Sustaining Socialism: The Power of Culture and the Visual Arts in Socialist Cuba
[Thesis]
;supervisor: Pascher, Stephan
Sotheby's Institute of Art - New York: United States -- New York
: 2013
67 Pages
M.A.
Despite Cuba's history of political and economic turmoil artistic enterprise on the island has always been valued very highly. Since the Revolution of 1959 changes in Cuban cultural policy have been sporadic, yet within the fast paced transformations of the revolutionary government, one constant has been the deep association between politics and culture. A study of Cuba's socialist regime exposes a profound link between cultural development and the advance of the revolution. This is evidence that cultural changes and the construction of socialist ideologies have been deeply intertwined in Fidel Castro's revolutionary process, since day one. This thesis will analyze the influential role of artistic production within the Socialist Revolution of Cuba and the continuing importance it holds for this Third World country. It is a study of the increasingly complex role art has played both in cultural politics of Cuba's socialist government and in economic relations of the international market. Finally, it will analyze the ways in which the evolving role of art has led to the creation of a new Cuban art market, and how this globalization process has affected Cuban society and artistic production.