El 2 de diciembre el artivista cubano Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara cumple años nuevamente en prisión. A pesar de la represión y de las condiciones extremas de su encarcelamiento, el líder del Movimiento San Isidro y preso de conciencia no ha dejado de crear, porque para él crear es una necesidad vital. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara tiene el firme convencimiento de que “El arte nos va a salvar”.
Entrevista exclusiva a Claudia Genlui Hidalgo. Por Nitsy Grau
Entrevista exclusiva a Claudia Genlui Hidalgo. Por Nitsy Grau
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00:00This December 2, Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara will spend his birthday in prison again.
00:09The leader of the San Isidro movement and a prisoner of conscience has not stopped creating in this time,
00:16despite the repression and extreme conditions of his imprisonment, because for him, creating is a vital need.
00:24Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is firmly convinced that art is going to save us.
00:31How would you describe Luis Manuel's creative process in the conditions of repression and adversity in prison?
00:39Luis, one of the things that I always repeat, that he tells me constantly, is precisely that art is what is going to save him, art is what is going to save us.
00:48And I think he clings to that with all his strength, I think it is one of the tools he has to resist,
00:54and with which he has resisted not only since he was imprisoned after July 11, 2021, but throughout his entire career as an artist.
01:01We have seen how, despite the adverse conditions, Luis Manuel continues to create, continues to adapt and continues to bet on art, on free art.
01:10He has not stopped since prison. In fact, when he was arrested on July 11, I was able to see him for the first time in October, a few months later, about four months later.
01:25And when I saw him for the first time, Luis had already produced the entire series of The Clowns.
01:30So you can imagine how important art is for Luis Manuel and how effective it is for him to be able to survive in this context.
01:41This series of The Clowns, that was in 2021, right? What meaning and what repercussions did it have for him and for the Cuban community?
01:50I have always said that the series, for me as a curator and a close person, in the personal of Luis Manuel, the most shocking series, the most difficult to see, has been The Clowns.
02:02It seems to me that it is not only my feeling, but also that of all the people who know Luis, that the same thing happened to him when they saw this series.
02:09Because it is a series that appeals a lot to the self-referential.
02:14It is true that he also draws characters from prison, that he finds in that time journey, that he interacts with them.
02:21But above all, many works are self-referential, and it is a different way of seeing Luis Manuel.
02:27I always say that Luis is characterized by joy, perhaps by the irony of many of his works.
02:33But in The Clowns there is a very strong emotional nudity, which really connects with the most visceral of him, but also of us.
02:42Above all, of the people who also know him.
02:45And I think Luis left a part of himself in what would be the reflection of a great path that he has traveled so far.
02:55Different nuances, of course, the prison has had for him, in the personal, of course.
03:00In the emotional, which has cost him a lot too.
03:03And I think The Clowns was the great beginning of a whole production that was appealing to a more intimate Luis Manuel.
03:11More naked, more vulnerable too, but also stronger.
03:15Because one of the things we have learned with Luis, and between us in activism,
03:20is that as we sometimes take off the layers more, we become stronger.
03:24It is true that it hurts more at the beginning, but in some way it gives us strength.
03:28And I think Luis has understood that well.
03:30And The Clowns is precisely a great demonstration of that.
03:33It is a very, very naked Luis work.
03:36It is the artist Luis Manuel, it is the human being Luis Manuel,
03:39who is seen in a space that had never been that way before, of course.
03:44Totally vulnerable, but also totally at the disposal of a totalitarian regime that he knows he wants to crush.
03:53That he knows he wants to silence him.
03:55But he is not willing to give up the very least of his strength, of his space, of his conviction, of his interest, to give them up.
04:05And I think The Clowns is a bit of a reflection and the beginning of all this that is going to happen later.
04:10With regard to the materials, for example.
04:13How could he create this work inside the prison and how could he get it out later?
04:17We gave him the materials.
04:21I was in Cuba at that time.
04:23With the help of many friends who also collaborated.
04:26It was a difficult time for all of us.
04:29They were the first packages I made him get to prison.
04:32And when I went to see him, as I told you, on October 21, 2021,
04:36it was the last time I could see Luis Manuel, that I visited him in prison.
04:42I always have the image that Luis, when he appeared in front of me, he was all painted.
04:48And he had written messages for me, in his body, to try to do a little more of what he knew he was destroying at that time.
04:59That was to see him in those circumstances.
05:02And when we left, we finished the visit, they gave us permission in an isolated place.
05:07In fact, because they didn't want me to have an exchange with other prisoners.
