April 18, 2006
Sit Down, Don't Be Rockin' Kcho's Boat
Kcho cavorting in the Miramar mansion given to him by castro.
You can play with the leash, but not with the dog.
by Jerome du Bois
Many artists today are just heartless whores who will exhibit anywhere on earth, no matter how horribly the sponsoring government treats its people, as long as they can get their immortal gifts from the muse realized. So they'll go to China, Singapore, Kuwait, Sharjah --and Cuba, where right now 98 artists from 47 countries --and their sycophants and remorae-- are thumbing their noses, shaking their asses, and laughing in the face of continuing unbearable suffering. It's called schadenfreude, I hear. Taking pleasure in another's pain. Dancing on graves and living bones alike, I say.
Carey Lovelace, who is, it says here, "co-president of the U.S. Chapter of the International Association of Art Critics" --there is such a thing? boy, these people get inflated ideas about themselves; must be huge, though, to have to have co-presidents-- he or she has covered the Ninth Havana Bienal, breezily, blithely, cynically, ironically, for artnet.com.
The piece reveals two things: the first is that none of these artists or curators or collectors --Cuban, non-Cuban-- not one-- gives a damn about the thousands of dissidents stuffed into living coffins all over the Island, or the tens of thousands of ghosts of the innocent dead hovering over that despairing and dangerous land.
Hell, they'd buy a bullet-riddled chunk of bloody paredon if someone offered it up for sale, and it was genuine.
Second, some readers of our online novel La Pionera and The New Mango-- which is centered on ISA, the Cuban art scene, and American art tourists-- might be skeptical of our portraits of Cuban artists as privileged cash cows, and the whole setup as just another money trap. Then I read this review and see that we're ringing all the bells --with one crucial difference, which I'll get to below.
But first, allow me a little smile, because the only encouraging note in the review is the turnout:
At a party at Cuban photographer Carlos Garaicoa’s marble-floored, three-story villa in Havana’s Miramar section, a neighborhood once home to high-rollers and casino-owners, some local artists fretted. Standing in a dried-out weedy garden of the sort that seems to surround even the most lavish mansions here, Deborah Bruguera summed it up. "Usually by this time," painter Ibrahim Miranda's wife confided, "the Americans have descended." She was referring to art collectors, not U.S. troops.
On the eve of the Ninth Havana Bienal, things indeed felt disturbingly quiet. . . .
Awwww. Then this:
At a post-opening night party for the 2006 bienal at the mansion of superstar artist Alexis Leyva, a.k.a. Kcho, it became clear that all this fretting had been justified. Tables with vast spreads of food were barely picked at. Guests milled around an empty swimming pool and a cement Art Nouveau nymph holding a platter that in former eras spilled water. American pop music played through a sound system. Gossip had it that the house, a former embassy, had been given as a wedding present to the artist, reportedly a favorite of Castro, who was grateful that he chose not to emigrate. Kcho’s physical bulk seems to wax and wane in proportion to Cuba’s international art status. He was slimmer this year.
Jeebus, the guy's the size of three average Cubans, and he's slimming down? But to me it's good news that attendance was relatively meager, for whatever reasons. I want to see some ribs showing on that cash cow.
Now, about that crucial difference between art and life, which includes a tale --a yarn-- about Kcho and boats, which illustrates how nobody, no matter how connected, kozykool, and complacent, escapes the Island's paranoia.
I just want to wipe that smile off his face, if only fictionally.
In our novel we have two characters named Abel Barroso and Yoan Capote. They have nothing to do with the real artists who possess those names, and any resemblance to them is pure koinkydinky. There's a scene from Part Two --In The Time Of Lisa Zeitgeist-- I'll reproduce here to make my point. The two artists are visiting with American art curator Lisa Zeitgeist in the Golden Tulip Hotel:
Abel: Oh, Lisa . . . We love you, but we're worlds apart. Look --what's this?
Lisa: Your money clip, with your money in it. So?
Abel: It's a silver dollar sign money clip, and it's filled with dollars, mostly. I'm a dollar Cuban; I'm also a euro Cuban and a dinar Cuban--
Yoan: --I got paid in Kruggerands once--
Abel: And I've been paid in Maple Leaves. And He has taken a bite of every one. You think we swim like fish in this society, free as you please. No. In fact, because of the money, because of our "success," we probably have more Eyes and Ears on us than regular Cubans.
Yoan: And The Shadow.
Abel: Yeah. There's this guy, or more than one guy, who sneaks into a lot of artists' studios --New Inventado types, mostly-- and checks things out. Because we've been off the Island, you know. We call him the Shadow. Sometimes he or they makes sure the artist knows somebody was there --rearranging things. Again, it's about control. . . . So yeah, Lisa, we have money. We don't starve. We can provide for our families. We wear the ropa de marca and the bling-bling and we breeze in and out of the hotels with just a nod to Security. We have fairly new, fairly sturdy homes. But He looms over it all, remember. We never forget Him --even we, insulated with our satellite dishes, are not allowed to-- and we never forget that He could take it away in a heartbeat, with one sip of his tea. It may look like we're free and easy, but --"You can play with the leash--"
Yoan: "--but not with the dog." The way we're talking I'm expecting the Roaches at the door any minute.
Abel: Especially when you call them Roaches. Settle down, Yoan. Haven't you been listening? More collectors than ever before, Lisa said. I think He will want the whole Lecture Series to go as smoothly as possible.
