This does not seem like an ambush of the imagination. It is. Lounging on any of the furniture in the living room, or in front of the desk, or on the way to one of the rooms on the upper floor, the guest of the Claxon Hotel Boutique will not know very well where to look. Located at #458 Avenida Paseo, between 19 and 21, El Vedado, the space is currently hosting the visual exhibition Hey, Habana…?!!, curated by Johanna Luque. There are several winks; intense seductions. In this case, the observer’s hesitation cannot be taken as a reproach, but as one of the virtues of the exhibition.
“I wanted to make a small exhibition that offered the visualization of a city in which the desire to dream still throbs,” the young curator tells OnCuba.
A city that, although destroyed by cluster bombs (poverty, the outrage of time and venal bureaucrats), is rebuilt to a lesser extent ― pure real life ― through scaffolding patched with colorful debris that form the word faith and hide the decrepitude of facades. Another city is deconstructed, almost volatile, in planes of transparency until it feels dreamlike and promising, full of modernity and life.
These are contrasts that Johanna wanted to show as testimony that all is not lost, searching for certain evidence of the present or inventing arguments for a minimally optimistic future.
“I was away from Cuba for five months and, despite not being a long time, I came back with a mixture of nostalgia and sadness for my Havana. I saw it more deteriorated; lots, lots of trash everywhere. It was something that shocked my four-year-old son greatly,” she says about her impact.
However, as she became involved in the city and reconnected with friends and loved ones, she realized “that there are still many people who do not want to leave this island, but rather want to bet on its growth and put faith in it.”
Taking advantage of the proximity of the Biennial, in its 16th edition, Johanna devised her own tribute to Havana on its 505th anniversary and “then I felt the desire to do an exhibition” with “artists with whom I have been working for some time, whose works could be connected with my idea.”
And of course, at the risk of a beautiful cliché, the meeting of creators was obliged to contain the presence of the sea. The opposite? An unforgivable nonsense. Havana cannot be explained — past, present and future — without its marine DNA.
Thus, two magnificent seascapes can be contemplated in dialogue: a rickety window wide open to the ocean (ingeniously, the frame of the viewpoint is that of the canvas itself) and a seawall besieged by the foam of the waves. Different palettes. Movement and stillness. Unequal perspectives; one constrained, another panoramic; but always dominated by that liquid reality, limit and counter-limit, possibility of comings and goings, condemnation and salvation of every island, which the poet called “the damned circumstance of water everywhere.”
“Camejo and Yunier, with their paintings that connect with the sea, made me remember the poem La isla en peso,” says Johanna, alluding to Virgilio Piñera’s national desideratum.
“The sculpture signed by The Merger in homage to the Focsa building and the openwork pieces by Daniel Collazo connected me with the architecture of Havana. And William Acosta’s piece in which, in a certain way, he humanizes the city, too,” says the curator.
On the other hand, Rancaño’s light boxes “recall the longing for the life that passes, the memory that remains… and the pieces by Remberto and Adonis are an open song to faith and hope for a better future,” says the expert, who avoided any discrimination due to generational rule.
“I did not want to limit myself to a specific generation, that is why we see works by artists who have great recognition such as Rancaño, Camejo, Adonis…and other younger ones such as Wiliam, Daniel and Yunier.… Each artist has developed his own aesthetic and expressive line, according to their creative interests,” the specialist considers.
As an added value of the exhibition, visitors or guests of the Claxon Boutique Hotel can consult catalogue books of some of the exhibiting artists, including Adonis Flores, William Acosta and The Merger.
In turn, Hey, Habana…?!! has a commercial character. The pieces can be acquired, a unique opportunity for guests and visitors of the Claxon Boutique.
A successful model of high-end private management, Claxon, in the heart of El Vedado, once again certifies its taste for the exquisiteness of contemporary Cuban art. Its own interior design is an ideal chamber for the plastic arts and, despite being a reverence for eclecticism, it provides harmony and reconciliation with the exterior landscape. Or more than that. Peace, because the world, Nervo warns us, is tiring.
