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Rafael Queneditt Morales: Sculptor of Our Ancestors  1/21/2016 Cuban Art News: by Alejandro de la Fuente Photo gallery of Drapetomania at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, 12/2014 President Jimmy Carter visits Drapetomania at The 8th Floor  3/23/2014  Drapetomania Photo Gallery Photo Gallery: Opening of  Drapetomania Exhibit - 8th Floor     3/7/14     Drapetomania opening in Havana, 8/3/13: Photo Gallery Schedule/Programa Exposición homenaje a Grupo Antillano 4/10/2013 TV Santiago The book: "Grupo Antillano: The Art of Afro-Cuba" Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba, PDF Articles/Articulos Members of the Grupo Antillano/Miembros del Grupo Antillano Queloides III: Raza y Racismo en el Arte Cubano Contemporáneo Keloids III: Race and Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art Links/Enlaces

Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba www.queloides-exhibit.com/grupo-antillano Drapetomania at the Afro-Latin American Research Center, Hutchins Center, Harvard University "Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba" at the Cooper Gallery, Harvard University, 1/3/2015 Hutchins Center: 30 Jan 2015 – 29 May 2015 MoAD reopens with big changes and big plans  12/1/2014 SF Chronicle: "Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba” (Dec. 1, 2014, through Jan. 4, 2015). $10. 685 Mission St., S.F. (415) 358-7200. www.moadsf.org." Drapetomanía  12/1/2014 Museum of the African Diaspora: San Francisco: "Drapetomania celebrates the art of Cuba’s Grupo Antillano and the contemporary artists influenced by them" DRAPETOMANÍA: GRUPO ANTILLANO AND THE ART OF AFRO-­CUBA, Curated by Alejandro de la Fuente March 7th – July 18th, 2014 -- The 8th Floor - www.the8thfloor.org, New York     Tuesday – Thursday, 11am – 6pm, Friday, 10 am – 5pm Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba  3/2/2014 8th floor, New York: March 7 – July 18, 2014 Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba, at CDAV, Havana, Cuba 7/23/2013 ArtNexus: "After a successful presentation in Santiago de Cuba, where it was described as "one of the best visual art exhibits of the last few years in Santiago de Cuba," Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba opens at the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales in Havana, Cuba, from August 3 to August 31." The art exhibit Drapetomania: Exposición Homenaje a Grupo Antillano first opened at the Galería de Arte Universal in Santiago de Cuba on April 5, 2013. The exhibit is complemented by the volume Grupo Antillano: The Art of Afro-Cuba, edited by Alejandro de la Fuente, with essays by several Cuban (Guillermina Ramos Cruz, José Veigas) and American (Judith Bettelheim) art critics and historians. The project is sponsored by the Ford Foundation, by the Santiago de Cuba-based Caguayo Foundation for the Monumental and Applied Arts and by the University of Pittsburgh, Center for Latin American Studies. A forgotten visual arts and cultural movement that thrived briefly between 1978 and 1983, Grupo Antillano articulated a vision of Cuban culture that privileged the importance of Africa and Afro-Caribbean influences in the formation of the Cuban nation. In contrast to official characterizations of Santeria and other African religious practices as primitive and counter-revolutionary during the so-called Quinquenio Gris (a "grey" period of neo-Stalinist censorship during the 1970s), Grupo Antillano valiantly proclaimed the centrality of African practices in national culture. They viewed Africa and the surrounding Caribbean not as a dead cultural heritage, but as a vibrant, ongoing and vital influence that continued to define what it means to be Cuban. Some Afro-Cuban intellectuals, such as the noted ethnomusicologist Rogelio Martínez Furé, proclaimed triumphantly that a "new," authentic Cuban art had been born. Yet neither this "new art" nor the very existence of Grupo Antillano are remembered today. Grupo Antillano has been removed from all accounts of the so-called "new Cuban art," a movement that took shape precisely during those years and that is frequently associated with the legendary exhibit Volumen Uno (1981). In contrast to Grupo Antillano, most of the artists of Volmen Uno did not look towards Africa or the Caribbean for inspiration, but to new trends in Western art. The "new art of Cuba," to use the title of art scholar Luis Camnitzer's famous book, came to be identified with the westernized approach of Volumen Uno, not with the Afro-Caribbean art of Grupo Antillano. This exhibit seeks to recover the history of this group and their important contributions to the art of Cuba, the Caribbean and the African Diaspora. Several members of Grupo Antillano had attended