Lisa: Yes! Finally, an encouraging word! I'll drink to that!
Yoan (sotto voce): You're right, Abel. Fidel always follows the money.
Abel: And we're his obedient children.
End of scene. The difference is that our fictional artists still chafe just a little at their collars. (In fact, in our novel, almost everyone --from greedy art collectors to spies to cowardly professors and sold-out artists-- in fact, all but one character, who is sucked up into Hurricane Lazaro-- is redeemed. It's a novel of hope.)
But Kcho --mierda, there's no need for a Shadow on him; he meets fidel's bagman at the door, I'll bet you, first of the month, with the green plastic briefcase of greenbacks. He loves his long long leash.
Now, the best way to make my point vivid is to spin a little tale and put Kcho in a pickle, see how he acts.
One day there's a knock at the mahogany front door and his Chinese Cuban housekeeper comes out to the sun porch and tells him it's an old friend. Let's call him Guillermo Herrera, in honor of these two men.
Kcho recognizes the name and frowns --a childhood friend, hasn't seen him for years, he left all those hicks behind, mierda he probably wants money, he doesn't want to see him, but he kind of owes the guy, so he says let him in, and bring us a couple of mojitos.
He goes back to watching the fountain plashing pleasantly. Then the scuff of sandals. Kcho turns around in his wicker chair without rising. Walking carefully toward him came a tall guy --brown t-shirt and khaki pants-- so skinny he'd be in danger if he stood next to a broom. Kcho finally rises and gives him a soft handshake. It's like shaking a bundle of sticks. He tells Guillermo to pull up a wicker chair opposite him.
"Long time--" Kcho begins, then waits while the Chinese housekeeper sets the mojitos down on a silver tray on the rim of the fountain. They toast. He notices Guillermo almost swoons as he drinks.
"Man, that's good. Thanks."
"So, where you been?"
"Around. Different things. . . I like this fountain; it's loud, but still soothing." Hitching his chair closer. "I was looking at some of your boat sculptures in your big front room while I was waiting."
"Uh, huh . . . Yeah, it's kind of like a mini-gallery-- you know, for overflow. So . . ."
Watching as the guy hitches his chair even closer. "As a matter of fact, it was boats I wanted to talk to you about." Reaches out a skinny hand and rests it just on the surface of the gently dancing waters in the well of the fountain. Looks up pointedly and tilts his narrow head like a parrot.
Boing! Boing! Peligroso, Alexis, peligroso! as alarms bells go off in Kcho's head. But he's a veteran political player, so he hides his shock by looking over at the hand in the water, now bobbing gently up and down. He runs through the permutations quickly and reaches the obvious conclusion: no matter the guy's game, no way will Kcho help him. That's just bottom line. He's in the pipe, five by five, life couldn't be sweeter, he's Kcho the Kavorter. No way that's going to go derrumbe. Nobody's going to rock his boat. Now, his only advantage is going to be in information, so it's just a matter of narrowing down exactly how Guillermo wants Kcho help him escape from the Island.
He takes another sip of mojito, then says, "Well, as you saw, I don't make real boats. They're artworks. Nobody could --I mean--"
Guillermo smiles. "We --I mean I . . . I know. It's not about those boats." Grins wider. "I'm not a collector's representative," he says wryly.
We? Great. "Okay." Kcho dips a finger in the fountain, then out, and draws a wet dollar sign on the terracotta rim. Lifts an eyebrow.
Guillermo pours water over it, shaking his head.
Kcho leans back and lifts his arms in a half shrug, like what the hell else have I got?
Guillermo leans in to about six inches from Kcho's big head, like a pencil facing up to a bowling ball. "Fifty-five gallon drums," he whispers flatly.
The chair arms almost crack apart as Kcho shoots to his feet. He steps forward and looms over the skinny man. Harsh whisper: "Why are you doing this to me, man? There's no way I can help you. You have to go now." And he points a fat finger thataway.
Without a word, Guillermo hustles out. Kcho, agitated, calls for another mojito, and sinks slowly back down into his chair. He begins to run the permutations again. There are only a few, but every one is a double-edged sword.
First, he did right. Boom, got rid of the guy. "I can't help you." But now what? Turn him in? You're tight with a lot of CDRs. Okay, good Revolutionary citizen. But then what if the CDRs --and others, like MININT-- ask themselves why someone would risk approaching me? Did they detect some sympathetic streak in me? It was risky; I'm well-known as one of His friends. They might start looking at me, and my friends, and my clients, and my money. They'd be sure to find something, since every Cuban broke some law all the time.
So.
But if I don't turn him in, and he's a plant, bait, a honey trap, then MININT can come up and put the squeeze on me for not being a Revolutionary citizen. They wouldn't even have to take me anywhere. They'd just sink the hook in deep, make sure the message was clear --we can grab you any day-- and slink out the door.
Mierda.
And if the guy really is genuine, and I turn him in, I turn in probably a dozen other people, too. Well. They shouldn't be doing what they're doing. Still . . .
Mierda. Leaning forward, big knotted forehead in both hands, kneading the notions around, rocking in his chair, hunched over anxiously, rocking in the creaking chair. Okay, he thinks. Let's go over it again . . . If the guy--
Yeah. That's a much better picture to fade out with than the one at the start of this post. Haw.
[Interested readers might want to check out, besides the novel, our earlier pieces on Cuban art.
Posted by Jerome at April 18, 2006 01:20 PM | TrackBack