Michael Dweck in Cuba: Partying with Castro’s bourgeoisie
Michael Dweck, the photographer behind the Cuba photo book Habana Libre, was featured in our weekly ajiaco this past Tuesday after he wrote a piece for the Huffington Post declaring Cuba to be a free country. This assessment came after he attended a few lavish and hedonistic parties with the the children of the Castro dictatorship and other elites on the island. The Huffington piece was titled "Welcome to Cuba, Asshole," and I am certain Dweck has no idea how appropriate and revealing his title truly is.
Dweck is so enamored by the elite party crowd in Cuba that his book party in Havana was attended by his new Cuban friends, which are all members of the privileged class in Cuba, and include the sons of Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara:
Dweck’s great succes at Fototeca de Cuba Museum in Havana
Michael Dweck is a visual artist known for his suggestive photographic style. The most important themes in his works are the concept of the beautiful and the aesthetics of beauty.
In 2003, he was the first living photographer to have a solo show at Sotheby's in New York. Michael Dweck is the author of a pictorial book – Habana Libre – which includes interviews with the sons of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. He describes the privileged class in modern Cuba. Starting Feb. 24, 2012, Dweck will be the first American artist to have a solo exhibition with Habana Libre at the Fototeca de Cuba Museum in Havana.
There were expected about 400 guests, but over 2000 attended the gala event. The exhibit’s large-scale photographs were printed on Kraft paper using a wax-based toner technique that Dweck developed specifically for this show.
The party in Havana was certainly an interesting one, as these photographs from the event on the blog A las cuatro MiGato illustrate:
In the first photograph shown above, we see the elitist members of Cuba's Castro dictatorship partying like typical bourgeoisie capitalists. In the second picture, we see this banner amongst the Castro party people, which translated reads: "Here we have one phrase that expresses our fear: Cubans would die under capitalism."
It really does not get anymore ironic than this.
When his book came out last year "experts" claimed it was a sly dig at the hypocrisy of Cuba's privileged class. But as usual, us intransigents were too chusma and blockheaded to grasp the elegance, slyness and subtlety of it all.
"MI*RDA!" we countered. From day one Babalu blog called the book out as classic Castro sycophantism and tourism promotion...
Well??????
(Check archives and you'll see.)
Unreal
Think Leni Riefenstahl, only a much less talented and much more pedestrian fashion-mag version. The principle, however, is similar. Another pig feeding at the trough of Cuba's tragedy, and making it look like just another hip society shindig. Let them eat cake, or whatever, and party on.
Leni Riefenstahl was part of the reich. This guy is just a PSF. ...a useful idiot. They come and go.
I meant that Dweck is something like a VERY minor, low-level, fashion-mag-hack version of Riefenstahl. Obviously, we’re talking about different orders of magnitude, and yes, he surely qualifies as a useful idiot or, more likely, a useful opportunist. The problem is that this sort of shit is still fashionable and trendoid, or can be packaged and sold that way, and all that’s needed is a good enough market for something to be offered, no matter how worthless or reprehensible. If it can sell well enough, it WILL be put out there. Besides, Dweck's book may have been subsidized covertly by Castro, Inc. for obvious reasons, which no doubt Mariela Castro would understand. Cuba is bankrupt, but for certain things, funding is always found.
That is not Che’s body in the photo. He wasn't that lanky or fit. As for the useful idiots, they can have him. If nothing else, it immediately gives them away.
[...] "These (Cuban) folks were glamorous, obstensibly well-off and, above all else, free." I quote Michael Dweck from his recent HUff-Po [...]
[...] (Cuban) folks were glamorous, obstensibly well-off and, above all else, free.” I quote Michael Dweck from his recent HUff-Po [...]