the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Nigeria in 1977 and saw their work as part of a diasporic conversation on art, race and colonialism--what sculptor Rafael Queneditt, founder of the group, called "the black movement." As the Group stated in its foundational manifesto (1978), "The Antilles are our real environment... We are not interested in other worlds." They saw their work as part of a long tradition of struggle, cultural affirmation and cimarronaje. This is what a Louisiana medical doctor described in the nineteenth-century as the slave disease drapetomania. The main symptom of this disease was an irresistible urge to run away and escape slavery. The exhibit showcases works by the artists who belonged to Grupo Antillano and works by a group of contemporary artists. As an intellectual and curatorial project, the exhibit suggests that some of the concerns and anxieties articulated by Grupo Antillano thirty years ago continue to inform the work of contemporary Cuban artists. The exhibit offers a revisionist understanding of the "new art of Cuba" through the work of artists who have been concerned with issues of race, history, and the centrality of Africa and the Caribbean to Cuban culture and national identity. It also brings together, for the first time, the artists of Grupo Antillano and some of the artists of Volumen Uno. Artists of Grupo Antillano who participate in the exhibit: Esteban Ayala, Clara Morera, Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas, Manuel Couceiro, Herminio Escalona, Ever Fonseca, Ramón Haití, Arnaldo Rodríguez Larrinaga, Oscar Rodríguez Lasseria, Alberto Lescay, Manuel Mendive, Leonel Morales, Miguel Ocejo, Rafael Queneditt, Julia Valdés. Contemporary artists in the exhibit: Belkis Ayón, José Bedia, Choco (Eduardo Roca Salazar), Juan Roberto Diago, Douglas Pérez, Elio Rodríguez Valdés, Alexis Esquivel, Andrés Montalván Cuéllar, Santiago Rodríguez Olazabal, René Peña, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Leandro Soto. Curator: Alejandro de la Fuente University of Pittsburgh, Department of History Phone (w): 412-6487468; (h): 412-5314425 Email: delafuente_a AT yahoo.com; fuente2 AT pitt.edu The book: "Grupo Antillano: The Art of Afro-Cuba" Alejandro de la Fuente, editor (English and Spanish Edition) [Paperback]   Click here for a look inside the book, for pricing & to order  ==> This bilingual (English and Spanish) book offers the first comprehensive study of Grupo Antillano, an Afro-Cuban visual arts and cultural movement that thrived between 1978 and 1983 and has been written out of Cuban cultural and art history. Grupo Antillano articulated a vision of Cuban culture that privileged the importance of Africa and of Afro-Caribbean influences in the formation of the Cuban nation. In contrast to the official characterization of Santeria and other African religious and cultural practices as primitive and retrograde during the 1970s, Grupo Antillano valiantly proclaimed the centrality of African practices in national culture. They viewed Africa and the surrounding Caribbean not as a dead cultural heritage, but as a vibrant, ongoing and vital influence that continued to define what it meant to be Cuban. Some Afro-Cuban intellectuals, such as the noted ethnomusicologist Rogelio Martínez Furé, who was a collaborator of the group, even proclaimed that a "new," authentic Cuban art (radical, popular, black) had been born. That is the art that this book seeks to recover and to honor. Alejandro de la Fuente is UCIS (University Center for International Studies) Research Professor of History and Latin American Studies and the director of graduate studies in history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century, and A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba, and editor of Queloides: Race and Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art. Alejandro de la Fuente is also the cocurator of the art exhibit Queloides: Race and Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art, which was presented in Havana, Pittsburgh, New York City, and Cambridge, MA.

Articles/Articulos

Rafael Queneditt Morales: Sculptor of Our Ancestors  1/21/2016 Cuban Art News: by Alejandro de la Fuente - "Queneditt did not die. He joined the ancestors to continue his lifelong work of studying, producing, and disseminating what he always envisioned as an authentic Cuban culture, a culture anchored in the knowledge, the sweat, and the pain of Africa and its children, a culture born out of Antillean lashes and fusions. I am not even sure that he has changed scenarios: Queneditt always lived in such an intimate, personal, daily communion with the ancestors, that he has probably experienced no transit, no change at all. They were always together. I know this because he told me, in front of his Santos."

