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Enigmatic Signs
The history of twentieth century
Cuban art has been dominated by research and criticism of three
phases: modernism (Wifredo Lam, Amelia Peláez and their
contemporaries), the Generation of the 1980s and contemporary
artistic projects. Those interested in developments in Cuban
art are inevitably gratified by such critical attention. Throughout
the twentieth and into the present century Cuban art has played
a central role in the international discourse of aesthetic evolution
in the western hemisphere. In speaking of the formation of modern
Cuban art we must engage both with work produced by artists
living on the island as well as that done abroad. Since the
beginning of the Revolution and the start of several waves of
large-scale emigration to places such as Miami, New York, Madrid
and other sites, the Cuban diaspora inevitably has come to constitute
an important element in the definition of Cuban creativity.
One often thinks of Cuban art
as referential. Concrete symbols or narrative signs recur throughout
its development from the first vanguard generation that emerged
in 1927 to the most recent work of internationally known contemporary
figures. Issues of national identity or references to political
events often lie at the heart of visual expression in Cuba.
Yet abstraction has also played a significant yet much less
well known role. In the early 1950s the art world in Cuba, like
other nations in the Americas and the Caribbean, felt a serious
desire to evolve in directions similar to those paths taken
by artists in Europe and North America. There was, on the part
of some of the more experimental younger painters and sculptors,
an anxiety to become more “international” or “universal”
(to use the terminology often employed at the time). This meant
looking beyond what were judged to be the confines of the national
references in the art of the second generation of “vanguardia”
painters to consider the consequences of the varieties of international
abstraction, from the boldness of the New York School of Abstract
Expressionists to the more subtle applications of non-objectivity
of the Informalists in Paris, Madrid or Barcelona. In 1953 a
group which became known as “Los Once” (“The
Eleven”) held their first show in Havana. Although their
number varied from year to year, the core group of artists (both
painters and sculptors), including Antonio Vidal, Hugo Consuegra,
Tomás Oliva and Guido Llinás, comprised one of
the most vibrant forces of resistance to the traditional visual
vocabulary of forms in Cuban art. The evolution of the group
made for a significant chapter in mid-century art history in
Havana. This development, however, was cut short by the Revolution
and the ultimate departure of some of the artists for places
abroad and the consequent dissolution of the group.
Guido Llinás left in 1963
for Paris, where he has lived ever since. The distance he felt
from Havana (and his home province of Pinar del Río)
served to make his emotional and visual affinities for Cuba
more acute. He continued to produce work in the abstract style
he had developed by the beginning of the 1950s. The post-Cuba
works often have generic titles (“Sign”, “Black
Painting”, “Red Painting”). These paintings they
blend the gestural qualities that relate him to Abstract Expressionism,
with veiled references to Afro-Cuban ritual. Circles, arrows,
the suggestion of an axe or a cross motif make their appearances
in these pictures. None of these references specifically refer
to a particular cult or form of worship. There is no instance
of folkloric or “primitivist” self consciousness.
German art historian Christoph Singler has written eloquently
on Llinás's affinities for Afro-Cuban mythology, yet
all instances of this is redolent of subtlety and a lack of
specificity. There is no nostalgia nor overt longing for a specific
time or place.
The work of Guido Llinás
is discreet in size. Each painting demonstrates an assuredness
and an expertise in the craft and the art of painting. Llinás
continues to evolve in a way that both testifies to his personal
and aesthetic energy and to his assimilation and reinvention
of the symbology of his Cuban heritage.
Edward J. Sullivan
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