Four Years of Arte por Excelencias

Keynote Speech on the 15th Issue

Nearly twenty years ago, during an unforgettable morning, I heard from Cintio Vitier, in one of the cubicles located on the second floor of Jose Marti National Library (where used to talk), a thought that I later found on a text he wrote. This idea made reference to his certainty when he expressed that the intersection zone between literary and artistic creation and the review as such, includes one of the cardinal nodes of a nation´s culture. Now I’m adding an extrapolation of the previously mentioned assertion, which I believe is pertinent and will help me to begin these words: art magazines are sited in the epicenter of that interaction zone between art and its accompanying thought.

Another idea that is worth to be mentioned within this context, and I similarly and indistinctly read it in texts written by Octavio Paz, Roberto Fernandez Retamar, Angel Rama and other brilliant intellectuals from our continent, points out that talking about literature in Latin America would be impossible without mentioning the literary review reflected in specialized magazines. Likewise, it would be useful to make a new extrapolation of this statement: we can’t speak about the state of art in Latin America if we don’t pay attention to what has been published in the region’s magazines on that symbolic production.

These are two convergent, adjoining, reflections that underline the huge importance of literary and art magazines for a country’s culture when it comes to structuring a dialoguing thinking with creation. Alfonso Reyes used to say that the review was the sister of arts, with the same intellectual blood. Art and review are interdependent and inseparable; they attract and repel each other as part of an endless dialogic process. Art critics’ eyes have to give off their own light, to discover what really matters in the artwork, to rediscover it, for them and for the rest of us; art critics must aim their erudition and polemic sense at visual thinking. Both ways of creation, since the review isn’t less than the creation of symbols, tell us that one of the most fascinating dialogues of culture from each time and place is established between them. It is impossible, when tackling these topics, to forget Oscar Wilde’s maxim: “the imagination imitates, but the critic spirit invents.”

So, and I barely need to emphasize it, when the first issue of Arte por Excelencias was published, in December 2008, artists and art critics, enthusiasts and specialists, received a pleasant and stimulating piece of news. Then we were eager to know if it would be diligent or superficial, serious or tendentious, to appreciate its design –such a decisive matter for a magazine that depends on the sign and letter–, to follow its publishing periodicity, to get to know the signatures of its collaborators; to value, all in all, if we were reading something valuable and sustainable or it was just one of those epidermal efforts that don’t go beyond the mere attempt. Little by little, issue after issue, we discovered the unquestionable quality of this magazine that joined the scarce art publications that existed four years ago.

I must confess that I have always thought that magazine presentations are kind of confused because you can emphasize, stress or deliver different opinions on the texts, but at the end readers come to their own and independent conclusion. So I know that the words I’m about to express are immediately going to fall in an implacable and definitive recycle bin: reader’s. nevertheless, I understand that the fact of putting them on the map (a singularly national custom, since I don’t know other places were the launch of a magazine represents a meeting motive: they just go from the press to general stores and bookstores) is like a celebration carried out by the intellectual guild for its birth and that small joy is worth it. So I will succinctly tackle this last issue and, afterwards, I’ll go on the whole magazine, from day one.

For its 15th issue, the magazine shows a group of interesting works. In the first place, a panoramic article written by Jorge Fernandez on the work of photographer (or visual artist as he prefers to be described) Andres Serrano, who represented, in the 1980s, a sort of emblem in terms of the love-hate relation held between American viewers and contemporary creation. In this text, the author reviews Serrano’s work, who visited within the framework of the recently concluded Havana Biennial and came back later to finish his photography book on Cuba, to be published by the important Taschen editorial. Jorge Fernandez deals with the provocative and challenging character of a work that has been the target of art critics since the very beginning. The work, with plenty of references, analyzes Serrano’s career, from day one to the end, and represents a necessary review on an artist that was barely known in the country.

Another text that deserves to be paid special attention is Miguel Rojas Sotelo’s on the eleventh edition of Havana Biennial. The Colombian specialist, who has repeatedly attended different editions of this event, tackles every element of the Biennial, points out the aspects he considers achievements and those to be paid attention by their organizers. This polemic text has the virtue of sincerity and the commitment to an event that turns out to be interesting for its intellectual curiosity. It’s a detailed analysis that must be read to collate its conclusions with readers’. Each and every one of us have our perception on this great event on Cuban arts, the region and other spots of the world. Rojas Sotelo’s unfair statement meets the eye when he says that international mass media didn’t covered the event, except for the New York Times. Since the biennial came to an end, I’ve read over twenty press reports, most of them from international media, which speaks of the huge media attention paid to the event. This is how it has always been.

A documented article written by Juan Carlos Betancourt details the latest edition, 13th, of Documenta de Kassel, which is far known as the most important event of visual arts on Earth. The author reviews the details of that edition, describes it as calm, nothing spectacular, but focused on up-to-date art and today’s human problems; so the magazine fulfills, once again, its informing function when it comes to shedding light on the most outstanding in the universe of contemporary art.

Finally, in the review section, young university professor and art critic Hamlet Fernandez intensely tackles the first book written by the young colleague Piter Ortega. Hamlet revises Ortega’s opera prima with intelligence and common sense, disagrees with some topics, highlights positive elements and affirms the author of Contra la toxina (title of the volume), among other values, makes a real-time assessment on the emerging art that strongly steps forward in Cuba’s cultural scene. As the prologue of this book, I share most of the aspects noted by Fernandez in his concise text; a first volume that shows the most polemic and sharp facets of an art critic and curator that will continue collaborating with the guild by printing his irreverence and provocative character.