Reconocimiento merecido a Rafael Quenedit Morales  1/15/2016 AfroCubaWeb: "Reconocimiento merecido a Rafael Quenedit Morales, (La Habana, 1942-2016) que es verdaderamente, por su creación artística, por la Fundación del Grupo Antillano y por la trascendencia de su promoción cultural."

Update: New Shows in Havana, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin; Honors for Herrera, Estévez, Fonseca, and Viva  1/12/2016 Cuban Art News: "Drapetomanía coming to Philadelphia. The long-touring exhibition, curated by Alejandro de la Fuente, will open at the African American Museum in Philadelphia on January 30. (It debuted almost three years ago in Santiago de Cuba, later traveling to Havana, New York, Boston, and other US cities.) A tribute to the Afro-Cuban visual arts movement Grupo Antillano, the exhibition showcases work by the group’s original members, and by later Cuban artists who share many of their interests and concerns. This presentation will also serve as an informal memorial to Grupo Antillano founder Rafael Queneditt Morales, who died earlier this month in Havana. The show will run in Philadelphia through March 20."

Tribute to a Sculptor: Alejandro de la Fuente on Marcos Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas  1/2/2016 Cuban Art News: "With him, it was never in doubt: his inspiration, materials, artistic language, the very purpose of his work, were all anchored in the rich, inexhaustible reservoir of Afro-Cuban culture. Quite appropriately, because Afro-Cuban culture has always traveled through the wavebands of informality, the news of his death arrived like a whisper, a rumor disseminated by friends and admirers, short on details, lacking official confirmation: Marcos Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas, the great master of Afro-Cuban art, one of the island's most prolific and important sculptors of the last five decades, has passed away. He was 89 years old."

Blanco y negro sobre negro  6/29/2015 Diario de Cuba: "Un intento valedero y digno lo es en los años 70 el casi olvidado fenómeno cultural que fue el Grupo Antillano (1978-1983). Creado por Rafael Queneditt, aglutinó figuras del arte y la literatura[12] cuyas obra respondían al sentimiento y a la pasión por lo afroantillano. Su tesis proponía el diálogo y la confrontación de "la supervivencia, transformaciones y múltiples desarrollos de pueblos y culturas africanos trasplantados a la Isla, y el proceso de su integración a una cultura cubana, que va mucho más allá de sus componentes"[13]."

Tangled roots  4/10/2015 Harvard Gazette: "These issues — specifically, Cuba’s history with Africa and slavery — were central to Grupo Antillano, whose foundational manifesto (displayed at the gallery in both Spanish and English) discusses the importance of the African diaspora, racism, and colonialism in Cuban art. The multi-ethnic and mixed-gender group originally converged in 1978 around the work of Wifredo Lam, a Cuban surrealist who made his name in Paris before returning to his home country. It dispersed in 1985, three years after Lam’s death, to be largely erased from official accounts of Cuba’s culture."

Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba Arrives in Harvard  2/4/2015 Cuba Now: "The art of Grupo Antillano is part of a long Caribbean tradition of resistance and cultural affirmation, of that “prodigious effort of legitimate defense” and of that “ideological rebelliousness” which, as Haitian poet René Depestre has said, and as the press release explains, allowed enslaved masses in the hemisphere to reprocess their past and cultures. The exhibition pays homage to Grupo Antillano (1978-1983), a cultural and artistic movement “that proposed a vision of Cuban culture that underlines the importance of African and Afro-Caribbean elements in the formation of the nation.”

Arte Afrocubano en la Universidad de Harvard  1/30/2015 Cuba Encuentro: "Comisariada por el historiador Alejandro de la Fuente, profesor de la Universidad de Harvard, la exposición Drapetomanía se complementa con el libro Grupo Antillano: el arte de Afro-Cuba, editado por el comisario de la muestra, con ensayos de críticos de arte e historiadores como Guillermina Ramos Cruz, José Veigas y Judith Bettelheim."

"Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba" at the Cooper Gallery, Harvard University  1/3/2015 Hutchins Center: 30 Jan 2015 – 29 May 2015

Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas, un “cimarrón urbano”  12/24/2014 Cuba Encuentro: por Guillermina Ramos Cruz - "Integrante del Grupo Antillano, Rodríguez Cobas fue uno de los grandes del afro-cubanismo. Su fallecimiento no ha tenido la divulgación merecida en la prensa de la Isla."

