Bienal de La Habana. Palabras críticas: 1984-2010

(Biennal of Havana. Critical Words: 1984-2010)

by Israel Castellanos-León

This work is the result of the research scholarship granted in 2009 to Castellanos-León by the Centro the Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam.

With an initial edition of 100 CDs and designed by Víctor Manuel Cabrera-Muñiz as an interactive PDF, the book consists of an introductory study that precedes a selection of 72 texts—reviews, essays, interviews, chronicles and articles—printed in large publications from Cuba and abroad during a period of nearly 25 years.

Authored by around 50 Cuban and international critics—Pierre Restany, Luis Camnitzer, Dore Ashton, Rachel Weiss and Raquel Tibol, among the most internationally prominent—the book covers the first 10 editions of the mega art event, distinguished for its third world perspective.

The selection—one of so many possible—constitutes a critical fabric where insiders and outsiders converge and where the right to a diversity of criteria, sometimes controversial and other times antagonistic, is preserved. The 650 pages of the book include the basic bibliography and the index of names.