The Cuban artist and activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who’s being held in jail in Cuba, has invited artists and curators attending the forthcoming Havana Biennial (15 November-28 February) to go to him in jail as a part of a particular artwork undertaking. Otero Alcántara, who has been imprisoned since 2021, is presently detained in Guanajay, a maximum-security penitentiary southwest of Havana.
He says in a cellphone name from jail: “To the artists, theorists, collectors and artwork lovers who will go to the 2024 biennial, I invite you to see my work and turn out to be a part of it. It’s referred to as Proof of Life. One particular particular person will probably be chosen to go to me in jail and spend one or two hours with me in dialog about artwork and different issues.
“The biennial started as a chance for artists from the periphery, and people which were displaced. Since I can’t go to the occasion, why not deliver [the biennial] to the artist?”
In response to Coco Fusco, a Cuban-US artist who’s campaigning for Otero Alcántara’s launch, he determined to take part within the occasion due to “the hypocrisy of the federal government in presenting a biennial in a local weather of repression and censorship”.
Otero Alcántara was detained on 11 July 2021 on fees of contempt and insult to nationwide symbols, after posting a video to social media saying he deliberate to hitch the anti-government protests which swept the nation that day. The co-founder of the San Isidro freedom motion, Otero Alcántara has gone on starvation strike a number of instances throughout his incarceration. The Cuban Embassy in London was contacted for remark.
The theme of the fifteenth Havana Biennial, which is organised by the Wifredo Lam Modern Arts Centre in Havana, is “shared horizons”. People fascinated with participating in Otero Alcántara’s undertaking ought to contact the Cuban Ministry of the Inside, which was contacted for remark.