Drapetomanía, una expo sobre el cimarronaje en el MoAD  12/13/2014 Negra Cubana: "La expo “Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba” se encuentra en estos momentos siendo exhibida en el Museo de la Diáspora Africana (MoAD) en San Francisco. La noticia nos la hace llegar el intelectual cubano y curador de la misma Alejandro de la Fuente. Con anterioridad, en el mes de mayo, dicha exposición estuvo en la galería The 8th Floor, en Nueva York y fue expuesta originalmente en el Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño en Santiago de Cuba (abril-mayo, 2013). La exposición, que celebra un grupo de artistas de la década de 1970, viajará a continuación a la galería de Ethelbert Cooper en el Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Universidad de Harvard (primavera 2015)."

Renovated MoAD bigger, better  12/11/2014 SF Examiner: "Afro-Cuban experiences are the focus of “Drapetomania,” which is on view through Jan. 4. Curated by Harvard scholar Alejandro de la Fuente, the show celebrates Grupo Antillano, a 1970s-80s group of long-unsung Cuban artists whose work demonstrates how African traditions have shaped Cuban culture. “Sin titulo,” an oil painting by artist and political revolutionary Manuel Couceiro Prado, is among the works on view. “Serie Cabezas,” a mixed-media piece by significant Cuban artist Manuel Mendive (who is influenced by the Santeria religion) addresses social issues. “Resurreccion,” a sculpture featuring a wooden angel, is by Rafael Queneditt, a primary force behind Grupo Antillano’s creation."

MoAD cuts the ribbon and welcomes art lovers to reimagined space  12/4/2014 SF Chronicle: "Executive Director Linda Harrison welcomed the crowd and introduced board chair Wade Rose, director of the Institute for Afro-Latin American Studies at Harvard; Alejandro de la Fuente (who curated the “Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba” show); and artist Lava Thomas (whose sculptures and drawings are featured in “Lava Thomas: Beyond”). Then — blessed are the brief, and they were — short remarks were made by San Francisco City Administrator Naomi Kelly and by Willie Brown, who as mayor had hammered out the deal that created MoAD as part of a redevelopment project and who sits on the board of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture."

Drapetomanía  12/1/2014 Museum of the African Diaspora: San Francisco: "Drapetomania celebrates the art of Cuba’s Grupo Antillano and the contemporary artists influenced by them"

MoAD reopens with big changes and big plans  12/1/2014 SF Chronicle: "Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba” (through Jan. 4). $10. 685 Mission St., S.F. (415) 358-7200. www.moadsf.org."

A New Destination for African Art  11/20/2014 NYT: "Sponsored by the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and its founder Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Cooper Gallery holds a lot of promise, and has a stimulating program planned. Next up, an historical show of work by the now largely forgotten Afro-Cuban art and political movement called Grupo Antillano (1978-83), organized by Alejandro de la Fuente, a professor of Latin American history and African-American studies at Harvard."

Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba on view at The 8th Floor in New York  4/17/2014 OnCuba: "Drapetomania is sponsored by the Afro-Latin American Research Institute of Harvard University, with financial support from the Ford Foundation and the Christopher Reynolds Foundation. The exhibition is complemented by the book Grupo Antillano: The Art of Afro-Cuba, edited by De la Fuente, with essays by art critics and historians as Guillermina Ramos Cruz, José Veigas and Judith Bettelheim."

La memoria necesaria - Notas sobre Drapetomanía, exposición y homenaje al Grupo Antillano  4/8/2014 Cuba Encuentro: "Dentro de este libro, de extraordinaria importancia por la detallada información histórica que ofrece, es particularmente iluminador el ensayo sobre la imagen del negro en la plástica cubana presentado por Guillermina Ramos Cruz. Considerada como la historiadora y relatora del Grupo Antillano, Ramos Cruz recorre minuciosa la trayectoria del movimiento, del que fuera miembro, reconociendo que a pesar de la interesante propuesta que ofrecía el Grupo Antillano, éste en un final no contó con un apoyo sostenido por parte del Ministerio de Cultura, lo que posiblemente provocó su disolución en 1983."

Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba in Havana, New York and San Francisco  4/7/2014 Latino Rebels: "Grupo Antillano, an otherwise forgotten art movement that championed African esthetics in the visual arts of Cuba, lives life anew in this gathering of pieces and voices that pay tribute to the importance of African taste and energy in popular Cuban art. It features a variety of some of Cuba’s most influential visual arts masters of the last century, and from what we can tell is a must-see for anyone within reach of it."

El presidente Jimmy Carter visita la galería The 8th Floor, donde se expone 'Drapetomanía'  4/5/2014 Diario de Cuba: "Asimismo, el escultor y activista americano Mel Edwards, amigo de varios miembros de Grupo Antillano, asistió a la inauguración de la exposición en Nueva York, el pasado 7 de marzo, donde se reencontró con algunos de sus amigos cubanos. Edwards conoció a varios miembros de Grupo Antillano en 1977, cuando estos asistieron al segundo Festival de las Artes y la Cultura de África y el Mundo Negro (FESTAC) en Nigeria y veían su trabajo como parte de una "conversación diaspórica sobre arte, raza y colonialismo"."

President Jimmy Carter at The 8th Floor  4/2/2014 Harvard Gazette: "The 8th Floor was proud to host a social event on Sunday, March 23, attended by President Jimmy Carter and by his grandson, Georgia State Sen. Jason Carter. President Carter visited The 8th Floor, the art gallery supported by philanthropists and art collectors Shelley and Donald Rubin in New York City, where the art exhibit Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba, curated by Harvard Professor Alejandro de la Fuente, is currently on display."

President Jimmy Carter visits Drapetomania at The 8th Floor  3/23/2014 The 8th Floor: "The 8th Floor was proud to host a social event On Sunday, March 23rd, attended by President Jimmy Carter and by his grandson, Georgia State Senator Jason Carter. President Jimmy Carter visited The 8th Floor, the art gallery supported by philanthropists and art collectors Shelley and Donald Rubin in New York City, where the art exhibit Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba, curated by Harvard professor Alejandro de la Fuente, is currently on display. Organized by Rachel Weingeist, Director of The 8th Floor, the event allowed a group of supporters and friends of President Carter to mingle with the President and to experience a sample of Cuban contemporary art."

Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba  3/2/2014 8th floor: March 7 – July 18, 2014 "Drapetomanía explores the “forgotten” visual arts and cultural movement of Grupo Antillano, which thrived between 1978 and 1983. The group emphasized the centrality of African practices in Cuban national culture. The exhibition will feature works by artists who belonged to Grupo Antillano, as well as contemporary Cuban artists."

Drapetomanía o el arte de resistir  9/1/2013 Havana Times: "Durante sus cinco años de existencia Grupo Antillano re-significó, a través del arte, la esencia de las tradiciones de África y el Caribe que nos rodea, incluyendo el ansia de resistencia y libertad; demostró que estos países ejercen influencias vivas sobre nuestra cultura nacional y hay que tenerlas en cuenta. Aunque luego se convirtió en boom, en saturación de los elementos afrocubanos en el cine, las artes plásticas, la literatura, casi siempre con toque caricaturesco y a veces peyorativo. Por eso me parece importante esta muestra que recuerda cómo interviene el arte en la lucha por la identidad."

El Grupo Antillano muestra sus medallas  8/24/2013 Jiribilla: "Wifredo Lam vivía sus últimos días en Cuba cuando un grupo de pintores y escultores decidió exponer bajo una denominación que mucho tenía que ver con el concepto del arte defendido por el gran creador cubano. Eran tiempos de revalorizar raíces, de mirar con insistencia la africanía y caribeñidad que se reflejaba en la visualidad de la Isla y de preocuparse menos por la puesta al día de cara al mercado internacional que por transmitir a sus contemporáneos los códigos de una identidad heredada."

Del estante: El arte afro-cubano del Grupo Antillano  7/25/2013 Cuban Art News: de Zoya Kocur - "El proyecto de De la Fuente ha traído de vuelta un capítulo poco conocido de la historia del arte cubano y la historia cultural afrocubana. Al igual que la exposición, el libro se centra en cómo el proyecto del Grupo Antillano contribuyó a la formación de un movimiento afro-cubano a través de la afirmación y promoción de la cultura e identidad cubanas negras. Las razones de la falta de atención al Grupo Antillano después de su disolución seguirán siendo objeto de debate, los historiadores y críticos de arte e historiadores ofrecerán diferentes evaluaciones de las exposiciones del Grupo Antillano. Pero a través de la exposición de De la Fuente y este libro valioso, ahora tenemos la oportunidad de verla por nosotros mismos."

