World

Topsy-Turvy Laws, Trendiness Bring Cuban Artists Riches

Published

11 years ago

June 10, 2015

In this May 21, 2015, file photo, people sit on deck chairs on an artificial beach as a bride and groom ride a classic American convertible car on the Malecon in Havana, Cuba, Thursday. The beachs 40-year-old creator, Arles del Rio, sold a piece featured at the last biennial for $11,875, more than 40 times the annual salary of an ordinary Cuban. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan, File)

ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press

HAVANA (AP) — Late one balmy spring night during Havana’s 12th Biennial, young working-class men and women lounged on a stretch of sand dotted with folding chairs and umbrellas, an artificial beach created as an art installation on the capital’s Malecon seaside promenade.

Meanwhile, at Sotheby’s auction house in New York, the beach’s 40-year-old creator, Arles del Rio, sold another piece featured at the last biennial for $11,875, more than 40 times the annual salary of an ordinary Cuban. The piece, titled “Fly Away,” is made of chain-link fence with a hole in the shape of a jet, making it appear the plane flew right through it.

Cuba’s growing international trendiness combined with the government’s topsy-turvy labor regulations are making sculptors, painters and other artists some of the richest people on the island. It’s a demonstration both of Cuba’s accomplishments in culture and education, as well as its economic difficulties after a half-century of communism.

“When I was in art school, my parents almost threw me out of the house because I hadn’t chosen a ‘real’ career,” said printmaker Max Delgado. “These days, there’s real competition among kids studying music or painting.”

Cuba allows its citizens to work in hundreds of types of private jobs outside the state-run economy but virtually none of those positions allow entrepreneurs to create real wealth. The island’s most potentially profitable business sectors and professions remain entirely under control of the state, which currently pays an average salary of a little more than $23 a month, or about $280 a year, in addition to the heavily subsidized health and other government services everyone gets.

But an exception was created at the end of the 1980s, when independent artists became some of the first Cubans that the government allowed to earn money outside the confines of the state and keep the profits from the direct sales of their work, sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars.

That has created a tiny class of artists who are wealthy by Cuban standards and can divide their time between the island and countries such as the United States or Spain. They can duck Cuba’s roughly 50 percent income tax on works sold outside Cuba.

Cuban economist Arturo Lopez-Levy, a lecturer at the University of Denver, said that under the island’s bifurcated economy most people earn puny state salaries while those with access to foreign money like the top-end artists can live like kings.

In the Sotheby’s auction two weeks ago, the works of Cuban artists surpassed expectations. One piece by Alexandro Arrechea went for $118,000, a lot of three pieces by a pair of artists who call themselves Los Carpinteros captured $60,000, and a sculpture by the artists’ collective “The Merger” got $50,000.

“This situation is due above all to the creation of a two-lane economy, with one sector connected to the market and another with the remnants of the command economy inherited from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s,” Lopez-Levy said.

Along with medicine and science, art and music are fields in which small, poor Cuba punches far above its weight. While it treats medicine and scientific research as resources to be jealously guarded for the good of the nation, the government has seen artists and musicians as valued cultural ambassadors who are afforded special treatment.

The phenomenon is only expected to grow with warming ties between Cuba and the U.S. The detente is allowing more American visitors, including wealthy art collectors, to travel legally to the island on “educational” tours that often include the purchase of art, which can be legally exported back to the United States.

Organizers of the 2015 Biennial that opened May 22 have said they expect 2,500 Americans will visit this year’s fair, many of them art buyers, before it wraps up on June 22.

Don Pappalardo, founder and CEO of Troika, an arts and entertainment marketing consultancy in Southern California, said Cuba is “is one of the most vital areas for contemporary art in the world today.”

“Growing hype around Cuba will likely attract collectors who are looking for the next big thing,” Pappalardo, himself an avid collector of Latin American works, said during a visit to Havana Biennial. “Some prices will go up, which is great for the artists. Some prices may go crazy, which is great for investment collectors but not always great for everyone else.”

Many of the visiting Americans are touring middle-class Havana neighborhoods dotted with immaculately restored homes where the artists live and have created private galleries of their work.

“Compared to the median they live very well,” Rafael Acosta de Arriba, an art critic and former head of the National Fine Arts Council, said of Cuba’s artists. “Cuban artists are very well compensated, but from abroad because in Cuba there is no domestic art market.”

Top painters, sculptors and other artists, for instance, are among the very few Cubans who regularly patronize high-priced private restaurants that cater mainly to foreigners.

For the artists themselves, the situation is a lucky combination of the quality of their art and an economy that has left them in a position of unexpected privilege.

“Cuban art is gaining fans,” Delgado said. “You can take advantage of earning at global prices and living and working here.”

___

Associated Press writer Beth J. Harpaz contributed to this report from Havana.

