Cuba's Art and Monuments Reflect Modern and Historic Values

Martí monument at the Plaza de la Revolucion

The most prominent monument in Havana, Cuba, is not for Fidel Castro, nor Che Guevara. The 109-meter tower honors José Martí, the intellectual hero of Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain. The poet, essayist, journalist, professor and philosopher died in action in 1895 at the age of 42. 

At the base of the tower an 18-meter statue of Martí overlooks the Plaza de la Revolución. When Fidel Castro was healthier, he delivered his hours-long speeches to hundreds of thousands of Cubans gathered in the plaza. Castro was born in 1926, more than 30 years after Martí's death.

One can learn much about a nation's core values by studying its monuments and how it treats its own history. When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, they deliberately tried to erase as much of Czarist Russia as they could by destroying and denying centuries of cultural history.

Castro's revolution was inspired in part by the same economic issues that fueled the Bolsheviks, but his regime enthusiastically embraced Cuba's pre-revolutionary culture. The Martí monument was started and completed during the regime of  the hated dictator Fulgencio Batista, but it became the geographic centerpiece of the new regime. Across the Plaza de la Revolución, images of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, two heroes of Castro's revolution, look back and up toward Martí.

Monument to Maximo Gomez

Most of the statues in Havana honor other heroes of the 19th century War for Independence. A huge and ornate monument to Gen. Maximo Gomez, for example, anchors the east end of the Malecon, Havana's famous sea wall. 

Che Guavara poster

Che Guevara is the most prominently honored of the Castro revolutionaries. His iconic visage based on a famous photograph by the Cuban photographer Korda adorns t-shirts, hallways, murals, virtually any surface on which an image can be imprinted. 

And while Cubans do not enjoy the same freedom of expression as Americans do, parodies of even Guevara exist, such as the poster of his face on a bare torso painted red with the Nike slogan "Just Do It" across the top.

Almost entirely absent from the iconography of modern socialist Cuba is the leader of the revolution himself, Fidel Castro. Our guide explained that this was because Castro has ordered that no statues or monuments to him be built while he lives. His image will no doubt be ubiquitous when he dies. 

Conspicuously absent from Cuban roadsides is any form of commercial advertising. There are scattered billboards and signs, and even those whose Spanish is limited to "Hola" and "Gracias" will have no trouble understanding "Socialismo Siempre" and "Viva la Revolucion." 

Hemingway bust at Cojimar

One other individual is strongly represented in statues and monuments: the American writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's corner room in the Hotel Ambos Munos in Havana is now a one-room museum. His farm outside Havana, Finca de la Vigía, is now a museum that probably looks just as it did when he lived there until 1960 (and one can't help but wonder if it isn't also a reminder of capitalist decadence). And there is a sculpted bust of the writer overlooking the harbor at Cojimar, the fishing village that inspired  "The Old Man and the Sea." The "old man" was based on a fisherman from the village.

The Black Virgin in Santeria Church

Beyond iconography, Cuba has always embraced the arts and creative people in general, and that did not change with the revolution. As in many Latin American countries, much art is based in religion. Churches and cathedrals abound in sacred paintings and sculpture.

Statue on the Gran Teatro

The Gran Teatro de la Habana is home to an internationally renowned ballet company and regularly hosts concerts and opera performances (which I could hear from my hotel room at night after the son band on the patio finished for the evening).

While Cuba strives to remain a classless society, many artists enjoy special privileges and above average housing, often in the villas of Cuba's wealthiest people who were displaced by the revolution. 

Some of these artists are as important domestically as they are to Cuba's reputation abroad. José Fuster, for example, is a ceramic artist whose work can be found world-wide (except in the U.S., of course), transformed his Havana neighborhood into "Fusterlandia." Fuster's colorful, sometimes quirky sculptures and mosaics stretch for blocks on roofs, walls, doorways  and benches in the vicinity of his studio (which also serves as a paladar, or private restaurant). More than 80 of his neighbors have allowed Fuster to adorn their homes.

Chichi at work in his studio

Other artists work on a smaller scale but with similar artistic freedom.  The potter Chichi throws pots daily in his studio that is open to the public in the 500-year old city of Trinidad on the south coast. Chichi and his apprentices and assistants work tirelessly with their wheels, sanding stations and kiln to produce gorgeous pots for sale in Trinidad's markets, all while visitors stroll through, taking photos and occasionally buying a pot.

Other than the image of Che Guevara looking over Chichi's shoulder, there is no sign of revolutionary propaganda in his work. His pots are traditional, meticulously created and typically Caribbean.

What I take away from all of this is that Cuba honors all of its history, and its values are rooted in traditions and events that are centuries old, re-shaped, but not destroyed, by the revolution that transformed the economy of the island nation more than 50 years ago.