Drapetomania: An Exhibition Homage to the Antillean Group  7/24/2013 The 8th Floor, NY: "Opening in 2014. Drapetomanía will explore the “forgotten” visual arts and cultural movement of Grupo Antillano, which thrived between 1978 and 1983. The group emphasized the centrality of African practices in Cuban national culture. The exhibition will feature works by artists who belonged to Groupo Antillano, as well as contemporary Cuban artists."

Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba, at CDAV, Havana, Cuba  7/23/2013 ArtNexus: "After a successful presentation in Santiago de Cuba, where it was described as "one of the best visual art exhibits of the last few years in Santiago de Cuba," Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba opens at the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales in Havana, Cuba, from August 3 to August 31."

“Drapetomanía”, el Grupo Antillano o el componente africano en la cultura cubana  5/5/2013 El Sol de Oriente: "El escultor Alberto Lescay, presidente de la Fundación Caguayo, institución a cargo del proyecto de “Drapetomanía”, recordó los años fundacionales del Grupo Antillano; el apoyo de Joel James Figarola; el nacimiento de la Casa del Caribe como continuidad del movimiento artístico de 1978, y puntualizó que salió de Cuba la propuesta al artista Queneditt , de crear el Grupo Antillano. Lescay retomó el tema del catálogo voluminoso y bellamente graficado, con amplias referencias a “Drapetomanía”, y comentó también el surgimiento del grupo, sus protagonistas principales y el significado que tuvo. “Drapetomanía” responde a un proyecto organizado por Caguayo y el Patrocinio de la Fundación Ford, la Universidad de Pittsburg y el Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos."

Exposición homenaje a Grupo Antillano  4/10/2013 YouTube, TV Santiago: "En la Galería de Arte Universal de Santiago de Cuba se inauguró el Proyecto Dapretomanía, exposición homenaje al Grupo Antillano"

Exposición homenaje a Grupo Antillano  4/10/2013 TV Santiago: Desde un sitio en España - "En la Galería de Arte Universal de Santiago de Cuba se inauguró el Proyecto Dapretomanía, exposición homenaje al Grupo Antillano."

Drapetomanía, el cimarronaje entre luces y colores  4/6/2013 cub@.periodista: "Como expresión y defensa de un legítimo arte cubano, que reconoce la influencia de los elementos africanos y afro-caribeños, fue inaugurada el viernes 5 de abril, la exposición Drapetomanía en el Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño, de Santiago de Cuba."

Exhiben en Cuba obras que reivindican elementos afrocaribeños  4/6/2013 Prensa Latina: "La exposición Drapetomanía se exhibe hoy aquí en homenaje al movimiento cultural conocido como Grupo Antillano, empeñado en contrarrestar la visión de las prácticas religiosas de origen africano como primitivas y retrógradas El movimiento, de carácter cultural y artístico, propuso entre 1978 y 1983 una visión que resaltaba la importancia de los elementos africanos y afrocaribeños en la formación de la identidad nacional."

'Drapetomanía': Homenaje al Grupo Antillano en Santiago de Cuba  4/5/2013 Diario de Cuba 

Cien artistas pintan a Santiago de Cuba por medio milenio  4/4/2013 Cuba Si: "Como parte del auge de estas manifestaciones artísticas en la segunda ciudad cubana mañana quedará inaugurada en la Galería de Arte Universal la exposición Drapetomanía, en reverencia al Grupo Antillano, defensor de una visión afrocaribeña de la cultura."

