inequality and fairness

When I was in Havana a couple years ago, there seemed to be a good sense of social interaction on the street. It may have been partly the pleasant tropical climate. People were going about their business or leisure. I know I was ready to see that Cuba was a good place. We did hear from one of the tour guides that the elite did have access to better housing but that they generally did not have more disposable income. The ostentatious signs of inequality in the U.S., such as McMansions and huge black SUVs, are not so visible in Cuba.

In last Sunday's Opinion section in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof wrote about "What Monkeys Can Teach Us About Fairness." Recent research had looked at how monkeys reacted when one of them got a prized grape rather than a cucumber slice in exchange for a pebble. Other research looked at how travelers in coach were more satisfied with their flight if they did not walk through a first-class cabin on their way to the coach cabin. With all the complaints about airplane seating, I've never been able to understand why anyone would want priority boarding. Still other research showed that sports teams with similar player salaries generally did better than teams where some players got much larger salaries than others. The perception of inequality exacerbated the situation.

I suspect that my good feelings about the general sociocultural climate in Havana came from a sense of shared space as well as the afterglow of improving relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Sure, there were some people that were more shabbily dressed than others but it wasn't the grotesque visual clash of socioeconomic inequality.

Tania Bruguera

I had heard the name Tania Bruguera before I went to Cuba in May during the Biennal de La Habana but I certainly didn't know her work well. Others in the College Art group were well aware and Judith Rodenbeck participated in the reading of The origins of totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt at Bruguera's house. The September 2015 issue of Art in America has an interview with Bruguera by Travis Jeppesen. Just a few quotations:

"Also, we will have a big library [at the Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism]. We'll put shelves on the walls. It will be a specialized library, for people working in art, activism, philosophy and politics."

"I'm an anticapitalist. So I'm present in the discourse. I believe that socialism is a better model, even if it has some problems. I'm afraid that Cuba will go in a direction that is completely contrary to the Revolution."

"And racism is coming back. Yesterday I was talking to a former student, a black artist whose work deals with these issues. She told me that she will no longer go to some private restaurants, because nobody there is black -- not the cook, not even the person who cleans. Everyone is white. Racism is, of course, related to classism. This is something we haven't seen for a long time in Cuba. We were color blind. We saw people for who they were, how they behaved -- not how much money they had or the color of their skin."

As I walked the streets in Havana, there did indeed seem to be a diversity and mixing of people that was authentic and positive. I've been reading The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness by Michelle Alexander so colorblindness and racism are much in my thoughts. The interview shakes my idealism about the situation in Cuba, a little bit, but I am very glad that there continues to be movement on the normalization of relations between Cuba and the U.S.

Thursday adventures in Rochester

Thursday is usually one of my days to work at Scholes Library but I had a visit to the dermatologist in Rochester today. So it was off to the big city for a bit of adventure. I wanted to check the used bookstores to see if I could find of copy of The Gallery by John Horne Burns. I had finished not long ago the new biography on Burns entitled Dreadful: the short life and gay times of John Horne Burns by David Margolick. Imagine my delight that Greenwood Books had a copy and the added bonus was that it was a copy of the original 1947 Harper & Brothers edition that had belonged to the composer David Diamond. Franlee, the owner of Greenwood Books, said that she had bought several thousand of his books when his library was being cleared out. Normally I'd rather not have a marked copy but this copy had the marks of someone in whose notes I might be interested. On the way from the East End to the dermatologist, WXXI announced that they were going to be playing his fourth symphony tomorrow, 2015 being the centennial of his birth.

After I bought my book, I went over to Spot Coffee which is located in a former Chevrolet dealership.

I had last Thursday's New York Times with me, to read as I had a bagel snack and coffee. I was saddened to see the obituary for Phil Patton. I have enjoyed reading his essays and books since I was reading the chapter on Route 66 in Open road: a celebration of the American highway (1986) while sitting in a cafe named Route 66 in Amsterdam (yes, the one in the Netherlands). And I even saw a small version of the route sign on someone's mailbox post as I drove home.

