Performance Artist the Latest Hostage of the Cuban Revolution
In Castro’s Cuba, Giving Citizens a Platform to Speak Is a Crime
Cuban artist Tania Bruguera performing “Tatlin’s Whisper #6? in New York. (Chicago Art Magazine)
On Monday, April 13, amid the Castro brothers’ dictatorship being given greater logistical and rhetorical support across the Americas, cities around the world joined in solidarity with the Cuban pro-democracy cause. This show of support was embodied in Cuban performance artist Tania Bruguera, the latest hostage of the ailing revolutionary regime.
Right in the middle of New York’s Times Square, and in the museums, galleries, and public spaces of San Francisco, Chicago, Rome, and Amsterdam, among other cities, dozens of artists, activists, students, critics, and art curators demonstrated peacefully against the restriction of basic personal freedoms on the Caribbean island.
It was a remake of “Tatlin’s Whisper #6“, an “arte útil” installation by Bruguera. After unveiling it during the 10th Havana Biennial Festival in March 2009, she was nearly expelled from the island, and denied entry to Cuba for several years after leaving to live in New York.
Bruguera attempted to revisit the Whisper on December 30, 2014, in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution, but the state had apparently become even more repressive in the intervening five years: she was shut down by the police, and arrested along with participating members of the public.
As a result, the internationally renowned artist is facing a judicial process in Cuba, and has suffered countless interrogations by the political police. In a bid to prevent her from spreading her message abroad, the regime has invalidated her passport.
She was unable to return to her New York apartment, where I once had the privilege to meet her in person and listen to the dreams of this 46-year-old artist whose enthusiasm remains as strong as ever.
The renowned Hans Haacke, Pablo Helguera, Nikki Columbus, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Ahmet Ögüt, Dread Scott, Claire Bishop, Roselee Goldberg (the founder of Performa), and even the commissioner of cultural affairs in New York, Tom Finkelpearl, attended and took part in the global performance on Monday.
The event was coordinated by Creative Time and its director, Anne Pasternak, with the support of Ai Weiwei, Cuauhtémoc Medina, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the Guggenheim, among other leading personalities and institutions in contemporary art.
But in “Tatlin’s Whisper #6,” everyone is equal, regardless whether they belong to the social elite or are just another person on the subway. The performance returns a voice to those whose voice has been stolen: participants are given one minute, and one minute only, to express themselves via megaphone or microphone in an open forum. In short, the public are given a chance to exercise their inalienable right to free expression.
It’s a very simple artistic idea. And that’s why it’s so explosive. Because in the supposedly egalitarian Cuba, under brutal state repression, equality is the only thing that is not tolerated.
Please stop claiming this white woman is Cuban. She’s probably some New York Jewish chick.