Trawick Prize Winners!

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, a juried art competition produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, announced the 2021 prize winners during tonight’s awards reception. Video artist Cecilia Kim of Richmond, VA was awarded the prestigious “Best in Show” title and received the $10,000 top prize. Abigail Lucien from Baltimore, MD was named second place and given $2,000; Sobia Ahmad from Silver Spring, MD was bestowed third place and received $1,000; and Monsieur Zohore from Potomac, MD was awarded the Young Artist Award and received $1,000.

Cecilia Kim, a Korean video artist, has traveled extensively and called several different countries home, including Australia, England, Singapore and the United States. Kim’s work has been shown both nationally and internationally in solo and group shows including The Immigrant Artist Biennale (virtual), 0 GALLERY (Seoul, Korea), Openarts Space MERGE (Busan, Korea), W36 Art Space (Nanjing, China), Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA) and Hume Gallery (Chicago, IL). Her short films have been selected at film festivals and screenings including the NoFlash Video Show, The Anderson Gallery, Around International Film Festival Amsterdam and Student Experimental Film Festival Binghamton. She was awarded a scholarship at Oxbow School of Art and Artists’ Residency and was a resident artist at the Busan International OpenArts Residence. Kim is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she was a UWC-Davis scholar.  

2021 Trawick Prize Finalists

Sobia Ahmad, Silver Spring, MD

Stephanie Garmey, Baltimore, MD

Cecilia Kim, Richmond, VA

Abigail Lucien, Baltimore, MD
Mojdeh Rezaeipour, Washington, D.C.

John Ruppert, Towson, MD

Ernest Shaw, Baltimore, MD

Monsieur Zohore, Potomac, MD

 

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, established by Carol Trawick in 2003, is one of the first regional competitions and largest prizes to annually honor visual artists. A longtime community activist in downtown Bethesda, Ms. Trawick has served as the Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, Bethesda Urban Partnership, Strathmore and the Maryland State Arts Council. The Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation was established in 2007 after the Trawicks sold their successful information technology company. A former teacher and entrepreneur, Ms. Trawick remains engaged in a range of philanthropic causes through the Foundation, which was established to assist health and human services and arts non-profits in Montgomery County

 

The work of the finalists will be on exhibit at Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, until October 3. Gallery hours for the duration of the exhibit will be Thursday-Saturday, 12 – 5pm and Sunday, 11am – 4pm.

 

Entries were juried by Mark Cooley, Director of New Media Arts & Associate Professor, George Mason University; Oletha DeVane, Director, Tuttle Gallery at McDonogh School and 2019 Trawick Prize Winner; and Betsy Johnson, Assistant Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Scam Alert!

 Beware of this mutant attempting to rip off artists:

Beltrami, Kevin -- Kevin.Beltrami@gts-bellevue.de

Mon 9/6/2021 11:24 AM

Top of the Morning to you,

I actually observed my wife has been viewing your website on my laptop and i guess she likes some of your art piece, I must also say you are doing a great job. I would like to know what inspired that work. I am very much interested in the purchase to surprise my wife.

Regards

Captain Kenneth

kennethmx007@gmail.com

Outdoor Art Show this weekend!

The Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival will take place on September 10 – 12, 2021 showcasing more than 200 artists annually working in the fields of fine art and craft.

 The Festival has become one of the region’s most anticipated events, attracting approximately 30,000 people to the unique, outdoor environment of Reston Town Center located in Reston, VA. 

Comprised of one-on-one experiences, performances, and special events that engage visitors with compelling artistic voices, the event leaves an exciting, thoughtful mark in the region.

Check out the artists here and details on where and times here. Plenty of free parking and loads of food choices!

Come say hi! I'll be in booth 409!

Elizabeth Neel

 Elizabeth Neel was eight years old when she got her first set of oil paints, a Winsor & Newton paintbox, as a gift from her grandmother, the late, great portraitist Alice Neel.

Neel’s earliest painting experiences were with Alice, working side by side. But there was never any pressure to follow in her footsteps.

“I liked to draw a lot and she wanted to encourage that, because she thought I was good and she had a connection with me. We had a lot of fun together,” Neel told Artnet News. “She was a great grandmother, even though she never allowed anyone to call her that. She was always Alice to us.”

Read the artnet article here. 

$500,000 for a painting by Hunter Biden

 Who parts with that much cash for the work of a new, not exactly critically acclaimed, painter? We may never know. Hunter’s new career raises obvious ethical issues for his father and, in an attempt to avoid accusations of influence peddling, the Biden administration has asked the gallerist to keep all information about the buyers and prices of Hunter’s work confidential. The gallery has also agreed to reject offers that seem suspiciously generous.

