For the first time in about twenty five years, American art is traveling to Cuba. At Havana’s Museo De Bellas Artes, the first major art exhibition for comtemporary art is on view now. About thirty artists from New York City’s Chelsea district are showing art at an exhibition they’re calling Chelsea Visits Havana. Artists and supporters hope this is one step towards a thawing of relations between USA and Cuba.
For so long, American artists couldn’t show their work here. Bush really tightened up restrictions. Before Bush, Clinton allowed museums and art dealers to visit Cuba to buy art. Art isn’t covered by the US trade embargo on Cuba, by the way, but how can you buy art in Cuba if you’re not allowed to go there? Art and other cultural exchanges were more and more difficult but now with “Chelsea Visits Havana”more than a dozen art exhibitors and dealers have made the trip and are eager to show good will towards their Cuban counterparts. They even want to bring a group of Cuban artists to the US to display their work in a similar style exhibit, but this may be more difficult.
The art displayed at Chelsea Visits Havana is mostly not very political at all, despite the very political circumstances under which it has come to exhibition. There is one work that depicts a US nuclear facility, which is a grim reminder of just how close the US and Cuba came to a nuclear war during the Bay of Pigs incident. Another work shows President Obama and Fidel Castro eyeing each other. Other than these two works, the rest of the pieces aren’t very political.
