Curating in Cuba: From Advertisement Websites to Night Spaces

Abstract

“Curating in Cuba: from Advertisement Websites to Night Spaces” proposes that newly established socio-commercial spaces in Cuba are more appropriate to exhibit projects of contemporary art than traditional state-owned galleries and museums. It analyses two exhibitions which took place at heterogeneous sites — Handmade Twitting (Revolico, Twelfth Havana Biennial, 2015) and Portate Bien. De lo erotico y de lo heroico: sexo y resistencia cultural (Fabrica de Arte Cubano, 2016)—by tracing how they responded to current changes in Cuba’s economic and sociopolitical landscape, and by exposing how they rethink and upset conventional ways of exhibition making. Handmade Twitting was a virtual exhibition that explored how historically opposing economic and value systems are increasingly merging in contemporary Cuba. It took place at the online auction and shopping website Revolico and was made available to the Cuban audience through the distribution of the paquete semanal: a selection of digital information distributed on Cuba’s black market. Portate bien was a nocturnal exhibition about the revolutionary potentials of sexuality which was held at the Fabrica de Arte Cubano: a fusion of a discotheque, a commercial gallery and an art space.