Even without those safeguards in place, I highly doubt Biden’s policies would be affected by sales of his son’s terrible paintings. (The New York Times generously described them as “leaning towards the surreal”, which is a polite way of saying: “Looks a bit like a Covid-stricken Mr Blobby vomited on a canvas.”)

Read the article by Arwa Mahdawi here.

Wanna go to an art fair?

I'm joneysing to do an art fair! Indoor or Outdoors! So gonna do both next month!

My work will be showcased at the Art on Paper fair in New York City - together with the spectacularly talented Judith Peck, Sheila Giolitti, and Matthew Langley! If you wanna score some VIP passes to the fair, drop me an email. September 9-12 - details here.

I'm also gonna do the 2021 Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival - September 10–12. Now in its 30th year, the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival highlights more than 200 artists who are "creating unique, handmade works in the fields of fine art and fine craft. In the competitive artist application process, each submission is reviewed by a juror panel, made up of visual arts leaders, artists, and practitioners, who select top ranked artists across ten categories to present their work at the Festival.

Drawing upon a robust exhibitor and collector base coupled with Tephra ICA’s contemporary art foundation, the Festival has become one of the region’s most anticipated events taking place in the outdoor environment of Reston Town Center. Save the date and join us this year for one-on-one experiences, performances, and exciting special events.

Hours

September 10–12, 2021

10am–5pm, rain or shine

Reston Town Center in Reston, VA.

Safety precautions will be implemented this year including but not limited to, hand sanitation stations, vaccination requirements for Festival volunteers, and encouragement of social distancing and face mask-wearing in artist booths. 

Check out the 2021 roster of Festival artists here.

Always

Always do whatever's next.

George Carlin

On driving

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

   -- George Carlin

Great deal at auction!

These four prints of mine are on a GREAT sale price on Ebay - no idea who is selling them and how they got them! Two of them are from the 1980s, one from 1990s and the Obama one from 2007 from a series that I did on new Senators.

Bid for it here.

On wit

You have a ready wit. Tell me when it's ready.

 - Henny Youngman

Isla Roja Bajo Rejas en un Mar Verde Olivo

"Isla Roja Bajo Rejas en un Mar Verde Olivo" (Red Island Behind Bars in an Olive Green Sea), c. 1980, oil on canvas with wood dowels... poor Cuba... while the world world, and the Pope, and the United Nations... all look the other way.

"Isla Roja Bajo Rejas en un Mar Verde Olivo" (Red Island Behind Bars in an Olive Green Sea)
c. 1980, oil on canvas with wood dowels by F. Lennox Campello

Cuba - Prision Island at auction

This 1980 work is being offered at auction on behalf of the original buyer, who acquired it from me in 1980 at the Pike Place Market in Seattle while I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art.

"Isla Encarcelada - Isla Golpeada y Prisionera" (Jailed Island - Beaten and Captive Island) is an original hand-colored monoprint mixed media on paper from my "Cuba" series, which I started in the 1970s and which continues to this day.

"Isla Encarcelada - Isla Golpeada y Prisionera" (Jailed Island - Beaten and Captive Island)
1980 F. Lennox Campello

It is being offered at auction here.

This weekend

 

Remembering Washington DC Sculptor, Nancy Frankel

 From Margery Goldberg...

Nancy Frankel (1929-2021)

Mother, Grandmother, artist, sculptor, teacher, friend, mentor, and extraordinary person who never said a unkind word about anyone.

It was my pleasure meeting Nancy at the Katzen Center opening of her exhibition, Nancy at Ninety, a retrospective of seven decades of work as Nancy celebrated her ninetieth birthday in 2019. Later that year Zenith Gallery held an exhibition at 1111 Pennsylvania Ave NW called Organic, showing Nancy's sculpture with another Zenith Gallery artist, Anne Marchand. Nancy was a complete delight to work with and had so many of her friends and admirers come to her opening.

In 2020 we sold her largest sculpture called “The Conversation” to the University of Durham in Durham England. 

I am so thrilled by the outpouring of love and support from around the country for Nancy. She will be sincerely missed by everyone who knew her.

We are blessed that her art will live on for centuries if not millenniums. 

Nancy said of her work, "I use organic geometry to give form to my love of nature and architecture. My work as been one long meditation, an effort to get past the surface aspects of reality to find deeper meaning.

