Dalton Gata, Collage, 2020
In 2021, an influential group of Cuban artists called for a boycott of the 14th Havana Biennale. The Cuban authorities had jailed many of their colleagues for exercising their right to free speech, and these artists wanted to fight back. Protests against the unjust and repressive government have persisted. At this year’s Documenta 15, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera and the Cuban collective Instituto de Artivismo Hannah Arendt (Instar) highlighted the plight of Cuban artists in a moving series of presentations. On Friday, June 24th, numerous artists and human rights organizations condemned the Cuban regime when it sentenced performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara to five years in prison for “contempt, defamation, and public disorder.”
