Out of Sync in Havana: Two Socialist Visions of Global Contemporary Art

On 1 November 1989, when the third edition of la Bienal de la Habana opened its doors, the show included ink paintings from North Korea called chosŏnhwa (literally ‘Korean paintings’). By that time, the Korean–Cuban friendship had lasted for more than three decades, following its formation after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and based on the principle of Third World solidarity. But this encounter in 1989 illustrates that their contemporary art was out of sync with one another. The Korean presentation contrasted with the more installation-oriented, inter-media works submitted by Cuban artists who were part of the ‘New Cuban art’ wave. As an archeological study on these two starkly different visions of ‘contemporary art’, this essay sustains a bifurcated view onto Pyongyang and Havana as a method with which to reassess the culture of Third World politics and post-coloniality at the Cold War's end, and to propose a translocational, South-to-South method of art history.