Over the years I have worked with a variety of materials, according to the needs of my particular focus at the time. In turn, these different materials have their own demands, often causing me to think and work in new ways.

My sculptures come in many sizes for both interior and exterior environments.

Whether large or small, dynamic or serene, an explosion of forms, or a gentle curve answering another within a single piece, I hope my work communicates a sense of joy and wonder."

The PAINTER Act

Earlier this month, the White House reportedly reached an agreement with Hunter Biden’s art dealer stipulating that all information related to the sale of the First Son’s artwork—including prices and the names of buyers—would be kept confidential. 

It was said that the agreement would prevent bad actors from buying works of art as a way to curry favor with the president. But the move quickly proved to be controversial, with skeptics fearing that the lack of transparency could actually encourage lobbyists, foreign officials, and others to clandestinely exert influence. (The day after news of the agreement broke, a conspiracy theorist vandalized Biden’s gallery.)

Now, a Republican member of the House of Representatives is aiming to do away with the secrecy surrounding Hunter Biden’s burgeoning art career for good. Florida Congressman Mike Waltz introduced a new bill today that would require current and future presidents (and vice presidents) to disclose their adult children’s finances. Its not-so-subtle name is the Preventing Anonymous Income by Necessitating Transparency of Executive Relatives—or PAINTER—Act. 

Read the article in artnet here. 

Re-review

 I love to re-review shows and see if I agree or disagree with their choices.  Art is a very subjective thing and artists must all have thick skins.

Read what I mean here. 

In comic tsrips

 In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first.

  -- George Carlin

He will not be forgotten!

 

This hero is Juan Elias Navarro Vaillant from Santiago de Cuba. He was arrested on July 11th during the historic Cuban uprising against their Communist dictators and is currently on a hunger strike against his Marxist oppressors. This hero will not be forgotten!

She will not be forgotten!

 

Dailén Ramírez Quintana from Santiago de Cuba was arrested during the historic Cuban uprising. She will not be forgotten!

Isla Llorona

This painting was done in 1978 while I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art (1977-1981). On this piece, painted are the words:

"La mar, testigo de mi ansiedad, las veces que me ha visto llorar, cuando otro hijo se me va."

The words in Spanish translate to:

"The sea, witness to my anxiety, the times that it has seen me cry when another son leaves me".

She will not be forgotten!

Daimelin Abreu Rodríguez from Matanzas was arrested during the
historic Cuban uprising. She will not be forgotten!

Mujertrees from 1979

A nice lady from Washington state sent me these photos of a "Mujertrees" print that she bought out there at an auction - a lesson here for conservation framing! Lack thereof! 

I most likely sold this work at the Pike Place Market in Seattle between 1977-1981 - since this is a 1979 print... most likely a "market" print.

She will not be forgotten!

Melissa Castellano has been arrested during the historic Cuban uprising against their Marxist dictators and her family has not been able to see her since. She will not be forgotten!

#SOSCuba #11J

 

She will not be forgotten!

 

Deysi Del Cueto from Havana was arrested during the historic Cuban uprising. She will not be forgotten!

She will not be forgotten!

 

Katherine Martín from Regla was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising together with her sister Mariam and their mother Mayra Taquechel. They are all still in prison and they will not be forgotten!

She will not be forgotten!

Lázara Hernández from Havana was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising on July 11th and is still behind bars and her family has not been allowed to communicate with her. She will not be forgotten!

Prizewinners for the Phillips' Invitational Show

About 1,300 works of art were submitted for review for the ongoing Phillips Collection invitational show Inside Outside, Upside Down, and about seventy works were chosen by the jurors, Elsa Smithgall (Senior Curator, The Phillips Collection), Renée Stout (DC artist and guest curator of the exhibition), Phil Hutinet (publisher of the local news source East City Art), and Abigail McEwan (Associate Professor of Latin American Art at the University of Maryland). I am proud and honored to have been one of the chosen artists – thank you to the jurors.

The jurors awarded the First Prize to Dominick Rabrun’s work titled Dr. LaSalle, The Spider Queen, and Me, a 2021 digital mixed-media video installation. The Second Prize went to Kristina Penhoet’s installation fiber piece titled How Many More? and Honorable Mentions went to Desmond Beach’s fabric and paper work titled #SayTheirNames 2, to Marta Pérez García’s Your Hand, a molded cotton handmade paper and stitching work with yarn, and to Richard L. Williams’ touching photograph titled Claudette, Roman and Rashard – February 2021.

