Posted by Toronto Forum On Cuba
By MICHEL HERNANDEZ
The US Department of State, headed by Hillary Clinton, blocked Cuban
folksinger Silvio Rodriguez from attending a tribute to US folksinger
Pete Seeger on his 90th birthday on Sunday in New York.
The Cuban website Cubadebate reproduced a message Sunday evening from
Silvio from Paris in which he denounces having not received a visa by
Friday, frustrating his plans to fulfill the invitation from the
event’s organizers.
“The blockade continues to be a living policy of the US government,”
states the website.
In a message to his sister and manager in Havana, Silvio said: “This
Friday, May 1, it is 8:40 p.m. in Paris and I just connected to the
website of the US Embassy in France where they publish news about
visa requests. Mine appears under the category of being processed, as
it has since the request was made. Since today is the day I was to
fly to New York and the visa has not appeared, tomorrow I will leave
for Havana.”
“I believe that the attitude of the State Department is very
contradictory with the desire for rapprochement with Cuba expressed
by President Obama. As a Cuban cultural worker I continue to feel as
blockaded and discriminated as by other governments. Hopefully this
will truly change some day. Thanks for your help,” concluded the
Cuban singer and songwriter.
Pete Seeger, who gave an international boost to the popular Cuban
song Guantanamera by Joseito Fernandez, with verses by Jose Marti,
has been a tireless critic of the US blockade on Cuba. He has visited
the island on five occasions.
GRANMA
Silvio Rodriguez’s letter to Pete Seeger
May 3, 2009
Admired and beloved Maestro Pete Seeger:
In these moments the tribute concert that dozens of singers are
justly offering you is being celebrated. Passing through my mind are
some of the times that I have had the privilege of enjoying your
talent, which has seduced multitudes. I remember you in Havana,
singing in solidarity along with the Sound Experimentation Group; I
remember you in that tour that was dedicated to Victor Jara, through
several cities in Italy; and I am also reliving that frosty night in
February 1980 in which, responding to your call, we traveled from New
York to Poughkeepsie and we listened to your “Snow, Snow,” the
masterwork of someone asking questions of a winter landscape.
I tried to come back to be with you today, but, as you well know, I
was not allowed to get there by those who do not want the US and Cuba
to get together, to sing to each other, to talk to each other, to
understand each other. They are the ones who think that the world is
divided into the powerful and the weak; the ones who only appreciate
those who are rich and strong. They are the ones who do not forgive
us for the fact that, even though we are small, we have decided to
live standing up on our feet. Reality cries out that these brutes
must be getting fewer and fewer in number, but somehow that minority
still rules and gives the orders. Some of them saw danger in the idea
that we would meet and that a simple act of brotherhood would
symbolize two neighbor peoples who can agree in song and in affection.
But not just me, dear Pete: all my worthy and no doubt improvable
people admire you, respect you, and celebrate your honorable nine
decades defending social justice, peace, and culture. Here no one
sees you as a danger, but as an extraordinary friend whom we are not
allowed to embrace as freely as we would like. That is why not just
I, but all of this Cuba that loves you, blockaded still by the
abusers, is at your side now singing your prophetic ‘We Shall
Overcome’ and the ‘Guantanamera’ of our MartÃ.
A kiss for Toshi and a big hug for you from
Silvio Rodriguez Dominguez
NLG.ORG
...
Meanwhile in Yahoo (i.e.Thomson Reuters) land...they claim:
U.S.-Cuba thaw in full swing in arts world
Thursday, May 7 01:44 am
Reuters Esteban Israel
The U.S. and Cuba governments have taken the first, tentative steps
towards ending 50 years of hostilities, but the thawing of relations
is already in full swing in the arts world.
After being largely absent in recent years, U.S. gallery owners,
museum directors, curators and collectors are returning to the island
to view and buy the work of Cuban artists.
Hundreds showed up for the just-ended Havana Biennial arts festival
that was a regular stop for art buyers before a Bush administration
travel crackdown earlier this decade. Their presence reflected both
newly relaxed U.S. policy towards Cuba under President Barack Obama
and a U.S. hunger for Cuban art.
Obama offered to "recast" Washington's relationship with its Cold War-
era enemy last month and granted Cuban Americans the right to freely
travel and send remittances to Cuba. The United States was prepared
to move further towards normalized relations, he said, if Cuba
extended its hand.
