Rereading of Juan Boza's Critique of Wilfredo Lam: The Emergence of Afro-Cuban Arts in Post-Revolutionary Cuba

Abstract

In this essay, I examine Boza’s comments about Lam and the social context of Cuban orisha arts. Since the end of the revolution, Afro-Cuban artists have been overturning the older Eurocentric domination of the arts by the white Cuban elite. The revolution broke down that dominance and opened the art academies to Afro-Cuban artists and aesthetics. This opening resulted in the public arts of dancing, music, song, and theatre of Lucumí orisha arts.1 The emergence of the once devalued African aesthetics, and the struggle in post-revolutionary Cuba for its African soul constitutes the background against which I will examine Boza’s critique of Lam.