En conversación: Alejandro de la Fuente, “Drapetomanía” y el Grupo Antillano  4/2/2013 Cuban Art News 

In Conversation: Alejandro de la Fuente on Drapetomanía and Grupo Antillano  4/2/2013 DRCLAS, Harvard: "De la Fuente has described Grupo Antillano as a forgotten visual arts and cultural movement that thrived between 1978 and 1983. The group proclaimed the centrality of African practices in national culture. For them, Africa and the surrounding Caribbean was not a dead cultural heritage but a vibrant, ongoing and vital influence that continued to define what it means to be Cuban. Yet de la Fuente was surprised to discover that neither the art nor the very existence of Grupo Antillano is remembered today. As he puts it, Grupo Antillano has been removed from all accounts of the so-called "new Cuban art," which took shape precisely during those years and is frequently associated with the legendary exhibition Volumen Uno (1981). In contrast to Grupo Antillano, says de la Fuente, most of the artists of Volmen Uno did not look towards Africa or the Caribbean for inspiration, but to new trends in Western art."

Al movimiento afrocaribeño Exposición en Santiago  3/21/2013 CMKC - Radio Revolucion: "El Grupo Antillano se empeñó, entre 1978 y 1983, en contrarrestar la visión de la santería y otras prácticas religiosas de origen africano como primitivas y retrógradas, en una concepción de resistencia y afirmación culturales."

Manolito Couceiro: arte y patrimonio  9/26/2008 Cubarte 

Cultural Cimarronaje: Racial Politics in Cuban Art  10/9/2007 Upside Down World: "Alongside the movement of art collectives and public interventions that reappeared in the mid to late 1990s, another kind of cultural collective began to take place among artists concerned with themes of race and racism in Cuban society. Like rap musicians, Afro-Cuban artists confronted a situation of silence about race issues. Since the gradual disappearance of Grupo Antillano in the 1980s, there had been few artists who had dealt with issues of race, with the exception of Manuel Mendive. Ironically, it was the circulation of postmodern notions of difference in the periphery that gave renewed impetus to this theme globally and which, as Nelly Richard argues, should have ideally made available "a range of material that can be discussed and reformulated (or rejected) according to local critical needs." The exoticization of Afro-Cuban themes by the global market, combined with the development of a folklore tourism and the prioritization of the African presence in the Americas by international foundations such as UNESCO, gave a degree of legitimacy to representations of African identity, and Afro-Cuban artists took advantage of these openings to express their concerns."

 
Links/Enlaces

Drapetomania checklist, exhibit items and value athte Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grupo_Antillano

www.thefullwiki.org/Grupo_Antillano

“CUBA MESTIZA” Reflexiones, en Cuba. Artesanía en la Habana, lo bello y lo útil, Rafael Queneditt Morales

Ni Musicos ni deportistas : sobre los imagines del  negro en el arte cubano, escrito por Ariel Ribeaux, AfroCubaWeb

Without Masks: Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art: South Africa and Canada, includes some of the same artists and related themes

Members of Grupo Antillano/Miembros del Grupo Antillano

Grupo Antillano: The Art of Afro-Cuba (English and Spanish Edition) [Paperback]

This bilingual (English and Spanish) book offers the first comprehensive study of Grupo Antillano, an Afro-Cuban visual arts and cultural movement that thrived between 1978 and 1983 and has been written out of Cuban cultural and art history. Grupo Antillano articulated a vision of Cuban culture that privileged the importance of Africa and of Afro-Caribbean influences in the formation of the Cuban nation. In contrast to the official characterization of Santeria and other African religious and cultural practices as primitive and retrograde during the 1970s, Grupo Antillano valiantly proclaimed the centrality of African practices in national culture. They viewed Africa and the surrounding Caribbean not as a dead cultural heritage, but as a vibrant, ongoing and vital influence that continued to define what it meant to be Cuban. Some Afro-Cuban intellectuals, such as the noted ethnomusicologist Rogelio Martínez Furé, who was a collaborator of the group, even proclaimed that a "new," authentic Cuban art (radical, popular, black) had been born. That is the art that this book seeks to recover and to honor.

Click here for pricing & to order  ==>

Schedule/Programa

DRAPETOMANÍA: GRUPO ANTILLANO AND THE ART OF AFRO-­CUBA, Curated by Alejandro de la Fuente
March 7th – July 18th, 2014 -- The 8th Floor - www.the8thfloor.org, New York     Tuesday – Thursday, 11am – 6pm, Friday, 10 am – 5pm

Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba, at CDAV, Havana, Cuba  Aug 3 to 31, 2013

Open to the public:
Friday, August 3, 2013, 6:00 pm until August 31, 2013
Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Plaza Vieja, Habana Vieja, La Habana, Cuba

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