MIAMI SHOWS EMBRACE CUBA-BASED ARTISTS, AS TENSIONS LINGER
Jul 24, 12:49 PM EDT
BY ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI (AP) -- President Donald Trump's effort to reverse a historic opening between the U.S. and Cuba is raising tensions in South Florida's exile enclave, where wealthy patrons and institutions have sought to unify Cubans on both sides through unprecedented art exhibits.
Museums and cultural centers are rewriting old rules on the kind of Cuban art that has a place in Miami now that decades have passed since exiles bombed a gallery and torched a painting in the 1980s to draw a line against supporting any artist still living under Fidel Castro.
Collectors and curators now find receptive audiences in Miami when they show contemporary Cuban artists who established themselves under Communist rule. But by upending the old order, they're exposing a new conflict: Some artists in the diaspora see artists still working in Cuba as unfair competition.
A show at the Perez Art Museum Miami is bringing both sides together in an exhibit so extensive, it will be presented in three parts over 10 months. Another exhibit in South Florida gathered works from 20 artists from present-day Cuba. And a Miami-based Cuban arts foundation announced earlier this year that it will open an important prize to include visual artists, writers and musicians who still live in the communist nation.
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