Next Cuban Contemporary Art Exhibit at the Ringling Museum

I posted earlier that there was another Cuban-themed exhibit coming to town. Check it out here. At the time, I expressed some reservations. In my experience, many well-meaning and some nefarious types almost inevitably get it wrong and feed into the great propaganda machine. So lots of times, I just wish they would base their programs on "Art in Samoa" or "The Cinema of the Australian Outback," as they do more damage to the cause of freedom in Cuba than anything else.

So it was that this article appeared in Sunday's "Ticket" from The Sarasota Herald Tribune. On the surface, it seems innocuous enough. So I'm reading about the upcoming exhibit with suspended breath, looking for tells.

The article opens with the assertion that the show, which includes works from Cuban artists both on and off the island, transcends politics. As the Ringling curator indicates:

"It's here because it's important art, not because it's politically charged."

Fair enough, but can you really divorce politics from Cuban anything? How big a step is it to say as the curator of the exhibit does-

For Kerry Oliver-Smith, who curated the show for the Harn Museum, the difference between art created by artists still living in Cuba and those who have emigrated to other places is not immediately apparent.

-to the we're all the same; let's forget about the oppression and repression of the Cuban people.

Well, even the collector, a Howard Farber, notes the tensions that surround the topic. He tells the Miami Herald

Farber told the Miami Herald that his passion for Cuban art doesn't carry a political message. "People have to realize that not everybody that has the ability to collect Cuban art is involved in politics!" he said

Here is a statement indeed. Perhaps because I have witnessed the "chichification" of Sarasota, I am hypersensitive, but let's parse the statement. "...not everybody that has the ability to collect Cuban art" is an interesting formulation. Does that mean has the money to buy the art, unlike Martha Stewart's "little people"? Maybe it means has the ability to go to Cuba. This I researched, because it is generally illegal to go to Cuba. It appears he went on a Metropolitan Museum junket, doubtless one of those educational programs, now curtailed, with his wife, who is described as a "great patron of dance," bringing with them "shopping bags of powder" for the feet of Cuban ballet dancers. Pardon me while I avail myself of the barf bag. Someday soon I will get into the Sarasota scene, and you will understand my perspective.

To be fair, so far the Ringling has kept an aesthetic perspective, and I am delighted to be able to see the stuff. Anyway, your humble correspondent plans to go on Monday. I'll report back then.