Response to the Cuban Institutions Releases

30.12.2014 .
Plataform #YoTambienExijo

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“Political art is the one that is made when it is unfashionable and when it is uncomfortable, legally uncomfortable, civilly uncomfortable, humanely uncomfortable. It affects us. Political art is uncomfortable knowledge,” says Tania Bruguera in her Political Art Statement / 2010. From that radical discomfort and vulnerability is placed “Tatlin’s Whisper # 6″ today, a performance that invites to speak for a minute, but yes, anyone.

As recent press releases from Cuban official institutions claimed (Consejo Nacional de las Artes Plásticas and Presidencia de la Asociación de Artistas Plásticos de la UNEAC), La Plaza de la Revolutción is a symbolic space. Affirming the public nature of the Plaza, “Tatlin’s Whisper # 6” proposes a symbolic collective occupation for only 90 minutes.

If these releases speak of “counterrevolution” “Tatlin’s Whisper # 6” mobilizes the imaginary of other Plazas that have been “revolutionized” since 2011: Tahrir in Cairo, Sol in Madrid, Syntagma in Athens, Liberty Square on Wall Street and its multiple virtual articulations through communication networks.

To those institutional statements denying the artistic status of this performance due to its political connotations and demanding “pure artistic creation”, “Tatlin’s Whisper # 6” answers with a re-appropriation of the political in art.