The Havana Biennale

While walking through the city to the Biennale's many venues, the parallels between the event and the city became unavoidable. The Biennale became a construct of the city—its architectural achievements and traditions have all but disappeared under periods of economic hardship. T I T ow in its seventh incarnation, the Havana Biennale, organized this year by the Wilfredo Lam Center, is considered an immeasurable, albeit temporary axis of contemporary art from the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The Biennale was specifically created to emphasize artists who have been labeled with the precarious term "other." And since its incepJ a n e A l e x a n d e r , Mountain View: African Adventure Series, 2000, Photomontage. 1 4 - N k a Journal of Contei tion in 1984, it has focused in large part on works by emerging artists and is designed to interrogate complex issues such as the displacement , marginalization, and nomadism which are pertinent to the existence and practice of these artists. Previous Biennales were based on challenging colonialism, issues of memory, marginalism, migration , environment, appropriations, obsessions, tradition and contemporaneity . While not didactic in scope, the works on view throughout the Biennale's 32 venues were chosen to reflect the theme of communication and dialogue among human beings in the midst of global, economic projects. Also is the re-emergence of ethnic, religious and cultural particularisms which seem to increasingly accentuate the differences among the various communities and nations of the world. The team of curators included Nelson Herrera Ysla (the director of the Wilfredo Lam Center), Ibis Hernandez Abascal, Maragrita Sanchez Prieto, Jose M. Noceda Fernandez, Hilda Maria Rodriguez, Lourdes Castillo Gonzalez, and Madga I. Gonzalez Mora. They selected works by more than 170 artists and collectives for inclusion in this Biennale, which engaged a substantial part of the city. This year's theme of communication emerged and recessed in a hit and miss fashion as far as its visual tracing. While walking through the city to the Biennale's many venues, the parallels between the event and the city became unavoidable. The Biennale became a construct of the city— its architectural achievements and traditions have all but disappeared under periods of economic hardship. This amnesia does not encourage any retention of place or object in the wake of a virtual sensory blitzkrieg—the sounds and smells of a decayed city in the throes of resurrection. I view biennials as international arts events with healthy skepticism , on the verge of eroding exclusively into strategies for bolstering tourism. Like so many international exhibitions, not specific to the Havana Biennale, the exhibition as a whole unravels under the weight of uneven art presentations. More specific to this event are the overt and rapid economic and social changes brought about by tourism. There is an uncomfortable feeling that the notion of otherness has become economically viable. This unease is set against the fact that the newly found prosperity of Cuba still eludes most of its citizens, who still make $12 per month at best. Within the span of two years and six months, Havana acquired a new airport, department stores and trendy shops, not to mention bars and restaurants. What is eerie is the absence of Cubans in roles other than those of waiters, cooks, bartenders, and entertainers, just as I experienced in 1997 when I M a r c o R a m i r e z (ERRE), Installation, 2 0 0 0 . numerous languages in South Africa or their tentative existence in the wake of persistent efforts to create a Utopian society, one that is connected to the larger framework of communication and global dialogue. Boshoff's accompanying treatise in the Biennale's catalogue is powerful and begs the questions: To what end do we lose our own ability to speak to ourselves as a community? Why are we willing to lose our past, our myths? What makes us whole, only to become a part of a group of screamers trying to be heard over each other? Are we any more likely to hear ourselves or to be heard? And what is the price of a ticket for admission into the global...