Moreover, the presence of artists and intellectuals from other two continents allowed the Caribbean artists to come into contact with emerging forms linked to their African roots. Thus, Manuel Mendive, with his interdisciplinary work La vida, had great visibility in the event. In addition, Guillermo Trujillo echoed ancestral beliefs, thus advocating the recognition of the cultures of ethnic minorities, something which the event committee wanted to emphasize. On the other hand, island artists showed their social and ideological commitment, while rejecting any dose of socialist realism. We cite, for example, Juan Francisco Elso Padilla and his installation Por América. The biennale invited Hervé Télémaque, Haitian recognized on the international scene, as a tribute to the Caribbean, despite his reluctance to consider his work as “Caribbean.” However, Alberto Bass’s work connected with the work of the Haitian artist, no doubt thanks to the pop codes used in his references to the societies in this part of America. One drawback: the institutions of the Dominican Republic did not respond to the meetings proposed by the museum directors, no doubt because the Modern Art Gallery had not yet developed into a museum. Contrary to Gloria Zea, of the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota (MamBO), and María Elena Herrero, of the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas, this resulted in a strong representation from Venezuela. We would have to wait for the 5th Biennale so Porfirio Herrera, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo –opened in 1976 and appointed as museum in 1992– and responsible for the Caribbean Biennale, gave his support to artists of the island to participate in the Havana Biennale. Although some meetings are repeated during the Biennale (1989), like that of Olivia Miranda, Carlos Zerpa, José Bedia, José Manuel Fors, Flavio Garciandía, Manuel Mendive and Coop, we regret that this is not the case for the Dominican Republic. Only one of its artists is striking: Thimo Pimentel, who had the chance to exhibit his work beside Enrique Grau (Colombia); Patricia Belli and Raúl Quintanilla (Nicaragua); Francisco Cabral (Trinidad and Tobago); Roberto Lizano (Costa Rica); Sandra Ceballos, Roberto Diago, Glexis Novoa, Martha María Pérez, Ciro Quintana and Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal (Cuba). Manuel Espinosa permitted a broader vision of art from Venezuela; the presence of Nicaragua resulted in the discovery of Patricia Belli, while the efforts of Gerardo Mosquera in Africa led him to Arabic calligraphy and wire toys. Insofar
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as this event questioned “Tradition and modernity in the art of the third world,” it related traditions, rites, popular culture, and included expressions associated with artisanal practices linked with conceptual proposals. The involvement of Tony Capellan, Marcos Lora Read, Raúl Recio and Radhamés Mejía at the fourth Biennale of 1991 does not pass unnoticed: they interact with Milton Becerra (Venezuela); María Fernanda Cardoso (Colombia); Helenon, Louis Laouchez (Martinique); Belkis Ayón, Humberto Castro, Kcho and Ibrahim Miranda (Cuba). They attempted to discern the consequences of colonization, just at the moment that the preparations for the celebration of the Fifth Centenary of the discovery of America were underway. Capellán held an installation on racism, adopting a particular point of view, the creativity of blacks, through dancing silhouettes and ritual objects, while Marcos Lora Read presented the work that made him famous and that would be requested after for major exhibitions: Cinco car-rosas para la historia. As for the work of Radhamés Mejía, for its ritual and mysterious aspects, he dialogued with the work of Belkis Ayón and Mendive. The fifth Biennale (1994) proposed a wider theme: “Art, society and reflection.” Divided into sections, thus opening perspectives into artists of the region: “Fragmented spaces;” “Art, power and marginality,” included Ras Akyem, Ras Ishi and Stanley Burnside (Barbados), Robert Cookhorne (Jamaica), Coop (Cuba), Anaida Hernández and Víctor Vázquez (Puerto Rico); “Art and individual in the periphery of postmodernism,” which exhibited Carlos René Aguilera, Los Carpinteros and Abel Barroso (Cuba), Thierry Alet (Guadeloupe), Albert Chong (Jamaica), Elba Damast (Venezuela), Annalee Davis (Barbados). For its part, the Dominicans Oscar Imbert, Martín López, Rhadamés Mejía and Fernando Varela entered “Environments and circumstances,” in the company of Alonso Cuevas, Mariano Hernández, Milton Becerra and Víctor Hugo Irazábal (Venezuela), María Fernanda Cardoso and José Alejandro Restrepo (Colombia), Carlos Garaicoa, Esterio Segura, Coop, Osvaldo Yero, Pedro Álvarez and Eduardo Rubén García (Cuba), Ernest Breleur (Martinique), Alida Martínez (Aruba); Marcos Lora Read and Raúl Recio “crashed” into a particular carrier hub, “The other shore,” which gathered among others Juan Sánchez (United States), Tania Bruguera, Alexis Leyva (Kcho), Sandra Ramos and Manuel Piña (Cuba), Antonio Martorell (Puerto Rico), Yubi Kindongo (Curaçao), and Elvis López (Aruba). It is