Constant readers know something about me and jurors -- I love to re-review shows and see if I agree or disagree with their choices. Art is a very subjective thing and artists must all have thick skins.

My choice for Best in Show – not just First Prize – would have been Werllayne Nunes’ gigantic oil on panel painting titled Us. The work vibrates with happiness and power and reaches deep into every child’s memories as well as delivering a powerful social message.

Werllayne Nunes, US,
2021, Oil on linen panel, 30 × 60 × 2 1/2 in

Judith Peck is one of the DMV’s painting superstars – her technical skills are almost supernatural and her breath-taking ability to infuse her work with psychological power legendary. Her painting titled State Collapse, depicting a young woman in bed, is able to transmit fear, anxiety, and angst and summarize 2020 in one gorgeous work of art. She gets my First Prize award.

Second Prize goes to Carol Antezana’s sensitive portrait photograph titled Las Gringas. She writes about this work:

“Las Gringas is a photographic self-portrait analyzing the balance between being both Bolivian and a first-generation American amid political turmoil and uprisings in both countries. Disagreements about politics have been a specter for many families and the differences are ones of morality, core values, and character, creating tension and division. I was always taunted by my family for being “una gringa” because I cannot speak Spanish perfectly, yet there was no importance in keeping our Indigenous language, Quechua, alive. As a child of immigrant parents, the act of balancing, adopting, and assimilating cultures can be daunting; there are deeply rooted racial double standards in both countries. Through redefining my identity, I am striving to decolonize my mind—my attempt at breaking the intergenerational trauma in my family.”

Carol Antezana - Las Gringas

Honorable Mention goes to Cathy Abramson’s oil painting titled Waiting for Takeout (to go), another cool work which captured the Covidian Age perfectly! 

Cathy Abramson - Waiting for Takeout (to go)

I also like Aaron Maier-Carretero’s somewhat disturbing enormous painting titled not in front of the kids. The palpable, hidden violence is terrifying in the work.

Aaron Maier-Carretero - not in front of the kids

Congrats to all the prizewinners! And to my prizewinners!

The Phillips Collection and the DMV

As most artists in the DMV know by now, the Phillips Collection’s call for area artists to submit artwork for Inside Outside, Upside Down, a juried invitational show (currently on view through September 12), where the museum invited artists of the Greater Washington area to submit recent artwork that “addresses the unprecedented events of the past year” was and is the talk of the visual arts community for the last few weeks.

The call was part of the museum’s 100th anniversary celebration, and according to the Phillips' news release continues “founder Duncan Phillips‘s commitment to present, acquire, and promote the work of local artists.”

About 1,300 works of art ranging from paintings, to sculptures, videos, drawings, etc. were submitted for review, and about seventy works were chosen by the jurors, Elsa Smithgall (Senior Curator, The Phillips Collection), Renée Stout (DC artist and guest curator of the exhibition), Phil Hutinet (publisher of the local news art source East City Art), and Abigail McEwan (Associate Professor of Latin American Art at the University of Maryland). 

I am proud and honored to have been one of the chosen artists – Muchas thank yous to the jurors!

Several of the DMV area blue chip artists were selected, including megablue chip artists like Tim Tate, Michael Janis, Kate Kretz, Judith Peck, and others – all with immense artistic pedigree, huge exhibition histories and a proven and deep international presence.

A lot of new artists – at least new to me – were also chosen, which is always a great sign of a well-curated exhibition; kudos to the jurors for the internal mental amplitude to select work based on visual impression rather than recognizing a name or presence.

What caught my eye - other than the many great works in the show, was this:

“After an extraordinarily difficult year that has shaken the world, we feel it is important to join with our entire region to celebrate human resiliency, and especially the strength of artists and the arts,” said Vradenburg Director and CEO Dorothy Kosinski. “Duncan Phillips hosted this type of exhibition annually from 1935 to 1950, and we are proud to continue this tradition to support our talented community.”

Shall I repeat that?

“Duncan Phillips hosted this type of exhibition annually from 1935 to 1950, and we are proud to continue this tradition to support our talented community.”

Wait... whaaaat? 

Why did the Phillips stop? OK - I don't care --- what I do care about and what I hope the Phillips will do, is to re-start that initiative so that  Inside Outside, Upside Down, is not a 2021 anomaly, but the first of annual local area shows like Duncan Phillips organized for 15 years!

The ball is on your court Phillips!

The showcased artists below - and see the digital catalog of the show here.