Another article in the paper that especially caught my eye was a profile of fashion designer Nicole Hanley Mellon. She had been on a trip to Cuba in the spring. The article states that she "was initially confused by the Cuban capital. 'The first day we were there, it felt like there was no commerce. Each day, through conversation and observation, you peel off another layer.' She met a college student who was 'pretty candid and spoke about the way you're taught art to express a social issue or a political issue more than being personal, which I found interesting.'" This sense of the importance of social welfare and equality was something that seemed alive to me too when I was in Cuba in May. I just hope that Cuba doesn't become just another Caribbean island.

old cars

Last week, I was in Cuba where old American cars are part of the mix on the streets. It wasn't all American convertibles. There were also Russian Ladas and other rather plain compacts. Generally speaking, the shiny ones were taxis for cavorting tourists.

And here it is, just a few days later, and I'm in Oneonta for a VRA chapter meeting and it's old car night on Main Street. Most of them are pretty shiny but they're just for show.

I'm still feeling Cuba plenty and the next book, just started, is The other side of paradise: life in the new Cuba by Julia Cooke (Seal Press, 2014). Published last year so she'll probably have to do a new edition on "life in the new new Cuba." Meanwhile, I'm finding out what I missed.

Cuba: the postmodern National Art Schools?

Something I read described the National Art Schools, built in the early 1960s to designs by Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garratti, and Roberto Gottardi, as postmodern. It seems to me that they are a continuation of Le Corbusier's brick and concrete houses with a good dose of expressionism as practiced by Eric Mendelssohn, which is not to say merely derivative. For me, postmodernism involves a conscious use of historical motifs. Seeing the schools was a major inspiration for my desire to visit Cuba and they did not disappoint. It was wonderful to be able to meander all about the halls and classrooms of the School of Plastic Arts, to see the rather ordinary mid-century modern of the blue dormitory, and to walk about the ruins of the School of Music, to say nothing of seeing the opera "Cubanacán" in front of the arched entrance tubes of the School of Plastic Arts.

Much has been written recently about the schools and Revolution of forms: Cuba's forgotten art schools by John Loomis (Princeton Architectural Press, 1999) is probably the starting point.

Cuba: the 12th Bienal de La Habana

Our trip to Cuba was timed to be during the Bienal de La Habana. We visited several group venues as well as individual shows. My favorite spaces were the Bicycle Factory and the Pabellón Cuba.

The Bicycle Factory show included works by about a dozen artists. I did like many of the works on display though the building was perhaps the star. The miniature landscape "Holy Place" by Shimabuku fit right in. I also enjoyed his "Cuban Samba," water pinging on cans as it fell from the rafters. One of those "my kid could have done that (but he didn't)" works. Simple but beautiful.

The Pabellón Cuba show was much more diverse and chaotic. The space was kind of Corbusian.

Works here included some funny videos by Casey Neistat (instructional videos on how to, for example, make your own Dr Dre Beats headphones) and a santería celebration of Ana Mendieta.

The group shows at the fortresses at the mouth of the port were also interesting. There, the spaces were more separated, like galleries with one or more artists in each room. There was also a fine show from the Bronx Museum of Art at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, familiar stuff but in a new and particularly relevant setting.

Many of us went to the apartment/studio of Carlos Garaicoa. The works there included some newspapers with most of the text blacked out but the papers were on newspaper sticks and you could "read" them like you were in the newspaper room of your local library. The paper was very sensuous to the touch.

Barbara Hoffman and I got a chance to talk at length with Felipe Dulzaides at his show in a FOCSA penthouse. He is a junior and came back to Cuba from San Francisco after Raoul Castro became President a few years ago. Dulzaides created scanned "collages" of images from his father's archive. His father was a jazz pianist and the "collages" mixed portions of the pictures with the verso captions. He then did drawings based on the collages. One simple drawing, kind of minimalist AbEx, was my favorite.

You might enjoy reading "The Havana Biennial is running at full throttle" by Holland Cotter in the New York Times for May 29th. 

Cuba: music and opera, and using what you have

Our Cuba tour package included one of the first performances of "Cubanacán" -- the first new Cuban opera in fifty years, according to their website. It is based on a book about the building of the National Art Schools on a former golf course. Michael Cooper wrote about it in the New York Times on the day before we left for Havana. The opera was intriguing, the singers were good, and we saw it in front of the triple arch at the front of the School of Plastic Arts. Talk about context.

The worst moment of the trip for me was the evening at the Buena Vista Social Club. Tourist trap, and I felt trapped in the club when I would have loved to escape. The performers were good enough but seemed mostly to be going through the motions.