___

Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Accused of Pimping, Strauss-Kahn Faces French Trial Verdict

Don't Miss

Burundi Groups Reject UN Facilitator of Crisis Talks

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Activism

African Union Group to Award Rev. Dr. Amos Brown for Bringing Civil Rights Movement to Global Stage

Dr. Macaulay Kalu, secretary general of AU6RG, will present Dr. Brown with the Global Peace Builder Award. Other presenters include Rev. Dr. Freddie Haynes, senior pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas; Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, long-time advocate for appropriations to Africa as a congressmember; Rick Callendar, California-Hawaii president of the NAACP; Dr. Ike Neliaku, president and chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations; Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, head of the African Leadership Group and Ambassador Thompson and John William Templeton, founder of the Journal of Black Innovation National Black Business Month®.

Published

1 year ago

August 25, 2025

Oakland Post

Dr. Amos C. Brown, pastor emeritus of Third Baptist Church with Ambassador Ladi Peter Thompson of the African Unity 6th Region Global and with John William Templeton, founder of the 22d Journal of Black Innovation National Black Business Month®. Courtesy photo.

By Carla Thomas and John William Templeton

On Aug. 31, the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco will mark its 173rd anniversary with an event steeped in history and global significance. This year’s commemoration, themed “Achieving Dr. King’s Promised Land Together,” will honor the lifelong achievements of Dr. Amos C. Brown, Sr.— a towering figure in the Civil Rights Movement — on a day that also observes the International Day for People of African Descent.

Brown will be recognized by the African Union’s organ for Africans abroad for ‘planetizing’ the civil rights movement gains at San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, 1399 McAllister St., at 3 p.m.

The African Union, made up of 54 countries on the African continent, consists of five regions. It created a sixth region, the African Union Sixth Region Global (AU6RG), for the 400 million Africans living abroad. On Sept. 7, the second AU-Caribbean Community Summit occurs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Held during the 173rd anniversary of the church, the event called “Africa-America: Achieving Dr. King’s Promised Land Together” is a Diaspora-wide discussion led by Dr. Brown on what Martin Luther King, Jr. would say today.

Galvanized by the horrific 1955 slaying of Emmett Till, Dr. Brown’s journey in activism began in Jackson, Mississippi, where a neighbor, Medgar Evers, the NAACP’s first field secretary in that state, encouraged Brown to found the Mississippi NAACP Youth Council.

In 1956, Evers personally drove Brown to the NAACP convention in San Francisco, where Brown would first hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak. Brown became a prominent Freedom Rider, later attending Morehouse College and taking the only class Dr. King ever taught there. Thirteen years after Evers was assassinated in Jackson, Brown arrived at Third Baptist Church in 1976, serving with distinction for 49 years before his recent retirement. Under his stewardship, the church solidified its commitment to social justice and international unity.

His Excellency Rev. Ladi Peter Thompson, deputy secretary general for peace and security of AU6RG, said, “As a mentee of Medgar Evers, Freedom Rider and student of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Brown is the perfect authority for the young people of the Diaspora on achieving the prophetic goal that Dr. King foresaw in Memphis.”

Lady Dentaa Amoateng, founder of Grow, Unite, Build Africa (GUBA), will also announce that Dr. Brown is an honoree at the GUBA Award in Bridgetown, Barbados in November. The popular actress in Ghana and the United Kingdom will attend in person.

Dr. Lezli Baskerville, president/counsel of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, which includes 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and 90 predominantly Black institutions (PBIs), invites its students, faculty, and alumni to attend or join remotely.

“HBCUs produced both Dr. King and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and are the fountainhead for Diaspora unity,” said Baskerville.

Templeton, author of “ReUNION: State of Black Business, 22d edition,” said “Our movement will advocate the continuance of tariff-free treatment for Africa and the Caribbean; respect for African-American and African elected officials and the 13th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments and the strengthening of educational and research connections across the Diaspora.”

Templeton said Black institutions have been at the forefront of defining the image of 1.5 billion Black people globally, a mission that is even more important as African youth will be the majority of the world’s young people in the coming decades.

ABOUT THIRD BAPTIST CHURCH

Founded on West Indian Emancipation Day on Aug.1, 1852, Third Baptist said in its annual report in 1858 that its sole purpose was the elimination of American chattel slavery and took an active role among the California abolitionists who convinced President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. The current sanctuary is constructed with wood from the Goodall Mansion, where President U.S. Grant stayed after leaving the White House, and is the last place where Dr. W.E.B. DuBois spoke before leaving for Africa in 1958.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Newsom, Pelosi Welcome Election of First American Pope; Call for Unity and Compassion

“In his first address, he reminded us that God loves each and every person,” said Newsom. “We trust that he will shepherd us through the best of the Church’s teachings: to respect human dignity, care for the poor, and wish for the common good of us all.” Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.

Published

1 year ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Pope Leo XIV. Screenshot.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom on May 8 issued a statement congratulating Pope Leo XIV on his historic election as the first American to lead the Catholic Church.

The announcement has drawn widespread reaction from U.S. leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called the moment spiritually significant and aligned with the values of service and social justice.

