Sharing with young people is always a pleasure, and even more so when they set goals amid the mist. The Guernica 2023 Visual Arts Hall, organized by the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS in Spanish) is not only a competitive exhibition where works by young local creators were exhibited but also a pretext to discuss the plastic arts and the need for contemporary creation as a mirror and light of social processes.
I had the honor of beginning the first day with a lecture that served to understand the stages through which the visual arts have passed in the territory. I spoke about the work of the first exponents in the 1940s, with a legacy of purely decorative pieces that glimpsed the efforts of creators whose talent was not always molded by academies. Then, from 1970 onwards, came the flourishing of all the arts and the founding of various institutions under the protection of the state, dynamiting not only the language of the plastic arts but that of all the manifestations that in some way complemented each other and drew a more complete panorama for a balanced society.
The young people who attended are not only interested in the plastic arts, but also in the motives of art itself, and they know that they are heirs to an artistic movement that was known throughout the island. Moreover, they know that they are responsible today for an artistic discourse that should have a greater impact on the social fabric.
They are the protagonists of this era, since the leading figures of the last decades have emigrated to other cities in the country, abroad, or have simply isolated themselves in their studios. This is evidenced by the weak performance of the institutions created for the promotion, encouragement, and production of artistic projects.
The AHS made its intention clear when it said "Join the Challenge", given a Congress where they will surely come out confident of their social task. In the journey through this history of the visual arts in the territory, the imprint of artistic education stands out, especially the Professional School of Plastic Arts; in its beginnings with a projection towards ceramics and years later to all the manifestations of the visual arts. The vacuum left by the disappearance of this school weighs on the reduced number of professional creators, in contrast to the growth of young people with a talent for photography, design, and interactive art, who do not have access to professional training.
But the AHS management took care of this detail for this edition of Guernica, planning a ceramics workshop with the artist Yamila Coma Vargas, the fruit of this now lost system of education; the collateral exhibition Detrás del lente (Behind the Lens), hosted by the Casa Iberoamericana de la Décima (Iberoamerican Décima House) until next September, with the presence of young creators, members or not of the AHS in Las Tunas, and the cycle of conferences El arte del cazador (The Art of the Hunter), on photographic creation, by the young Argel Ernesto González, a guest from the province of Camagüey.
Young art is being reborn in these parts, from literature, music, theatre, and the plastic arts; and it does so with the union of all languages. The longing to be part of contemporary Cuban culture has a young face.