Cathy Abramson

Simone Agoussoye

Maremi Andreozzi

Carol Antezana

Desmond Beach

Julia Bloom

Michael Booker

Kimberly Brammer

Nikki Brugnoli

Florencio Campello a.k.a. Lenny

Carlos Carmonamedina

Sandra Chen Weinstein

Peter Cizmadia

Wesley Clark

Dominick Cocozza

Robin Croft

Sora DeVore

Sarah Dolan

Mike Dowley

Nekisha Durrett

Tae Edell

Bria Edwards

Kate Fleming

Chawky Frenn

Amelia Hankin

Michael Hantman

Leslie Holt

Michael Janis

Jane Kell

Jean Jinho Kim

Katherine Knight

Ara Koh

Kokayi 

Gary Kret

Kate Kretz

Catherine Levinson

Kirsty Little

Kim Llerena

Aaron Maier-Carretero

Timothy Makepeace

David Mordini

Barbara Muth

Werllayne Nunes  

Zsudayka Nzinga

Jennifer O’Connell

John Pan

Judith Peck

Shedrick Pelt

Kristina Penhoet

Marta Pérez García

Lydia Peters

Junko Pinkowski

Dominick Rabrun

Mojdeh Rezaeipour

Marie Ringwald

Janathel Shaw

Joseph Shetler

Nicolas F. Shi

Tim Tate

Julio Valdez

Jessica Valoris

Ian White

Richard L. Williams Jr. 

Colin Winterbottom

Educating Nikole Hannah-Jones

New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the leader of that paper's controversial 1619 Project recently showed a spectacular lack of background knowledge on the Cuban dictatorship's well-documented racist history and abuses of its black population by her statement that “If you want to see the most equal, multiracial democ … it’s not a democracy — the most equal, multiracial country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba,” and then proceeding to cite socialism as her reason to make the statement.

Ms. Hannah-Jones' rosy-eyed view of the Marxist dictatorship's oppression of its citizens, especially its black citizens not only reveal loads about her own political leanings, but also serves as a brilliant example of suspicious lack of research skills about a subject as widely discussed as Cuba's oppressive and racist government.

Had Ms. Hannah-Jones - who visited Cuba in 2008 - bothered to look past her clear admiration for the Marxist government, and bothered to take a quick tour of the facts, she would have discovered that much has been written and documented about racism in Cuba, and it was even one of the earliest subjects addressed by the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson upon his arrival to the DMV a few decades ago from his various Latin American postings.

In his article a couple of decades ago, Cuba Begins to Answer Its Race Question, Robinson, also clearly and openly a very extreme left-wing oriented writer, tried hard to find excuses for the dictatorship, but nonetheless admits that:

Academics say that black Cubans are failing to earn university degrees in proportion to their numbers--a situation to which Castro has alluded publicly. The upper echelons of the government remain disproportionately white, despite the emergence of several rising black stars. And while perceptions are difficult to quantify, much less prove true or false, many black Cubans are convinced that they are much less likely than whites to land good jobs--and much more likely to be hassled by police on the street, like Cano's husband, in a Cuban version of "racial profiling."

But how about some Cubans inside Cuba discussing the subject?

In primary [Cuban] education, skin color is not mentioned," ... If we are still living in a society where white people have the power, and we don't mention color in education, we are in practice educating [Cuban] children to be white.

Cuban history as we teach it is a disgrace, because it is predominantly white history, and explaining the role of black people and mulattoes in building this society and its culture is not given its due importance.

Esteban Morales
University of Havana
Centre for the Study of the Hemisphere and the United States

A lot of hopes have been pinned by many people (who know little about Cuba and the repressive nature of its government) on President Obama's monumental decision to re-establish diplomatic relations with the unfortunate Caribbean island prison of Cuba; but first another Cuban quote:

...to carry on "hiding" the issue [of racism in Cuba] would lead black people to think that "they belong to another country, and that there are two Cuba’s as there were in the 19th century, a black Cuba and a white one."

Roberto Zurbano
Director
Casa de las Américas publishing house
Havana

And thus, it is curious to me that in his attempt to re-establish diplomatic ties, our socially conscious President (and his cadre of advisors) back then also - like Ms. Hannah-Jones - appeared to know little or nothing about the way that Afro-Cuban citizens are treated in their own country.

In reference to the President's visit to Cuba, Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, an associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean literatures and cultures at the University of Connecticut and a scholar at Harvard University, and writing in Ms. Hannah-Jones own newspaper, noted in the New York Times that  

“The images of the meetings, the agreements, they’re all shameful for many black Cubans — I’m including myself in this — because it’s difficult to feel represented.”