05:10Just to isolate him from the common mechanisms of prison.
05:15He gave me all these drawings.
05:18I went home and I had the courage to see those drawings, I think, about three days later.
05:24He calls me on the phone and says, have you seen the drawings?
05:27And for me, there was a friend of mine who has been very important to all of us,
05:32his name is Alfredo Rodriguez.
05:34And Alfredo helped me look at those drawings one by one, together with my grandmother.
05:38Because it was very strong.
05:40But hey, I was the one who took them out of prison, he was the one who gave them to me.
05:43It was a large folder.
05:45It is impressive how he had managed to create so many drawings in such a short time.
05:48It is a work that, as I was telling you, he even built it on cigarette boxes
05:53when the materials ran out, because they didn't let the materials pass.
05:56And it is impressive to see how Luis sewed the cigarette boxes,
06:00from Popular, from H.U.M.A., which we had also sent to him, but he did it with other prisoners.
06:06He was building small papers, smaller sheets, larger,
06:12and on them he was painting all his clowns.
06:15An impressive work, really.
06:17I wanted to ask you, Claudia, after all these obstacles of material limitation,
06:23of cigarette boxes, all this, he takes refuge in another form of artistic expression,
06:31in performance.
06:32We have seen how he has taken his ideas through the phone, through conversations with you,
06:38and he has managed to project his work in performance,
06:42like La Sangre Que Se Derrama, like Miss Bienal in Miami, in Madrid, etc.
06:48Tell me about this resource that he has found hold of in the absence of materials
06:54and other forms of expression that are easier.
06:57What Luis Grande does as an artist is his ability to adapt to the context and not stop creating,
07:03because that is a tool that he uses all the time to survive and to be present.
07:08When I did the exhibition in Alcántara in 2022,
07:11I had just arrived in Miami and I exhibited for the first time all these clowns by Luis Manuel to the public.
07:16After that, they did not let Luis draw any other drawing.
07:21And there began a different process for him, of course,
07:25I did this because I no longer had access, I had no way of getting the works to me,
07:30and there was a certain limitation in the things I drew.
07:33And from there we started, Luis has always worked as a team,
07:38that is, Luis always generates a team of work around him that somehow supports him,
07:43that contributes to that work materializing.
07:46And so we took out for the first time, the first work that we took out of Luis,
07:51totally conceptual, without a physical object, was El Tiempo.
07:56That is, he portrayed the carbon, the data of Sproinger, which is this work by Luis Manuel,
08:00in which he sells each of the days he has been in prison as if they were a work of art.
08:06In fact, they are a work of art and he calls it involuntary art gesture,
08:09because it is a gesture that he places himself, in this case a dictatorial regime,
08:15in a situation in which he does not want to be,
08:17but with his own gesture of existence, he turns it into a work of art.
08:21And from there this work comes out, El Tiempo, El Carbon del Dato de Sproinger,
08:24and we realized that in the end everything we were experiencing,
08:30the processes of realization, were a little more crude, but it was possible.
08:34Because if I can assure you something, it is that Luis Manuel cannot stop creating art,
08:37in the conditions that he puts them.
08:39He always says that you put him in a closed room with a match and he is going to create art,
08:45because that is his way of life, that is, the work of art for Luis Manuel is not something he does,
08:50it is his life itself.
08:52And something that has surprised me, I was commenting on it with some friends the other day,
08:55is the capacity that Luis has without social networks, without access to television,
09:00with a super censored medium, the ability he has to connect with a real Cuba.
09:07And an example of this is the work Fe de Vida, which is being released at the Havana Biennial,
09:10the 15th Havana Biennial.
09:12An example of this is the work we did the other day, La sangre que se derrama.
09:15How Luis has that ability not to isolate himself and to be so connected,
09:21much more sometimes than many of us here have access to all the media,
09:26and yet they do not connect in the same way.
09:28And Luis has that, he is so present and that is evident precisely through his work.
09:34And this way of creating, going back to your question,
09:38it has been a whole discovery, it has been something that we have been perfecting
09:43and we will continue to perfect more and more, including new people,
09:48drowning, because Luis's work does not stop,
09:52because I also believe that it is a way for us to continue this fight
09:57and to continue from art, betting on a real change in what we want,
10:06which is a free Cuba.
10:08From prison, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has shown that art can cross walls
10:14and serve as a scream of freedom in the midst of oppression.
10:18His struggle has not ceased, on the contrary,
10:20each stroke, each artistic action has become an act of resistance
10:26that inspires those who dream of a free Cuba.
10:36For more information, visit www.ilo.org