Untitled Document

"A Revolution Apart: 40 Years of Cuban Poster Art"
Exhibit to run at Franklin & Marshall's Rothman Gallery

LANCASTER, Pa. -- Forty years ago, thousands of Cubans poured into the streets to cheer on the barbudos (bearded ones), the young band of shaggy-haired revolutionaries who were about to claim power from Cuba's strongman Fulgenico Batista. Thus began a wholesale transformation of Cuban society, U.S.-Latin American relations and international politics.

One of the revolution's most lasting legacies, the propaganda poster, will be the subject of this fall's exhibit at Franklin & Marshall College's Leonard and Mildred Rothman Gallery. The exhibit of 33 posters, 21 from the college's permanent collection (donated by Charles Nissley) and 12 on loan from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles, will be on display from Sept. 1-Dec. 10. The exhibit was curated by F&M assistant professor Eric Zolov, who specializes in Latin American history.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Rothman Gallery will host David Kunzle, professor of art history at UCLA, at 4:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 21. Kunzle will discuss "Chesuchristo: Christ Symbolism in the Image of Che Guevara." There will also be a forum at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 23 in Stahr Auditorium, on "Violence and the Cross: Liberation Theology in Latin America." Both the lecture and the forum are free and open to the public.

"The posters on display here represent merely a fraction of the literally thousands of different graphics produced over a 40-year period (whose distribution perhaps reached into the hundreds of thousands) and encompass a broad sampling of the principal themes addressed by the revolution itself: from hygiene and the arts, to guerrilla struggle, to religion," Zolov said.

The posters, produced by a variety of Cuban government organizations, including OSPAAAL (the Organization in Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America), COR (the Commission of Revolutionary Orientation), the Consejo Nacional de Cultura (National Council of Culture), and the ICAIC (Cuban Film Institute), share a common bond with public art from other communist countries where news and information is rigidly controlled and where the state has assumed primary responsibility for the education of the population.

However, Zolov is quick to point out that Cuban poster art differs from other communist propaganda. "While many (posters) are indeed polemical and didactic, artistically speaking, they are by no means predictable," Zolov said. "Rather, they reflect an evident experimentation with color, graphic design and theme, suggestive of the broad audience at which they were aimed."

In fact, Cuba's artistic environment remained remarkably open according to Zolov, as long as the art served a revolutionary purpose. "Unlike the 'social realist' schools of art popularized by other communist nations (generally characterized by uniformity in color, sharply edged contours and a repetitive thematic), Cuban artists were freer to experiment with color schemes, graphic design and subject matter."

The Rothman Gallery's hours are 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday; 12:30-4:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays throughout the academic year. The Rothman Gallery is closed on legal holidays. The gallery, located on the lower level of the Steinman College Center, is closed holidays and admission is free.