Perhaps one day soon, the U.S. government will again allow its citizens to travel freely and see Cuba for themselves. 

(For more images of Cuban monuments and other art, please visit my Web site:
http://www.finsfeathersfoto.com/p160919884)

Cuba is Music

I normally try to avoid answering questions about "favorites," like "Where's your favorite place to dive?" or "What's your favorite of all your photographs?" Too many apples, too many tangerines, not to mention all the varieties of lettuce. But when a friend asked me the other day what was my favorite thing about my visit to Cuba, I quickly answered, "The music."

That was easy. Music in Cuba is more than just the seductive sound and rhythms of Africa and the Caribbean. Music, the musicians, and the way it pervades street life in every Havana neighborhood, every town and even the rest stops on the main highways represent the cultural history of Cuba as well as its current state of mind and very likely its destiny.

Bongo Man, Trinidad de Cuba

The first thing about Cuban music is that it's ubiquitous. You can't step out on the street without hearing it. As you walk down Obispo Street into or out of Vieja Havana, you pass through a gauntlet of bands, some outside on the street, others in open-air bars where tourists sip Cuba Libres and dance.

In hotel patios and lobbies, the music might be a son band playing Cuba Jazz or a piano man misting the air with old standards.

There is always a hat or a guitar case nearby for tips, but during breaks one of the musicians will circulate among the crowd with a basket of CDs, which cost 10 pesos (about $11). I brought home half a dozen. The bands all perform better live than in studio, so I'm glad I also used a digital recorder to capture some of them, along with the ambient sounds of the street and customers placing drink orders.

Drummer for Baragua

It's almost like having Muzak all over the city, but with live bands and good sounds. And it's not just in Havana. The historic (499 years old) colonial city of Trinidad on the south coast is renowned for its music scene. My favorite band of all that I heard was a group called Baragua, which played in a small bar called Esquerra, just off the Plaza Mayor. 

As a photographer, one of my goals was to capture the Cuban people to the extent I could. In doing so, and especially in studying my photos since I returned, I was struck by the sense of pride and dignity in every face, even an old man digging coins from the mud in Havana Harbor. 

That sense of worth comes through even more clearly in my photos of musicians. Certainly part of that comes from having the gift of music and the ability to put that gift to use and to be appreciated for it.

Which would seem to be difficult to impossible in what most Americans perceive the Cuban communist system to be. This is one of those paradoxes I wrote about last time. 

From the American materialistic point of view, Cubans should be among the unhappiest people in the world. Virtually everyone works for the government, and paychecks range in the neighborhood of $25 to $40 a month. Seriously. Now, in addition to that, health care is free and high quality. Education, at all levels, is also free and high quality. Food is not free but is heavily subsidized, as is housing. Still, Cubans will tell you, the pay and subsidized food and housing are not enough to live on. 

The Old Man and the Guitar, Cojimar

In recent years, as Cuba has recognized that its most promising international trade opportunity is in tourism, the socialist government has relaxed its rules on private businesses. Individuals are now allowed, and even encouraged, to operate private shops, restaurants and other enterprises. Policies , i.e., taxes, discourage people from getting very rich from these enterprises, with the aim of preventing the kind of gross economic inequality that occurs in some capitalist countries. But that has not prevented plenty of people getting quite enterprising there.

Music is one of those enterprises. One of the common criticisms of socialist societies is that there is no incentive for people to work hard, to innovate, to start new businesses, and Cubans acknowledge that reality. On the other hand, income equality means there is also no incentive to pursue a career path that is going to make you unhappy or to exploit other people just because you can make more money.

 

I believe that is one reason music is heard all over Cuba. To be a successful musician you don't have to get a break with a major record label and get your music played on the right radio stations. You can pick up your guitar and learn a few songs and play for visitors near the sea wall in Cojimar, the colorful town that helped inspire Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea." 

Or put together a band and play on the streets, sell a few CDs, and supplement your meager government check. Think garage bands playing outside the garage. With an audience. And the satisfaction that comes from doing what you really love.

Los Mambisos, Obispo St., Havana

I'm not saying Cuba has actually created the worker's paradise dreamed of by the Bolsheviks a century ago. Many aspects of the socialist experiment have clearly failed, and reform is taking place slowly. But as it does, one hopes that Cuba can keep what is good and healthy. In some ways they have already shown they can, by retaining those aspects of Cuban culture that earlier generations of Communist revolutionaries in other countries destroyed just because they were there before. 

Cuba is clearly a land on the verge of something big and new. It's anybody's guess just what that is right now. But whatever it is, it will have a great sound track.