Skip to main content
The Lam party: THREE COUNTLESS DAYS
26June
Articles

The Lam party: THREE COUNTLESS DAYS

The Pajaro Lam. In the foreground the author: Alberto Lezcay.

ALBERTO LESCAY

In Havana, the Biennial has been the great party of the universal plastic, and has confirmed that the visual arts are very well placed in the international benchmark. The Caguayo Foundation conceived this Tribute to Wilfredo Lam, social and community type, because he is the Cuban artist of the most universal plastics, who from a contemporary language was able to express the breath of the Caribbean, of the Cuban, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Cuban, whatever you want to say.

Workshop on handcrafted toys. In the background, the architect   Luis Ramirez, vice president of the Foundation Caguayo.

Another workshop that excited the children of the neighbors.

We chose the days May 29, 30 and 31 to start early with activities for the children to paint, meet Lam and approach to universal culture. We did several workshops intervened luminaries, organized large concerts and jazz performances, with very important artists of national and international importance.

The Master Frank Fernandez and Albertico Lezcay in the main   concert stage.

Frank Fernandez also performed with my son Albertico Lezcay, because he was and is his teacher, and they are friends; and Michel Herrera, Eduardo Sosa, Vivanco, Zule Guerra, Raul Torres. And artists from Venezuela, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Germany, plus the living sculptures of the Ojos Group, from Santiago de Cuba, among many other friends who attended.

Santiago actors accompanied the performance from the   headquarters of the Development Council Monumentary (Codema) to main   streets of Havana as La Rampa and Malecon.We have a rolling work named Mutacion Forzada, and it is a Willys Jeep, American classic of the forties, which for Cuban circumstances was transformed into a Soviet Lada. It has over it a coffin called Bloqueo, kneeling by many crosses. We took it through various avenues, along the Malecon, to the Morro and La Cabana. We were surprised by the people watching the funeral, and above the Willys the artists celebrating. The blockade is dying, let's bury it. We must be pleased that this absurdity with which we have had to survive in Cuba and young people were born and lived under the blockade. It is necessary to be over, and this work aims to contribute to it.

A new tradition

We are very interested to meet that beautiful attitude the people of this neighborhood have had about the Lam sculpture. Do not forget that the monument El pajaro Lam was inaugurated in the Biennial in 2009 as a tribute to his centenary in the park of 14 and 15, in El Vedado, Havana.

And then we wanted that in every Biennale happens an event for visitors, for Lam fans worldwide. We have spent some time doing this permanent tribute, as a way of stimulating the look at him, the knowledge of who was Wilfredo Lam.

Since the monument was placed, the district has taken it very well. 

This is a very lively park, always full of people from different generations: in the morning the old ladies and old men doing exercises, in weekends is the party place of children playing around here. It was always a meeting point for students going to school field.

As you know, on a corner opposite the park the Advisory Council for the Development of Sculpture Monumentaria (Codema) is located, and almost opposite this wonderful Gothic church which in my years at the National School of Art came to study as an example of Gothic style in Havana. We have tried to create a tradition, that in this park the cultural events happen at least two or three times every year. So we put these fences, which will be permanent. We want the sculpture had an adequate lighting, and there it is as a very important signal, a visual point of attraction. And those institutions, like Codema, the Houses of Culture continue using this park for cultural activities.

I am very pleased to have located this monument here, not only for the four ceiba tres, which are planted by clear religious reasons, but also because of this forest, this amount of old trees that shelter and make it a nice place for people who can even read, share with your partner, even to study.

The Pajaro Lam

I have always been identified with the spirit of Lam and his work. When Abel Prieto asked me to work on this monument, he told me: the thing is that among my sculptor friends is you whom I see closer to Lam. He was right; I've always been a loyal and deep analyst admirer of the work of Lam. Because part of the bowels of the cultural processes of us, and its high sensitivity, and being a very creative man of great vision, was able to interpret the world in a language of contemporary art, and express that melting pot of Caribbean imagery of this new space that came into the world.

And the first thing I set out with this monument is that Lam was pleased. My question whether it was so or not, it was done to himself. 

The curator, who would approve or not, was he. I suspect that if he stands at the monument dedicated to him, he will think it was ok. The idea of making him the bird he had always painted came to me before knowing that he himself had defined as the bird which he had always painted. This gave me great confidence, I am like that bird that is going after something like something to find.

My great project is to work a little every day

My latest project, which I am passionate with, excited, I'm working on the monument to Mariana Grajales, one of the greatest women who has given Earth in the year of her centennial. This work is a gift that life has given me and I feel honored to undertake it.

In the Biennial I have also been present in the collective shows AB + C, located in Taganana Hall of Hotel Nacional de Cuba at the initiative of the Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets, I exhibit a play entitled Fiesta that has worked very well in the exhibition environment because I share the space with major artists of contemporary Cuban art. I am deeply honored to be with my colleagues.

I am also very grateful about the space they gave me in the fortress of San Carlos de La Cabaña. My personal exhibition consists of pieces of series Sueños de Caballas that has aroused much interest in the audience. That's very comforting. I made it especially for the Biennale. The character of the mare began to appear in my work over ten years ago. At first it was like a game until it became an increasingly serious business. Perhaps it is the female horse, but it has other meanings.

I am also present at the exhibition of abstract Cuban painters there in La Cabaña. So I have taken very seriously the Biennale because it deserves it. It is a world festival of visual arts.