Monumental artwork is an easy recourse, since large dimensions are always sure to create an impact. This year even the Biennial itself was promoted using large posters and displays in official spaces and streets throughout the city; it’s an effective way of being seen and remembered. In works of art, however, a monumental piece can cause the opposite reaction when it is forced and unsubstantiated. La Hipérbole [Hyperbole] and Bajo Presión [Under Pressure], large-scale wicker sculptures made by the Cuban Raúl Estrada fall into this trap, as does Los esquimales no tienen poesí­a [Eskimos Don’t Have Poetry], a foam rubber igloo by Douglas Argüelles located in the interior courtyard of La Casona. Both get lost in a strategy that is not in keeping with their aim, with the net result that the initial amazement they cause is on a par with the feeling of emptiness that ensues.

Nevertheless, the mega format used as a fundamental starting point was a wise choice in José Emilio Fuentes’s Memoria & Memory, one of the most talked-about pieces in the Biennial, consisting of 12 life-size elephants placed in strategic sites around the island, such as the Old Square, the Capitol, the Anti-Imperialist Forum and the stairway of Havana University. Their presence in each site becomes a memory, a review of history and the creation of a new anecdote. Made of metal blown with compressed air to give the impression of light, inflated figures, the elephants were among the few pieces that did speak of resistance, adaptability and hope.

While enormous humanoid cockroaches scaled the walls of the Fine Arts Museum in the piece Sobrevivientes [Survivors] by Favelo, a gigantic wave of tiles invaded the roofed patio of the Cuba Pavilion. This installation, Tsunami by Humberto Dí­az, recreates an early nineteenth-century Hokusai print and turns it into an awe-inspiring piece that is a sight to behold. Fabelo’s and Dí­az’s works make use of large dimensions to give expression to the angst and vulnerability we feel when faced with the devastating force of nature.

Prolongación [Extension] by the Ecuadorian collective Lalimpia, unfurls a 1 kilometer-long hose connected to a gasoline pump, to which it returns after encircling, twisting, bending, and coming and going up, down and around the gallery. Visually it gives the impression of entering a Cy Twombly illustration after drinking the potion that shrank Alice in Wonderland.

Exceptional state

It is said within its walls that ISA (the Havana Higher Institute of Art) is not what it used to be. Its golden age came to an end following the departure of several professors who spearheaded the Institute’s boom years during the eighties and nineties. Perhaps because of that, to discover the emerging movement in Cuban art we should talk about the “Art of Behavior”, the university course given by Tania Bruguera since 2003. Its aim is to “create an alternative space for education focusing on the discussion and analysis of social behavior and viewing art as a means of engaging in dialogue with the current civic reality and its circumstances”. Estado de excepción was an example of the type of political and contextual art practices that Bruguera proposes. Nine daily shows and talks were given at the Galerí­a Habana. The participants included students attending the course workshops, Cubans and foreigners, and guest professors.

In the video Elaboración de cuarenta piezas rectangulares para la construcción de un piso [Making Forty Rectangular Pieces to Build a Floor], the audio that accompanies still shots of the machinery in a closed-down factory is provided by its former workers, each of whom mimic the sound of the tool they used to work with. The loudest sound in that concert of human voices imitating lathes and cutters was abandonment. Just as in this metaphor of the reality of Cuban life, with its clear allusions to the consequences to which this system of government has led, the clear-cut political line that the course promotes was, and although the pieces showed varying degrees of sophistication, it was evident that emerging Cuban artists are following this theme. Perhaps the only exception was Alejandro Ulloa, who bases his work on promoting his own desires as a person and as an artist.

Body vs. whisper

Two of the central events on the special activities program were performances by Guillermo Gómez Peña and Tania Bruguera. For reasons that are suspect, the organizing committee scheduled the two artists’ performances to be held simultaneously in the interior patios of the Centro Wilfredo Lam. In the end, due to technical problems, Gómez Peña’s Corpo ilí­cito (Illicit Corpus) began late, thus letting the spotlight shine on El susurro de Tatlin VI (Tatlin’s Whisper VI), an action by Bruguera that unleashed an international media controversy.

Corpo ilí­cito is a performance that comments on the transition from the Bush to the Obama era, in which mixed feelings of pain and hope intertwine the body politic. Four performers and a doctor carry out simultaneous actions on several platforms, accompanied by background music and a giant screen detailing each performance. Gómez Peña recited his borderline poetry; Yemanyá embraced the bloody body of a tortured man; an acupuncturist placed needles bearing the flags of the First World powers on the body of a native woman.

For her part, Bruguera emphasized simplicity. She set up a podium with live microphones for members of the public to say whatever they wanted for one minute. Meanwhile a man and a woman dressed in Ministry of the Interior uniforms placed a white dove on each participant’s shoulder as she or he spoke, and then helped them off the stage once their time was up. In the meantime the public took photographs, making use of the two hundred disposable cameras given away by the artist.

Taking advantage of the mikes and the podium, various bloggers and opponents blasted the lack of freedom of expression on the island. Following the incident, the Biennial’s organizing committee issued a press release calling the participants “anti-Cuban dissidents” and labeling the event an “anti-cultural act”, while praising the anti-colonial nature of Gómez Peña’s performance. Although Bruguera came out of the reprimand unscathed, it is seductive to think how innocuous Gómez Peña’s Baroque allegory now seems in comparison to the powerful reactions sparked by his Cuban counterpart’s art of behavior.

Pily Estrada and Christian León