Was the projected flow of American tourists expected to help black Cubans in a pre-COVID Cuba? Roberto Zurbano, a Cuban expert in Afro-Cuban identity, race and literature based out of Havana wrote in his 2013 New York Times article that:

Most remittances from abroad — mainly the Miami area, the nerve center of the mostly white exile community — go to white Cubans. They tend to live in more upscale houses, which can easily be converted into restaurants or bed-and-breakfasts — the most common kind of private business in Cuba. Black Cubans have less property and money, and also have to contend with pervasive racism. Not long ago it was common for hotel managers, for example, to hire only white staff members, so as not to offend the supposed sensibilities of their European clientele.

Zurbano was subsequently punished by his Marxist government for daring to express that opinion on the pages of Ms. Hannah-Jones employing newspaper. Because that's how Communists roll!

That "not long ago" is still the case, as anyone who has been to Cuba recently can testify to and which Ms. Hannah-Jones could clearly see during her 2008 visit to the island - it is very rare to see a black face in any of Havana's "tourist only" hotels and nearby beaches. Discussing those lucrative jobs, Yusimí Rodríguez López, an Afro-Cuban independent journalist, said in a 2016 New York Times article that there were job listings in Revolico — sometimes called Cuba’s underground Craigslist — “where they say they only want whites.”

In the same NYT article we read:

“They talk a lot here about discrimination against blacks in the United States. What about here?” said Manuel Valier Figueroa, 50, an actor, who was in the park on Monday. “If there’s a dance competition, they’re going to choose the woman who is fair-skinned with light, good hair. If there’s a tourism job, the same.”

He added: “Why are there no blacks managing hotels? You don’t see any blacks working as chefs in hotels, but you see them as janitors and porters. They get the inferior jobs.”

One would hope that Ms. Hannah-Jones' exploration of Cuba, a nation with one of the world's worst human rights records, where Amnesty International has been denied access to (except to that bit of Cuba where the Guantanamo Naval Base is located); a nation where gay people were once given lobotomies to "cure" them; and where HIV+ Cubans were detained and segregated in guarded colonies away from the general public, could at least have educated her on the disturbing status of blacks in their own island nation.

Fact: Twice as many African slaves were brought to Cuba than to the United States... twice!

And what really bugs me, in my own pedantic hell, is how often historically and socially clueless American academics, journalists, activists, etc. make spectacularly ignorant statements - as Ms. Hannah-Jones did - about the government of one of the world's most racist dictatorships (a government which talks a talk of equality while walking a walk of institutionalized racism against its own black population) without even mentioning the issue of racism... or is Ms. Hannah-Jones' case praising the socialist dictatorship!

Ms. Hannah-Jones should learn about the Cuban version of the 1619 Project, which in Cuba's case would have been called the 1511 Project, as that was when Spanish Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar set out from Hispaniola to establish the first Spanish settlement in Cuba, and brought the first African slaves to the island.

Since then and to its present day, Cuba has a long and agonizing history of racial issues, starting with its long bloody history of slavery, which didn't end on the island until 1886, and continuing through its freedom from Spain, birth of the Republic, and the triumph of the Castro Revolution in 1959. It continues to this day.

Cuba even had its own race war.

General Antonio Maceo, known as "the Bronze Titan." He was the true warrior leader of the Cuban Wars of Liberation. His father was white of French ancestry; his mother was black, of Dominican ancestry. After the first Cuban Liberation War ended in a truce with Spain, some say that Maceo was so disillusioned with the realities of life in Cuba as a black man, that he left Cuba and lived in Panama, until he was called back to lead the Cuban rebels in a new rebellion in 1895. He returned to Cuba and was killed in battle against the Spanish Army in 1896.

In 1912, Black Cubans in Oriente province had enough of the new Cuban government's racist practices and the degrading treatment of Cuban black veterans, who had been the bulk of the Cuban rebels in the wars of independence against Spain. The Cuban government moved on a path of genocide and eventually the United States had to send in troops to end the war between the white Cuban government and the black rebels in Oriente.

As I recall from the CIA Factbook of 1959, on that year the island was about 70% white, about 20% black and mixed, and the rest Chinese, Jewish and other. The Cuban Diaspora which started a few months after the Castro takeover and continues to this day, with the exception of the Mariel boat lift of the 1980s, saw a mass exodus of mostly white Cubans, and as a result the island's racial balance shifted dramatically and although 65% of Cubans self-identify as white in recent censuses, many experts estimate that today the island is actually about 60% black or biracial.

