of works. That other place is the elegant building where the old Asturian Center of Havana was, also located in the limits of the Historical Center. This way the collections were contained in a definitive way in those two headquarters: one of them dedicated entirely to the Cuban Art (built in 1954) and another (the old Asturian Center) dedicated to the so called Universal Art (that is to say, of other areas of the world.)

From the 60s the Museum transformed itself into the institution par excellence to welcome the big events of the plastic arts in the country as well as other expressions of culture, thanks to its enormous capacity of spaces and material facilities. In the ample rooms of the Museum, in its central patio and even in its adjacent sidewalks around the whole building, several National Rooms of paintings, drawings, engravings, photographs, and sculptures have been carried out, as well as anthological and retrospective samples of the most remarkable Cuban artists of all times, even foreigners. It’s worth a special mention the disposition of the Museum to exhibit the work of young valuable Cuban artists from the 70s, in rooms specifically prepared for it, which reaffirmed its will to promote the contemporary art in our country. This has led the museum to experience a kind of a "double life", because in the current practice this institution unites and integrates in its development program the best in the called "fine arts", (from the Ancient Times until the XIX century), the modernity (XX century), and the contemporary (from the 60s to nowadays), without contradictions in its spirit and its vocation to contribute to the public's bigger and more complex formation.

It would be enough to remind  the famous Room 70 with all the expressions of the visual arts in Cuba, the samples 1000 Cinema Cuban posters, Cuban Popular Artists, Made in Latin America (dedicated entirely to the best of the continental photograph), the celebrations of the first five Biennials of Havana, whose initial edition in 1984 surpassed all the expectations of a public avid of observing in a single exhibitive space, the complex works of Contemporary Art of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, just to have an idea of the reach and projection of the institution. And also the samples dedicated to the Cuban artists Carlos Enriquez, Mariano Rodriguez, Rene Portocarrero, Raul Martinez, Sandu Darie, Rita Longa, Umberto Peña, Nelson Dominguez, Tomas Sanchez, Rocio Garcia, among others, besides some samples dedicated to foreign artists as Robert Rauschenberg, René Burri, just to mention a few.

In my opinion, its maximum attraction is the building dedicated in fact  to exhibit more than 300 years of Cuban Art, which for 5 years was remodeled at the end of the XX century and in which, in little more than 3 hours, the visitor receives a vast impression of that strong and diversified national expression.  From the art in the colony until the so called contemporary art, the rooms of that building favor the observation of works from significant artists that were born or they produced most of their works in Cuba. The eclectic building dedicated to the Universal Art (built in 1927), experienced a series of transformations in its interior, mainly on the exhibition furniture, illumination, and space remodeling, according to its new use and functions, with a maximum respect to its past, in order to receive works of Ancient Art (Egypt, Greece and Rome), Eastern Art (Japan), European Art (Spain, France, Italy, Flanders, Holland, Germany, and most outstanding the whole important collection of English portraits), and North American and Latin American Arts.

Both exemplary buildings are, unquestionably, reason of pride for the Cuban culture and all our society.  It is difficult to find in our continent an institution of this nature which has been able to satisfy such a group of spiritual needs and new functions, so essentials in the development of any community.  Their vitality and presence amid adversities, both economic and social, increase their value and importance, and at the same time consolidates their capacities as centers of cultural activity in a local context that claims and constantly challenges the aspirations of any citizen.  A hundred years from its foundation, we must celebrate such an important event as something dear, ours, and singular.