It’s time to hail Havana as one of the world’s great art cities. The Cuban capital has never lacked artistic credentials, but a growing band of small private galleries, fresh interest in outlandish street art, and the emergence of extraordinary art collectives have sparked a creative renaissance that has truly put the city on the map.
Artistic Roots
Havana’s artistic roots run deep. The city is home to the oldest arts academy in Latin America, the Academia de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, housed in a colonnaded building in Marianao. Founded in 1818, the academy has bred generations of precocious talent, most notably in the 1920s when it spawned the Vanguardia, a loose collection of painters and sculptors who rejected the contemporary penchant for mundane landscapes and invented Cuba’s avant-garde.
Where to Start
For an introductory exposé to the heady world of Cuban art, proceed directly to the bedrock of Havana’s art scene, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, a huge multifaceted art museum spread over two campuses in Centro Habana. The ‘Arte Cubano’ section boasts the finest collection of Cuban painting in the world. Artists to look out for include Victor Manuel Valdés, executor of the haunting Gitana Tropical, a painting sometimes referred to as the ‘Latin Mona Lisa’. Another star is Wilfredo Lam, a colleague of Picasso who absorbed his Spanish friend’s envelope-pushing spirit while nurturing distinctive Cuban themes such as Santería. Lam dominates the middle section of the museum with his dark, abstract works, including his most graphic piece, Tercer Mundo.
Havana’s Gallery Scene
Havana has a rich seam of smaller galleries scattered around town displaying art that hasn’t yet found a place in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The finest temporary exhibitions are held in the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wilfredo Lam, a diminutive gallery cum cultural center with a popular café that curates revolving contemporary shows and hosts the Bienal de la Habana, the city’s main art festival (held, somewhat bizarrely, every three years). For something even more unique, visit Ojo del Ciclón, the artistic lair of Leo D’Lázaro where you can peruse clever interactive exhibits made from repurposed materials. It’s an apt mode of expression in a country where shortages still bite.
D’Lázaro’s studio isn’t the only one of its kind. Habana Vieja is filled with intriguing workshops where it’s possible to converse with brush-wielding local artists and purchase signed copies of their work. The Taller Experimental de Gráfica is an engraving workshop where you can meet, join courses, and purchase from top graphic artists.
Art Factory
If the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes is one bookend to Havana’s art scene, the Fábrica de Arte Cubano is the other. The brainchild of respected Cuban fusion musician, X Alfonso, this multi-faceted art emporium in Vedado focuses on making art of all types, including music and dance, more accessible to the masses. Entrance fees are thus kept low (CUC$2), and interaction with artists is actively encouraged. A good night at the Fábrica might include cutting-edge t-shirt screen-printing, a male-voice choir, jazz jams, DJ lessons, and even tango dancing.
If the Fábrica is too crowded or pretentious for your liking, head over to Enguayabera, a similarly styled art collective that recently opened well off the tourist grid in Havana’s Alamar district.
Art Cafés & Restaurants
In a city where international café and restaurant franchises are still absent, it’s not uncommon to find yourself sipping coffee in a makeshift gallery while discussing Che Guevara’s contribution to Cuban poster art with a bohemian barista. Several of Havana’s cafés (opened since the relaxation of business laws in 2011) have a strong artistic bent. Looking like a bookish nook from Paris’ Left Bank, El Dandy in Habana Vieja is renowned for its excellent coffee and stunning photo art. In a nearby street, Espacios Old Fashioned showcases huge abstract canvases painted in stark primary colors that brighten with each mojito consumed. Across the city in Vedado, Café Bar Madrigal is a two-storied mansion featuring posters and images of iconic Cuban films.
Churches
Considered anti-revolutionary during the Fidel Castro years, religious worship has re-emerged in Cuba following visits by three different popes. As a result, renovated churches have dusted off their faded canvases and made some important rediscoveries. First port of call for art historians should be Havana Cathedral, where care and attention have been given to some early 19th-century frescos by Italian artist Giuseppe Perovanni. More revolutionary but less heralded is the interior of the Iglesia de Santa María del Rosario in the eponymous Outer Havana neighborhood, where you can view the religious musings of one of Cuba’s earliest artists, José Nicolás de la Escalera, the first person to depict black slaves in his paintings.
Street Art
Street art is Havana’s sizzling undercurrent. Check out the huge mural, Frutas Cubanas, by Vanguardista Amelia Peláez on the façade of the Hotel Habana Libre. After the revolution, the government filled the city with propaganda-spouting billboards, some of which hold artistic merit. Iconography was taken up by Cuban pop artist Raúl Martínez in the 1960s and reached its zenith in the massive steel stencil of Che Guevara by Cuban artist Enrique Ávila González that dominates the Plaza de la Revolución.
By the 1990s, street artists were experimenting in other genres. The Callejón de Hamel is an inspired art project set in a narrow back alley in Centro Havana. The adornments include ultra-colorful murals, sculptures fashioned out of scrap metal, and objects relating to Santería, spearheaded by surrealist artist Salvador González, who maintains a studio on the street.
Havana’s best alfresco art isn’t confined to a mere street; it covers an entire neighborhood. Fusterlandia in the fishing community of Jaimanitas is the crazy conception of José Fuster, a proponent of a folkloric artistic style sometimes known as ‘naïve art’, and an unashamed disciple of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.
Fusterlandia began in the 1990s, but it’s only more recently that it has started to gain international attention and become firmly entrenched on Havana’s tour circuit. To date, Fuster has covered over 80 houses with mosaics, murals, and curvaceous parapets heavy with Cuban themes and influences. The overall impression is at once surreal and dream-like, yet also wonderfully upbeat, sunny, and playful. No photo can truly capture its essence.
The city’s love for street art continues, finding its way into the center of San Isidro. The once-industrial neighborhood located next to Avenida del Puerto in Habana Vieja is now home to striking urban art etched on decaying façades and houses within five walkable blocks. International graffiti artists such as @Abstrk and Stephen Palladino have collaborated with Cuban creators in an open-air gallery filled with vivid colors, geometric designs, and thought-provoking portraits.
First published in 2017. iBestTravel Local Diana Rita Cabrera contributed to the update of this story.
