Censorship
You may recall a post last week about an exhibition that has just opened in London of works by six visual artists who live and work in Cuba.
The exhibition, whose underlying theme appears to be the lack of free speech under the Castro regime, is favourably reviewed by Michael Glover in the latest issue of the Left-leaning weekly, New Statesman.
Glover was keen to find out from the artists themselves whether censorship in Cuba today is better or worse than it was, say, in the 1960s and 1970s.
The reply from one of the artists, Lazaro Saavedra, seems to sum up the situation well.
"No, things are not as they were in the 1960s and 1970s,” Mr Saavedra replied. “Artists are no longer blacklisted. You no longer get a phone call out of the blue. These days the censorship is more sophisticated: they will talk about space, or health and safety matters. There are very important human rights issues - it could be a destabilising act, for example, to distribute the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the street."
You can read the article here.
The exhibition, whose underlying theme appears to be the lack of free speech under the Castro regime, is favourably reviewed by Michael Glover in the latest issue of the Left-leaning weekly, New Statesman.
Glover was keen to find out from the artists themselves whether censorship in Cuba today is better or worse than it was, say, in the 1960s and 1970s.
The reply from one of the artists, Lazaro Saavedra, seems to sum up the situation well.
"No, things are not as they were in the 1960s and 1970s,” Mr Saavedra replied. “Artists are no longer blacklisted. You no longer get a phone call out of the blue. These days the censorship is more sophisticated: they will talk about space, or health and safety matters. There are very important human rights issues - it could be a destabilising act, for example, to distribute the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the street."
You can read the article here.
posted by Luis M Garcia at 10:17 am
2 Comments:
Cuban art, and movies as well are often darkly comic and highly critical of the many problems, ironies and contradictions which abound in Cuban life.
I think it's a sign of health in a society that it can laugh at and criticize its foibles. That seems to be more true these days than it used to be.
Thanks for sharing the article.
When were you last in Cuba, by the way? I'm just back after another three months there.
Just like whitewashing a grave.
There's no worse blindness than the refusal to see.
So many slimy, foul creatures!
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