But Cuba's black population has not seen a proportionate share of the power and a quick review of the governing Politburo/Parliament reveals few black faces in the crowd. 

In fact, "the Cuban cultural journal Temas published studies by the governmental Anthropology Centre in 2006 that showed that on average, the black population has worse housing, receives less money in remittances from abroad and has less access to jobs in emerging economic sectors like tourism, in which blacks represent barely five percent of managers and professionals, than the white population."

"I think silence is worse. The longer nothing is said, the more the racism fermenting underground is rotting the entire nation..."

Gerardo Alfonso
singer/songwriter
Havana

While the Cuban constitution of the 1940s (since then abolished by the Communist government) outlawed segregation and racism on paper, and the current Cuban Constitution guarantees black Cubans the right to stay in any hotel and be served at any public establishment, as it has been documented by many foreign journalists, black Cubans will tell you in private that those rights exist only on paper. They would have told Ms. Hannah-Jones during her visit to Cuba in 2008 - but she probably didn't notice that nearly everywhere that she visited, the presence of the Cuban government was not far, and people fear that presence.

The harsh Cuban reality today, Black Cubans will tell you, is that "black Cubans won't be served" and that Cubans, regardless of race are in general barred from places frequented by tourists.

Unfortunately, these things [disparities in the treatment of blacks and whites] are very common in Cuba.

Ricardo Alarcón Quesada
President of the National Assembly of People's Power
Cuban Parliament

Do these Cuban voices from within Cuba itself sound like the subjects of a government whose murdering tyrants' atrocities should be dealt with in silence? -- especially in view of our nation's own racial history and what Ms. Hannah-Jones so expeditiously attempted to document in her controversial 1619 Project? 

We have practically apartheid in this country sometimes... racism is deeply rooted in Cuba's history and will not disappear overnight.

Rogelio Polanco Fuentes
Director
Cuban Communist Party-owned Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

What would she say if she had discovered the "permanent and shameful police harassment of young Cubans of African descent in our streets..." as noted by Leonardo Calvo Cardenas, the Cuban National Vice-Coordinador of the Citizens' Committee for Racial Integration (Comité Ciudadanos por la Integración Racial (CIR))?

As Omar López Montenegro, the Black Cuban director of Human Rights for the Fundación Nacional Cubano Americana recently stated in the Panama Post:

The situation for Black Cubans worsened after Castro assumed power... even though there were always racial issues, before Castro in Cuba there had been Black governors, a President of the Senate, Martín Morua Delgado, and also many Congressmen such as the labor leader Jesús Menéndez, a member of the Socialist Party. 

When Cuba became a Communist dictatorship, and democracy was lost, the advance of Black Cubans came to a halt. 

And this is what makes it even more maddening to a pedantic Virgo like me -- when even the lackeys of the Cuban dictatorship like Alarcon Quesada and black voices from within the brutalized island speak out, knowing that there will be consequences - as Zurbano discovered after his New York Times opinion piece - why does Ms. Hannah-Jones live in this rose-colored atmosphere where she perceives the poor jailed island as an example of equality?

Does she know that even though about 60% of Cubans are Black or brown, that 94.2% of the students at the University of Havana are white?  Is she aware - as evidenced by the hundreds of videos one can see at #SOSCuba, that the epicenters of the demonstrations in most Cuban cities during this historic uprising are in the Black neighborhoods? Does she know about Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, a young Black Cuban from La Güinera who was arrested and then murdered by the Cuban police? When notified that her son was dead, his mother committed suicide. Does she know that her own newspaper, The New York Times documented a few years ago how Black Cubans are routinely discriminated in Cuba? Is she aware that while 48% of white Cubans have an annual income of less that $3,000 USD, a whooping 95% of Black Cubans fall below that incredible line?

By the way... In 1959 Cuba had the third-highest per capita income in Latin America, exceeded only by Argentina and Venezuela (around $550 a year back then which is about $5,170 in today's dollars). In 1959 that was also higher than Italy, Japan, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal and every single Eastern European nation in the Soviet bloc.

Nikole Hannah-Jones now has an opportunity to clear the air, clear her mind, clear her perception and gain instant respect from Cubans of all races. All she has to say is that she's learned a lot since the statements that she made in 2019 surfaced during the current Cuban uprising - which as video evidence clearly shows, appears to involve Cubans of all races - and state that she was wrong and is now aware of the sorry and sad state of the Marxist government's deeply rooted racism.