Far more exciting than Buena Vista was the music that greeted us at several sites along the way or during a meal. Here's Alabao playing at Las Terrazas:

I bought their CD and it is very evocative for me. You can google "alabao cuban band" and find several videos of them. Las Terrazas (The Terraces), by the way, is an ecopark and biosphere with reforestation and new housing. We got treated to music by a family troupe at lunch that day. Very fine.

The regular greeting drink was a mojito but these had little or no rum. Now, the Hotel Nacional bar made a yummy mojito for those late-evening discussions. My swizzle stick collection includes a turkey with drumsticks on a platter; there must have been a special on them at Walmart. Or, rather, you use what you have. I was amused to see French-language signs on a couple school buses, presumably because the buses came from a francophone country. It is more important that you have the bus than getting it repainted.

The sign above the windshield says "Ecoliers" and I saw this bus in the neighborhood around Kcho's studio. He has done a lot of neighborhood improvement and community work there (aka social practice) and pays for a wifi hotspot.

Cuba: being high up, getting the long view

 View of the Centro and beyond, from the 8th-floor restaurant of the Hotel Parque Central.

 View from the fortress at the head of the port, across from Old Havana.

View to the West from the 29th floor of the FOCSA building, over the Vedado, Miramar, and Playa.

View of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba (1930, McKim Mead & White) where we stayed, from the 29th floor of the FOCSA building.

Cuba: houses

The eclectic mix of houses in Havana was delightful. Lots of Hispanic influence, not surprisingly. Mostly in stone and plenty of decorative elements. The condition of the houses varied quite a bit. Some were in good shape and consistent style.

Others showed evidence of extra floors being added or inserted.

Since many houses are home to multiple generations, it isn't surprising that more space on the same footprint has to be figured out.

We passed this house at least twice while on the bus. Its dusty rose exterior and long rectangular shape reminded me of a villa in Vittoria, Sicily. Not similar in style or even size but evocative.

Apartment houses varied considerably too.

Courtyard building on the Malecón, near the Hotel Nacional where we stayed.

There was an installation of works by Felipe Dulzaides in a 29th-floor penthouse in the green-and-white building in the background. The show was great and the views were stupendous.

(there was an art opening on the third floor of the building on the right so we got to see the interior of that apartment and go out on the balcony for a view over the neighborhood)

The buying and selling of houses is one of the reforms enacted in the past few years with the presidency of Raoul Castro. This may be part of the reason that you see a broken-down house or empty lot left between other houses; no one could buy the lot for (re)construction.

Cuba: overall impressions

Cuba had been on the list of places I wanted to go for a long time, particularly since my co-worker at NYU, Janet Alicea, went in the early 2000s. Then, in 2004, I learned about the National Art Schools in a show at Storefront for Art and Architecture. The buildings thrilled me with their domes and circular plan. My desire increased as my friend Moira Kelly and I discussed going on the SAH trip about three years ago. College Art announced last fall that they would do a trip in May during the Bienal and I leapt at the opportunity. A few days after I sent in my deposit, President Obama announced that the U.S. was finally going to normalize relations, political and socio-economic, after fifty years of enmity and embargo. Since then, Docomomo US has announced that they are doing a trip in October 2015 that I bet will be delightful.

All that excitement and desire doesn't mean I wasn't somewhat apprehensive. It would be my first extended trip to a developing country. I did get to Mexico a couple times when I lived in Texas, once to a conference in Guadalajara and once for a couple hours on my bike, both fairly restricted in space, time, and coverage. This would cover more ground and involve more diverse circumstances.

The guidebooks described the double currency of convertible and common pesos. It seemed confusing but actually works easily as we tourists mostly didn't see any of the pesos that Cubans use. All of my dealings were in the convertible pesos (CUCs, pronounced kooks which was the source of much amusement, as you can imagine). One of our group members bought an ice cream cone when we were at the National Art Schools and that was in street pesos. By the way, it was melting so fast that he lost control and didn't finish it.

Our CAA group included 39 people, including executive director Linda Downs and president DeWitt Godfrey. Alison Fraunhar of Saint Xavier in Chicago, who has published numerous articles on Cuban art, was there for guidance. I would guess that there were slightly more artists than art historians/curators along with other art professionals and assorted spouses, spices, and companions. I was the only man traveling alone but there were several women traveling alone.

As we rode into the city from the Havana airport, I was thinking about how I'd take some photos of old cars and colorful houses, not yet realizing that both of those would be seen everywhere.

