¡BELLO, BELLO, BELLO!

At Havana’s Fine Arts Museum, someone is commenting on the paintings and sculptures – or rather, using them to express his thoughts. “Today, the Blacks are getting the better of us, we’re all equal!” – during his free associations, the visitor expresses what Cuban culture has not yet dissolved into the universal history of art, notably racial prejudice and gender bias. At times the atmosphere tends towards dreaminess, at times the mirror selfportrait grows harsher. The repetitious and exclamatory title intimates how much the voice differs from that of a guide or expert. The night-time film incites trust: soon the visitor’s wanderings slide into introspection. Landscape, gesture, posture – the pictorial details, particularly in the nudes, underpin an intimate unveiling paced by the editing of images and words that are at times convergent and at times in counterpoint. In the semi-darkness, the velvet security ropes have dropped their guard, the cultural or tourist institution no longer prevails, and instead the museum as a deeply moving “cemetery for things”, is the voice says in a fit of sobs. The difficult past of the “commentator”, marked by his mother’s turbulent sexual life and stigmatised by his homosexuality, structures a vital dialogue between a long-suffered social invisibility and a self-projection into works of art intended for all. (Charlotte Garson)