CubaPLUS Magazine

The XV Biennial of Havana was inaugurated this Friday in the Cuban capital and in its streets there is already an event that exhibits a wide range of contemporary art created by artists from all continents.

At the opening, held at the Wifredo Lam Cultural Center, organizer of the event that is celebrating its 40th anniversary, its director Nelson Ramírez emphasized that the Biennial has survived all obstacles and is a living organism, in function of elevating the quality of the culture of our America and the Global South.

He emphasized that in this edition, which will run until February 28, creators from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Mongolia, Turkey, Iran, Germany, Austria, Japan, among other countries, are taking part.

Ramírez said the existence of the Havana Biennial is in itself an action of decolonization of the peoples of the South. He pointed out that from the very beginning in 1984, the seed was sown for what would become the subsequent editions of an event that aims to show, validate and promote the aspirations of the nations of the South on a horizontal platform.

This is, he said, an event that has gone through its four decades with many difficulties and is carried out with a capital of love, perseverance and effort from those who organize it and all the participating artists. They give an example of solidarity with the Cuban people and culture, said the director of the event.

On this first day, the collective exhibition "Small Nameless Stories" could be appreciated, a show focused on microhistories and a tribute to Jorge Pineda, a Latin American artist who died in the prime of his career. The drums and rhythms of the National Folklore Ensemble, an emblematic and sixty-year-old cultural institution of Cuba, were also heard.

One hundred 172 Cuban artists and 230 foreigners participate in the edition, 61 percent of them from countries of the so-called Global South. This Saturday, Cuban singer-songwriter Raúl Paz and the French group Les Grandes Bouches will "musically" inaugurate the XV Havana Biennial with a special concert in the amphitheater of Old Havana.

The evening coincides with the celebrations for the 505th anniversary of the founding of the city, and will be a gift from the popular performer to the Biennial, to national culture and to all artists.
(Taken from Prensa Latina)