CubaPLUS Magazine

The 15th Havana Biennial, taking place from November 15th this year to February 28th, 2025, is particularly celebrating its 40th anniversary in this edition.

Regarding this artistic event, CubaPLUS Magazine spoke with Nelson Ramírez de Arellano, director of the Biennial, which will also have activities in various provinces of Cuba.

Ramírez commented that, in celebration of the 40th anniversary, they decided to organize some commemorative exhibitions, which  will showcase works from collections in Cuba, such as those of the Casa de las Américas and the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center itself, the institution that organizes the Biennial.

“This is the first time a commemorative exhibition will be held showcasing Cuban artists and works that have le" a lasting mark on the memory of this event. In this showcase, organized at the Estación Cultural de Línea in Havana, the public will be able to recognize many of the pieces that have been emblematic of previous editions and enjoy the work of numerous national artists who have grown and transcended thanks to their participation in the Biennial over these four decades,” he emphasized.

“This is an event scattered throughout the city that gives it its name, with diverse projects in public spaces, including the most well-known, Detrás del Muro, on the Havana Malecón, but it also extends to other provinces such as Matanzas, Pinar del Río, and Holguín,” the director of the artistic event specified.

In Matanzas there are two projects, Ríos Intermitentes, organized by Dr. María Magadalena Campos Pons, which is already on its third version, and also Cuerpos Integrados, created by another collective of Matanzas artists.

“In Pinar del Río,” he added, “we have the Farmacia project, which has been with us since the 13th edition, and in the province of Holguín we have others, such as La Oficina, On the significance of reaching the four decades of the Havana Biennial promoting the most creative art in Cuba, its director underlined that this event has had and continues to have a great responsibility, not only towards the public and Cuban artists, but also in the international sphere.

“When it was born in 1984,” he recalled, “it became, by right, the first Latin American art biennial, according to some experts; but it soon transformed into the first action of its kind to o!er from a nonaligned country, located in the Third World, a horizontal platform for the dissemination and study of the visual creations of nations geoculturally located in what we now know as the Global South.”

“This particularity is a great responsibility that I believe we have carried out with great dignity, and proof of this is the relevance that the art of our regions has achieved internationally,” he asserted.

CubaPLUS Magazine also spoke with  Pepe Fernández, one of the curators of the always highly anticipated Detrás del Muro project, which pleasantly takes over public spaces in the Cuban capital.

According to Fernández, it is a sociocultural proposal that emerged in 2012, founded by Juan Delgado Calzadilla as a special project during the 11th Biennial, and since its first presentation it has had a great impact on the community that inhabits the environment of the traditional  Malecón, as well as among niche audiences, due to the variety of artistic proposals.

Now under the title Acera Sur, it presents sculptures, installations, murals, construction projects, performances, video-mapping programming, as well as community work with workshops in artistic creation teaching recycling techniques.

The curator announced that this time, the event will feature the participation of over 50 artists, both Cuban and foreign, from 14 countries: Germany, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Spain, the United States, France, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Puerto Rico, Russia, and Venezuela.

On its 40th birthday, the Havana Biennial, as always, has opened its invitation to the public to delight in and engage with the best of contemporary art exhibited on the island.