worth noting that Raúl Recio is at the origin of this group, after having suggested to Llilian Llanes the theme of Dominican migration “and the different ways his compatriots were using to get to the United States,” recalled the Cuban curator7, who chose to extend the issue to migratory phenomena in the third world. This section, presented at the Castillo del Morro, captured the imagination of all, sublimated by its high level of humanism and the presence of new language codes, something that received special emphasis because some weeks later there was a wave of Cuban rafters toward the United States. The 6th Edition of 1997 again featured women artists from the Dominican Republic Belkis Ramírez and Inés Tolentino; from Aruba, Glenda Heyleger and Osaira Muyale; from Costa Rica, Priscilla Monge; from Jamaica, Petrona Morrison; and from Colombia, Delcy Morelos. The long process of searches carried out by Cuban police is shown, seeking to feature the art of inaccessible or peripheral locations. “The individual and memory,” was the chosen theme, informing the third world intellectuals, who cross-examined an axis which was dormant since 1984: identities, their handling and their standardization by the dominant cultures in the process of globalization. They invited Elvis López (Aruba); David Boxer and Marc Latamie (Martinique); Pepón Osorio and Víctor Vázquez (Puerto Rico); Eduardo Bárcenas and Alex Apostle (Venezuela); Carlos Estevez, José Manuel Fors, Garaicoa, Kcho, Manuel Mendive and René Peña (Cuba). The Dominicans did not have a special representation during the 7th Biennale (2000), which included Alida Martínez and Ciro Abad (Aruba); José Alejandro Restrepo (Colombia); Marisel Jiménez and Manuel Zumbado (Costa Rica); Abel Barroso, Carlos Estevez, Coop and Los Carpinteros (Cuba); Barbara Prézeau (Haiti); Albert Chong (Jamaica); Alex Burke (Martinique); Patricia Belli (Nicaragua); Allora & Calzadilla (Puerto Rico); Christopher Cozier and Peter Minshall (Trinidad and Tobago). It was necessary to wait for the 8th biennale (2003) to verify the presence of Dominicans Raquel Paiewonsky, Jorge Pineda and Darío Oleaga, along with Yasser Musa (Belize); Yvan and Yoan Capote, Liset Castillo and Alain Pino (Cuba); Ernest Breleur (Martinique); Humberto Vélez (Panama). Polibio Díaz (La Isla del Tesoro) and Limber Vilorio were also in the ninth edition (2006), along with Caja 7 Ibid., p. 213.
Lúdica (Guatemala); Roberto Diago and Reynerio Tamayo (Cuba); Abigail Hadeed (Trinidad and Tobago), Jonathan Harker (Panama); North Front Street Project (Santiago Cal, Richard Holder and Yasser Musa) (Belize); Alejandro Ramírez (Costa Rica); and Carlos Rojas (Venezuela). Without pretending to be exhaustive nor to review all the Biennales, we add to that the 10th Edition (2009) that welcomed Dominicans Fausto Ortiz, Elia Alba and Shampoo collective (D’La Mona Plaza); Steve Ouditt (Trinidad and Tobago); Pepón Osorio (Puerto Rico); Annalee Davis (Barbados); Alexander Arrechea, Abel Barroso, Yoan Capote, Glenda León, Douglas Pérez and Reynerio Tamayo (Cuba); Tirzo Martha (Curacao); Regina Galindo (Guatemala); Maxence Denis and Jean Ulrich Desert (Haiti); Adam Valdecillo (Honduras); Alex Burke (Martinique); Marcela Díaz (Mexico); Raúl Quintanilla (Nicaragua); Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker (Panama). Of course, editions remain, and continue to be a meeting point of artists who interest us, from the Dominican Republic and the Greater Caribbean, showing a wide variety of points of view and artistic resolutions on issues that they all share, not only during these events, but also in their daily lives. It is worth noting that those events, focusing on themes, allowed the participating artists to confront their work. So we preferred to cite a large number of names from the Caribbean participants in the Havana Biennale, as the comparison of their works revealed common approaches with the Dominicans. As we have begun to lay out the general lines of the participations in the Havana Biennale, the artists of the Colombian and Mexican Caribbean were forgotten, except Marcela Díaz, in 2009. That was not the case of the Painting Biennale of the Caribbean and Central America in the Dominican Republic, which invited Gilberto Guerrero Sánchez, to cite only one example, in 1994. This last Dominican event extends the 6th Havana Biennale and coincides with the exhibition in Spain of Exclusion, fragmentation and paradise, the insular Caribbean in the Latin American Contemporary Art Museum of Extremadura (June-September), and then in the Casa de America in Madrid (September-November). This is the moment in which visual art from the Caribbean islands –obviously including Dominican artists– truly entered the international scene. The Painting Biennale of the Caribbean and Central America in the Dominican Republic, born in 1992, contributed widely to the projection of island art and some continental swaths
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