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Lezama Lima: A Journey through the Myth
27December
News

Lezama Lima: A Journey through the Myth

 

Havana: The Jose Lezama Lima House & Museum in this city –recently declared a National Monument- is showcasing the A Journey through the Myth exhibit by young artist Francis Fernandez Trujillo and inspired in the author of Paradiso.

 

As part of the celebrations to mark the Cuban writer’s 100th birthday, the house is displaying 15 pieces (mixed technique on cloth) in a sort of critical and psychological pictorial essay on the creator and his saga.

 

In the literary work of Jose Lezama Lima (1910-1976) there’s an undisputed tie with all the arts, some kind of underlying layer within his erudition. However, he riveted his interest in the plastic arts as a restless critic. Cuban poet Roberto Mendez lays bare this relationship in his text entitled De Apasara al Aduanero: Lezama y el Arte Extranjero, in the latest issue (Sept.-Oct., 2010) of Cuban magazine La Gaceta de Cuba.

 

Mendez says: “By writing his reviews, the poet refuses to work with conventional categories. If he’s referring to drawing, composition or colors, he floats on the topics in a very free style, shunning all technicalities and usually dissolving his formal considerations into the judgment he makes on culture and the work’s intentions and the drives behind its creation. Many times he doesn’t intend to delve into a detailed analysis of the work as he rather tries to highlight those particular features that make it an exceptional piece from his own standpoint.”