The Construction Mystique: The Revolution as Building Site in Contemporary Art from Cuba

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cuban artists have been politically engaged since the 1959 revolution. Although many scholars have since studied how Cuban artists have responded to the notions of utopia and dystopia on the Marxist-Leninist island, no one has examined how, for decades, artists have turned to the topic of construction as a metaphor for the creation of a socialist society. I examine the changing relationship between cultural creators and the state by analyzing artists’ inclusion of images of masons, cement, bricks, and hard hats in their works. Through their involvement with building-site imagery—from erecting actual apartment towers to imagining fantastical forms of housing—Cuban artists have long reflected on their conflicted feelings toward the role of art in Cuba and toward their commitment, as both citizens and art workers, to the revolutionary project.