In their statement, the Newsoms expressed hope that the newly elected pope would guide the Church with a focus on compassion, dignity, and care for the most vulnerable. Newsom said he and the First Partner joined others around the world in celebrating the milestone and were encouraged by the pope’s first message.

Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.

“May he remind us that our better angels are not far away — they’re always within us, waiting to be heard,” he said.

Pelosi, a devout Catholic, also welcomed the pope’s election and noted his symbolic connection to earlier church leaders who championed workers’ rights and social equality.

“It is heartening that His Holiness continued the blessing that Pope Francis gave on Easter Sunday: ‘God loves everyone. Evil will not prevail,’” said Pelosi.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Retired Bay Area Journalist Finds Success in Paris with Black History Tours

In the late 90s, Stevenson finally realized her dream of living in Paris, now with her daughter. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend gave her a stack of cash and encouraged her to expand on the knowledge that she had only started to share with people she knew.

Published

2 years ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Ricki Stevenson, Blacks in Paris. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

There were two things Oakland-born, East Palo Alto-raised Ricki Stevenson always dreamed of:

Going to New York as a newscaster to tell the true story of Blacks in America.
Living and working in Paris one day.

Her dreams of life in Paris began when she was three years old and her mother, a former professional dancer, took her to see Josephine Baker perform. She was 11 when her parents took her to the Stanford University campus to meet James Baldwin, who was speaking about his book, “The Fire Next Time.” Ricki says that’s when she knew she’d one day live in Paris, “the city of light!”

But before that would ever happen, she had a tumultuous career as a newscaster across the country that was inspired by her family’s history.

Stevenson recalls marching with Cesar Chavez as he fought for labor rights for farm workers in California.

“Are we Mexican too?” she asked her parents. “No, but we will fight for everyone’s human rights,” they responded to her.

Ironically, Ricki’s paternal family roots went back to Greenwood, Oklahoma, infamous for the 1921 bombing of Black Wall Street. A time when Black people had oil wells, banks, and a thriving business community.

This background would propel her into a 25-year journalism career that gave her the opportunity to interview greats like President Jimmy Carter, PLO leader Yassir Arafat, James Baldwin, Rev. Jesse Jackson, UN Ambassador Andrew Young, Miriam Makeba, and the leaders of South African liberation movements.

A job offer from KCBS radio brought her back to the Bay Area in the 1980s. Then came the switch to TV when she was hired as a Silicon Valley business reporter with KSTS TV, working at the first Black-owned television station in northern CA (created and owned by John Douglas). Along the way, Stevenson worked as an entertainment reporter with BET; coproduced, with her disc jockey brother Isaac, a Bay Area show called “Magic Number Video;” lived in Saudi Arabia; worked as an international travel reporter with News Travel Network; and worked at KRON TV a news anchor and talk show host.

In 1997, Stevenson realized her dream of living in Paris with her young daughter, Dedie. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend, Admiral Robert Toney put a chunk of money in her hand. He said, “Ricki, my wife and I have been coming to Paris for 20 years, but in just two days with you and Dedie, we’ve learned and seen more than we ever did before.”

Years after BPT took off, Ricki met Nawo Carol Crawford and Miguel Overton Guerra, who she recruited as senior scholar guides for Black Paris Tours.

Guerra says he is proud of his work with Black Paris Tours in that it provides a wealth of information about the rich legacy of African and African American history and influence in Paris and Europe.

“I tend to have a feeling for history always being a means of a reference point backwards … you start to understand the history, that it isn’t just the United States, that it began with African people,” Guerra says.

He said that it’s been a pleasure to watch people learn something they didn’t know before and to take them through the city to key points in Black history, like hangout spots for writers like Baldwin and Richard Wright, restaurants in the busiest parts of Paris, the home of Josephine Baker and so much more.

Although the tours are open to all, Guerra hopes that those of African descent from all over the world can embrace that they don’t have to just stay where they are because movies and media have portrayed cities like Paris to be only white, it’s multicultural and accepting to all.

“We’ve been here, and we’ve been there, going way back when. And we shouldn’t be considered or consider ourselves to be strangers in any place that we go to,” he said.

Stevenson notes they’ve had 150,000 people take their tour over the years, with notables like former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Smokey Robinson, Steve Harvey, Miriam Makeba, and more.

Friends and former media colleagues of Stevenson compliment the BPT crew on their knowledge of the city and their ability to always keep it interesting.

“He [Guerra] just had a deep, deep wealth of knowledge and he was constantly supplanting information with historical facts and the like. I love that it was demonstrating and showing how Black people have thrived in Paris or contributed to the culture in Paris,” Candice Francis said.

She toured in the summer of 2022 and stated that in the two weeks that they visited Paris, BPT was the highlight of her trip. She shared that she was proud of Stevenson and the life she’d managed to manifest and build for herself.

“Even if you’re visiting Paris for the tenth time, if you haven’t taken the tour, then by all means, take it,” Francis emphasized.

Magaly Muñoz, Gay Plair and Paul Cobb also contributed to this story. You can book your own adventure with Black Paris Tours at www.blackparistour.com.