Introduction
Free to use image of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is an independent artist, co-founder of the digital museum of dissidence (museo de disidencia), organizer of the #00 Bienal Alternativa de La Habana (althernative to the official Biennal), co-founding member of the San Isidro movement. He is known for his critique of censorship and the scarcity that the vast majority of Cubans endure.
The artist is renowned for his creative use of multiple mediums and materials available to him, exemplary of the conditions of scarcity on the island. His digital performance art has incorporated critiques on laws in Cuba against the use of the national flag outside of state entities. He incorporates social media to represent life on the island. Most of his work has been produced and disseminated virtually as a method of circumventing censorship.
Since 2014, most of his work has been produced and shown independently in collaboration with art historian/critic Yanelys Nunes Leyva. In the fall of 2016, the artist collaborated on a digital video performance, Indian Summer Diary, a series of ten one-minute videos posted daily on Facebook. The social media artistic performances were created in response to being denied a visa as an artist in residency. This performance via facebook was later extended by the performance Caribe Sweet which extends the intercultural exploration of clichés that are central with Indian Summer Diary. The digital performance was prerecorded due to unreliable internet connectivity within Cuba.
Commentary by K. L. Cespedes
Digital Performance
Digital Performance relies on digital technology as a key component of the interface between the creator and the viewer. The use of multimedia, video recordings, and visual images. A key role in digital performance is the technology. In the work by Otero Alcantara, the use of technology transmits the performance to audiences who can only access the work within a digital space. The technology becomes the conduit for the performance. The video Caribe Sweet is a satire of cultural videos for tourists or for the external market commodifying Cuban cultural forms and expressions. The use of the Cuban flag, on the body of the artist as a part of the performance within the video is a satire of commercial cultural videos which need to visually communicate to the audience the specificity of the cultural artform being consumed, yet the artist bravely crosses the line of the legal use of the Cuban flag within the island. The embedded critique within the performance is of the internal contradiction of outlawing the personal wearing of the flag, but for commercial purposes, the state ignores the infraction on one of the most highly surveyed tourism zones in Havana, the Malecon area just outside of the Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes del Morro (Morro Castle).
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara
Puerta No.25, 2020 (From the series “Doors")
Digital Art Exhibition: Arte en Resistencia
Atropellado I , 2020
100 x 85 cm (h x w)
Fotografía. Impresión en papel Hahnemühle fine art baryta 325 gsm (Photograph. Printed on Hahnemühle fine art baryta 325 gsm)
De la serie “Mil maneras de morir accidentado”
(From the series “A thousand ways to die in an accident”)
Caída I , 2020
85 x 100 cm (h x w)
Fotografía. Impresión en papel Hahnemühle fine art baryta 325 gsm (Photograph. Printed on Hahnemühle fine art baryta 325 gsm)
De la serie “Mil maneras de morir accidentado”
(From the series “A thousand ways to die in an accident”)
Ultraje sexual I , 2019
100 x 85 cm (h x w)
Fotografía. Impresión en Forex de PVC espumado 5mm (Photograph. Printed on Forex 5mm PVC foam)
De la serie “Causa No.1 del 2019”
(From the series "Cause No.1 of 2019")
Puerta No.31 , 2020
100 x 163 cm (h x w)
Carboncillo y tempera sobre cartulina (Charcoal and tempera on cardboard)
De la serie "Puertas"
(From the series “Doors")
News
- Cuba: Dissident artist released from hospital after four weeksLuis Manuel Otero Alcantara, leader of the San Isidro protest movement, was admitted to hospital on May 2 after hunger strike.