All of this has been music to the ears of Cuban artists glad to see
the well-heeled gringos back in town.
"Cuba has been sort of the forbidden fruit for some years because it
has been so hard to travel here," said Cuban-born Ben Rodriguez-
Cubenas, chairman of the Cuban Artist Fund, which promotes Cuban art,
and also collector and program director for the New York-based
Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
"There has been this pent-up interest. Cuba is in the news. The
interest is there," he said.
Art is exempted from the 47-year old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, but
sales dropped off when President George W. Bush toughened
restrictions on U.S. travel to the Communist-run island and limited
cultural exchanges in 2004.
Buyers from other countries kept prices lofty. U.S. investors now
eying paintings, drawings and photographs for appreciation will be
welcomed with wide-open arms but will have to open their wallets
wide, too, artists said.
1,000 AMERICANS
The strong American presence at the Biennial means U.S. demand for
Cuban art is on the rebound, said Pamela Ruiz, an American art
curator based in Havana.
"My guess is that there were at least 1,000 Americans walking around
and 95 percent of them were here because either they wanted to buy
work or because they were curators or (worked for) nonprofit
(organisations)," she said.
For the past few years only a handful of collectors were able to come
legally by obtaining licenses from the U.S. government. Others
violated U.S. law by travelling through a third country -- risking
thousands of dollars in penalties.
Under Obama, they said the licensing process has become less arduous
and there is less fear of making the Cuba trip illegally because they
view prosecution as less likely.
And things would change dramatically if the U.S. Congress passes
pending bills that would lift the ban on Cuban travel for all
Americans, a move the Obama administration has said it would not oppose.
American interest in Cuban art flourished in the 1990s, when the
island's socialist system was shaken by the implosion of the Soviet
Union, Cuba's biggest benefactor for three decades, and artists
started to reflect the woes of a drifting society in their work.
U.S. collectors swooped in, smelling what they thought was a good
buying opportunity, said Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa.
"Those were pretty strange, crazy times," he said. "People were
waiting for the Cuban revolution to end any minute and so they were
buying art thinking prices could rocket up."
Interest peaked at the 2000 Biennial, when U.S. buyers were believed
to have spent over $1 million (661,592 pounds) buying Cuban works.
"Americans came on a shopping spree with their Texan hats and money
stuck in their belts," Garaicoa said.
It all ended abruptly when Bush came to power and his administration
severed incipient cultural links to the island just 90 miles (145 km)
from Florida.
Before the Bush changes, Americans made up about 60 percent of Cuban
art buyers, but fell to about 40 percent afterward, according to
various estimates.
Garaicoa missed the opening of his own exhibition at the Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005 after the U.S. government denied
him a visa.
NO BARGAINS
But things are changing. During this year's Biennial, painter Damian
Aquiles turned his run-down, century-old Havana home into an
improvised gallery where curators from U.S. museums and arts
organizations came to view the collages he makes with recycled cans
and canvases.
"This is starting to happen. After this Biennial it will all start,"
says Aquiles, 37, whose work has been shown at exhibits in New York,
San Francisco and New Orleans.
"There is a general interest regarding Cuba, its art, its politics.
Cuba is fashionable and that curiosity helps us," said the artist,
who's married to Ruiz.
Americans visiting the island will find lots of the vibrant,
colourful art that Cuban artists favour. But one thing they will not
find is bargains. Pre-Bush interest drove prices up to international
standards and they have not come down.
Anyone coming to Havana should expect to pay between $750 and $5,000
for photographs, $1,500 to $45,000 for drawings and $2,500 to $30,000
for a painting, collectors said.
If the U.S. Congress lifts all travel restrictions, prices would
likely go higher as more Americans visit. But the effect could be
blunted by the world financial crisis.
Garaicoa said that, due to money issues, he already has postponed two
exhibits lined up for this year, one in Tampa, Florida, and another
in Dublin's Irish Museum of Modern Art.
But the crisis will eventually pass and as Americans return to Cuba,
Cuban artists should benefit from the new political climate both in
commercial terms and increased cultural contacts with the United
States, said American curator Ruiz.
"This is a very important point" in time, she said. "Only good will
come out of this."
(Reporting by Esteban Israel; editing by Jeff Franks and Philip Barbara)
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