The cars didn't always match. The freshly-scrubbed cars seemed to be mostly those serving as taxis for tourists. There were also metered yellow cabs and rather ordinary cabs in various colors and conditions with spoken prices that presumably were negotiable, not that I did any of that. Five of us did take a ride from Casablanca back to the hotel that was faster and more dramatic than we wanted, and expensive to boot. Having survived, it makes a good story. Another time, the taxi ride was slow and you wondered if the driver would get the gears shifted. Fast and slow, a real mix on the streets including the occasional horse cart or farm equipment.

Not all of the houses were this colorful. This one is the doctor's surgery in the fishing village of Jaimanitas, on the outskirts of Havana. When artist José Rodríguez Fuster started decorating his house in homage to Antonio Gaudí of Barcelona, the neighbors asked Fuster to also decorate their house. Now there are several dozen houses and fences with mosaic and painted decoration. Even this street name marker got mosaicked.

I have posted all of my Cuba pictures on Flickr but have lots of stories to tell. I'll try to get some more blog posts done before the memories get drowned in real life. Being there was perhaps transformative. I know we were rich American tourists and our guide was a government employee but I really did feel, through observation and the guide's words, that there was a greater equality and richness and diversity of social interaction than in the US. Perhaps I read too much about income inequality here but we could use a good dose of income compression as long as it was toward the middle. Gretell Sintes (our guide) said that the important people did get better housing but not immense salaries so they don't drive flashy new cars (how can you compete with a '57 Chevy convertible?) or have McMansions. I just realized that I didn't see a single stretch limo full of shrieking tourists. We did, however, go to supper one night in an entourage of old convertibles, honking and yelling at each other and smiling.

Cuba and the U.S.

"I candidly confess, that I have ever looked on Cuba as the next interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it -- as well as all those whose waters flow into it -- would fill up the measure of our political well-being. Yet, as I am sensible that this can never be obtained, even with her own consent, but by war; and its independence, which is our second interest (and especially its independence of England), can be secured without it, I have no hesitation in abandoning my first wish to future chances, and accepting its independence -- with peace and the friendship of England -- rather than its association, at the expense of war and her enmity."

These are the words of Thomas Jefferson in 1823 during a period of discussion about the idea of the U.S. annexation of Cuba. The quotation, from a letter to President James Madison, is here taken from Cuba: a new history by Richard Gott (Yale University Press, 2004) which I am reading in anticipation of going to Cuba on a College Art-sponsored trip during the Havana Bienal. I am very much looking forward to Cuba being in peaceful association with the United States.

Just a reminder of relative distance between Florida and Cuba and the relationship to the Gulf of Mexico (screen shot from Google Maps)

hoarding or just too much love of objects

Today's mailing from The New Yorker brought me a link to "Too Much Stuff: Are We Becoming a Nation of Hoarders?" by Joan Acocella. She, not surprisingly, talks about the Collyer Brothers and the Beales, Andy Warhol and the "Hoarders" reality TV show, as well as about her mother and the psychiatric studies of hoarding and, sigh, H.D. (hoarding disorder). I do have a lot of stuff in the family house, the house I currently occupy as the fifth generation. It was built by my great-grandfather and his father-in-law. There is stuff here from each and all of those generations. Mine is just the top layer of the archeology.

Still, I had an "I love my books" experience earlier this week. I have decided to go on the College Art Association-sponsored trip to the Havana Bienal in Cuba in May 2015. The agenda includes an event at the National Art Schools. I had bought the Lonely Planet Cuba guide a couple years ago when Moira and I were dreaming about a trip to Cuba. I knew I had bought the Princeton Architectural Press monograph on the Schools and it did, alas, take me a while to find it among the several thousand books I have. (There is a reason for classifying your books, at least informally by topic.) I found it and saw that I'd bought it at Storefront for Art and Architecture in November 2004. I checked my journal and saw that the Storefront exhibition was then so I checked the compilation of the Storefront newsletter and found the newsletter issue that came out concurrently with the show. Clearly, my collection development policy is working, for me.

Images of the National Art Schools, built in the early days of the Cuban Revolution where the country club had been. The Schools appeared on the World Monuments Fund Watch List in 2000 and 2002. They are now protected and being restored.

(photos selected rather randomly from an image search on "national art schools cuba")

Now if I stayed home and sorted things, perhaps I could work my way through some of my stuff and that of other members and generations of my family. But it's more fun to have my books where I can use them and read them. On the other hand, who knows what adventures and trouble I could get into if I just had one suitcase and the clothes on my back.