The Cuban artist arrested, detained and with her passport confiscated for staging her “Tatlin’s Whisper #6” (see blog entry from April 29) has had her passport returned since July. She became the first artist-in-residence at the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.
Source and more information on: Hyperallergic.com
Tania Brughera is a Cuban performance artist and teacher and activist who lives between Chicago and Cuba. She was arrested on December 30 for staging Tatlin’s Whisper #6, a pro-democracy art performance in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolucion—in which she invited passers-by to speak into a microphone for “1 minute free of censorship per speaker”. It had been staged once before in Havana without incident, for the Havana Biennial in 2009. The performance in Plaza de la Revolucion never happened because she was picked up before by state security agents. Her passport was seized, she faces criminal charges that range from disturbing the peace to inciting to riot, and she is mired in a Kafkaesque legal limbo. ACAR supports via Artists Rights Justice a letter from the International Coalition against Censorhip to President Raúl Castro and to the Minister of Justice and Human Rights Gustavo Lino Adrianzén Olaya.
Restaging examples: London’s Tate Gallery; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles