Latin American art needs to reinvent itself from class consciousness

Latin American art needs to reinvent itself from class consciousness, says Miguel Barnet in the 34 FILAH

The Cuban poet and writer called on new generations of artists to turn their eyes to the authentic popular manifestations of the continent.

· On October 10, 2023, at 10:00 a.m., a reissue of his iconic novel Biografía de un mararrón will be presented

“Latin American art is called to find the path towards social identity, to be the conscience of our culture, the soul and voice of men and women ‘without history’.” With emphasis on this quotation mark, the Cuban poet Miguel Barnet (1940) fought, from the 34th International Book Fair of Anthropology and History (FILAH), for a reinvention of American narratives.

By giving the inaugural conference of the Mexico-Cuba Forum: cultural and migratory contributions, which is developed as part of the activities of the Caribbean nation, guest of honor at the literary meeting, organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico, through from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the novelist and essayist also reflected on the current status of artistic creations in the cultural region.

Through a virtual presentation, projected in the Fray Bernardino de Sahagún Auditorium of the National Museum of Anthropology, the author of On the wall of the Malecón (2013) cited, in a first note, the controversial influence that the mass culture of this 21st century has not only about Latin art and artists, but about the population in general.

"The cultural contents, those that would fill the thirst for knowledge of our people, have not reached them; rather, the mass media has served to poison consciences and standardize personalities."

Modern technology, through social networks, he added, throws at the new generations a plethora of individualistic behaviors, “a bombardment of golden pills for dreams that are not theirs; a truth is murdered by virtue of a passing illusion. The media, like a doctor Fausto, makes the strange idea dazzle the eyes and be accepted.”

As an alternative, Barnet argued, the young people who are part of the new generations of artists must turn their eyes to those purely popular expressions, those that are still devoid of the evil of class antagonism.

Likewise, he recommended that these same creatives not fall into the trap of stereotyping the working classes in what, he considered, should be popular novels, documentary films and social poetry.

“Man, his vital discourse and his anguish, inserted in artistic creation in a natural way and not as a banal element, must be the trunk of that giant tree that is called to re-emerge, like a Prometheus that frees itself from its moorings.” , in response to a profound social change,” concluded the essayist.

It should be noted that next Tuesday, October 10, 2023, in the Jaime Torres Bodet Auditorium of the National Museum of Anthropology, at 10:00 a.m., the 34 FILAH will present a new edition of Biografía de un mararrón (1966), the best known and iconic novel by Miguel Barnet.

Those in charge of commenting on this work, which evokes the hard and tenacious life of Esteban Montijo, a long-lived Afro-Cuban who was also one of the last survivors of slavery on the sugar cane plantations in the island nation, will be the historian. Salvador Rueda Smithers, the writer Pável Granados Chaparro and the poet Lázaro Castilla Pérez.