After having read the 15th issue of Arte por Excelencias as well as previous issues –in order to get ready for this presentation– I must say that when dealing with most of the huge amount of text gathered over four years on Cuban and Latin American art, and art from other latitudes as well, I felt completely sure about the intelligence and sharpness of what has been written, lines with plenty of cultures multi-references, which have favored extensive and ecumenical analysis on symbolic creation and accompanying thinking, as well as on the status of events and other details on the visual arts universe. I must say that reading all the issues –an unusual operation, only carried out to make up a longitudinal study or a balance like this one– gave me the opportunity to weigh up the publication.

The magazine includes critic analysis on the work of acclaimed contemporary artists from several Latin American countries. The Caribbean has been frequently revisited through its Halls, Festivals and publications from different perspectives; there are analysis on Havana Biennials, Mercosur, Cuenca, San Pablo, Curitiba, Santo Domingo, as well as chronicles on events that took place out of the region, such as Documenta de Kassel, Whitney Biennial, SWAB in Barcelona; reports on important art fairs such as ARCO, PINTA in New York, Art Basel, Frieze; and comments on regional events like San Juan Polygraph Triennial, Chile’s Video and Media Arts Biennial, among others. The magazine also pays attention to the architecture in the Caribbean, Central America, Cuba and Brazil; the significant and modern phenomenon of art on the web and cutting-edge technologies; experiences of public sculpture in Latin America; analysis on private and state collecting; theoretical texts on the role played by curators, self-censorship, art fashion, catalogues, autonomy; sections targeting graphic design in Latin America, graphic humor, and the rescue of forgotten figures and events; critic comments and book reviews –a genre that deserves to be paid full attention because of the information and light it shares with readers on the universe of art publications–;artists, galleries and collections advertising. All in all, it’s a plural mosaic of topics related to the so-called Art Institution in the world, with emphasis in our continent.

The magazine has been published in independent issues, Spanish and English, as well as bilingual, which represents an advantage for its circulation. It’s been presently tested with offprints in Portuguese, in an effort to reach those sectors out.

I remember when I read Orlando Hernandez’ texts on Jose Bedia and Carlos Quintana, with plenty of ideas on the poetic art of these creators; Hector Anton’s on Santiago Sierra; Jose Manuel Noceda’s on art in the Caribbean; the interview to Nelson Herrera Ysla on institutional collecting; Elvia Rosa Castro’s review on Luis Camnitzer’s critic anthology, just to mention some that pleasantly impressed me.

Likewise, in a general manner, the magazine put Rufo Caballero’s latest works together –before he were taken from us by the injustices of life–, which were characterized by his theoretical density and language elegance, the results of a matured art critic that was delivering, in books and essays, the best of his talent and erudition. I always recall Andre Malraux’s phrase on how the true art review should discover the “specific language of arts”, a task faced by Rufo in heart and soul when he was surprised by a disease and death.

Jose Veigas’ The Archivist section gained permanent interest due to the important data and pieces of information it provided.

The magazine includes new voices, next to prestigious art critics, so you find Adelaida De Juan, Felix Suazo, Ivan de la Nuez, Nahela Hechavarria, Ibis Hernandez, Yolanda Wood, Margarita Sanchez, Manuel Lopez Oliva, Marilyn Sampera, Abelardo Mena, Erena Hernandez, Pedro de Oraa, Caridad Blanco, Hortensia Montero, among others (please excuse any omission). It also counts on writers from other knowledge areas, from the literary world, such as Miguel Barnet, Norberto Codina, Alex Fleites and Jorge Fornet, who delivered interesting texts. Also includes foreign acclaimed signatures such as Guillermo Vanegas, Benjamin Brown, Adriana Almada, Carolina Lara, Alanna Lockward, Belmont Freeman, Gabriel Peluffo, Carla Stellweg, Vanesa Droz, Carlos Garrido, Roberto Segre, among others critics and specialists.

A question comes to our minds after this general review, “the question”: how to evaluate Arte por Excelencias after four years of existence? We could use elements mentioned at the beginning and highlight the quality of texts, the authority level of signatures, the variety and relevance of topics, Jorge R10’s attractive and functional design, and the critic knowledge delivered, but I decided to quote the words included in the first editorial written by Jose Carlos de Santiago, the main guide and Director of the publication, which will help me to answer the question. Mr. de Santiago expressed in that overture the objective of Arte por Excelencias: “…a magazine conceived to reflect creative processes within fine arts and their representatives from the Americas and the Caribbean…”, aimed at “strengthening analytical and reflexive thinking, a media that targets the legitimation of conceptual and aesthetic values, the promotion of interpretative diversity and debate awareness, bibliographic update and recovery of historic memory”. Well, the magazine has achieved this and much more over these four years. The editorial staff, initially headed by art critic David Mateo, knew how to materialize the purposes mentioned in the first number, and now this team, led by art critic and curator Nelson Herrera Ysla, is to continue the job. So, we are presently talking about a totally fulfilled stage and a new one that enters the immediate future with this issue we are launching today. At least that is what I perceived and hope as a reader and collaborator.

I won’t tire you up anymore. I recall the words of a great Mexican poet and art critic I studied and I think they are excellent for this event. Many years ago, Octavio Paz said that the critic of art responds to a hard and complicated precept, although it is essential for culture: the freedom of thinking is the only inviolable element in terms of intelligence. And I argue it with these cardinal words:

“The review spirit is the great conquest of modern age […] there is nothing sacred or untouchable for thoughts, but the freedom of thinking. The thinking that relinquishes the art review, specially the review to itself, is not thinking.”

And Arte por Excelencias has provided that great service, to reason and meditate with its readers on Caribbean and Latin American art. What else could we ask it, but to follow that fine way! Congratulations to the editors, collaborators and artists, who are the base of everything.