Boom! Case closed.

They will not be forgotten!

 

Xaviel Álvarez García, 18 years old, from Ciego de Avila was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising against their Communist oppressors and has been behind bars since then and his family has not been allowed to see him. He will not be forgotten!

Father Rafael Cruz Debora is a priest from Matanzas who was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising against the Marxist yoke. He will not be forgotten!

Omar Odin Planos Cordoví from Santiago de Cuba was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising and remains behind bars! He will not be forgotten!

Melissa López Campos, together with her husband Jhon Alejandro del Toro - both from Holguin were arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising and are still behind bars. They will not be forgotten!

Mackyanis Román Rodríguez from La Guinera was arrested on 12 July during the historic Cuban uprising, together with her brothers Yosney and Emiyolan. Thay are all still behind bars and none of them will be forgotten!

Where are they?

I know that some of them have already spoken out (like Pitbull)... but we need our Cuban-American celebs to step out and support the Cuban uprising! Gloría Estefan, Jeff Bezos, Camilla Cabello, Andy Garcia, Cameron Diaz, William Levy, Dara Torres, Ryan Lochte, Bella Thorne, Maria Teresa (the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg), and many more!

#SOSCuba #Cuba #cubalibre

United Nations

 

The People's Choice! VOTE!!!!

As many of you know, I have a work in The Phillips Museum DC exhibition 'Inside Outside Upside Down;'  It is a super important art exhibition celebrating the museum's 100th anniversary! They have just sent out a note with People's Choice Award voting platform found here:

https://insideoutside.phillipscollection.org/link/peopleschoiceaward 

Vote for your favorite work with 1-5 stars

 My work is "Suddenly, She Discovered Her Identity (Many of Them)"

She will not be forgotten!

Neife Rigau has been arrested during the historic Cuban uprising against their Marxist dictators and her family has not been able to see her since. She will not be forgotten!

#SOSCuba #11J

Me bitchin' to the WaPo in 1998

 Ferdinand Protzman's "A Cool Idea: New Shows for Summer" {Style, July 16} said D.C. art galleries ignore the month of August. He is wrong. Your own Web site lists nearly 200 galleries in the District, all but 30 or so not in Dupont Circle. A handful of bad August shows in Dupont Circle does not mean in all of Washington, much less the Greater Washington area.

I also am a local art critic, and even though I write for minor, obscure art publications, I receive 40 to 60 invitations a month from galleries and other art spaces in the Greater Washington area. Therefore I know that most galleries and art spaces in the District do not treat August as a month to recycle old art from their back rooms.

Read my letter to the editor, published in 1998

1980 Cuba piece at auction!

This 1980 work from my Cuba series just popped up at an auction house in Miami! Proceeds go to the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora.

Bid for it here.

Isla Prision
A 1980 work of art from Cuba Series by Florencio Lennox Campello

Daily Campello Welcomes New DC Arts Commission Chairperson

Reggie Van Lee was officially sworn as chairperson of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Chairperson Van Lee was appointed to the position by Mayor Muriel Bowser for a three-year term, with subsequent reappointments possible.

“It truly is an honor to be appointed chairperson of the arts commission by Mayor Bowser,” said Chairperson Van Lee. “Every DC resident should have the opportunity to access the full spectrum of arts and cultural offerings available in the District, and I look forward to helping the Commission continue its work to make that a reality.”

The Commission is an independent agency in the District of Columbia government that evaluates and initiates action on matters relating to the arts and humanities and encourages programs and the development of programs that promote progress in the arts and humanities. The Commission consists of 18 members appointed by the Mayor with the advice and consent of the DC Council, who serve without compensation.

In 2020, Van Lee chaired the Commission’s Task Force on Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, which produced a report of 44 recommendations aimed at improving the Commission’s operations and improving access and transparency.

“There is a tremendous amount of knowledge, expertise, and talent amongst the staff and commissioners. Chairperson Van Lee will add to and enhance those abilities with his own, to the ultimate benefit of the District’s arts and cultural sector and our residents,” said Arts Commission Executive Director Heran Sereke-Brhan.

Van Lee is a Partner and Chief Transformation Officer of The Carlyle Group where he helps the firm develop strategies to enhance business processes. He previously served for 32 years as an executive at Booz Allen Hamilton. He has served on the boards of local arts organizations such as The Washington Ballet, Washington Performing Arts, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.