Seminar
Crossed stories: collecting(s) and cultural institutionalism at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Cuba
5 November 2021
Webinar – Universidad de Barcelona / Universidad de La Habana

Cuba’s National Museum of Fine Arts (1913) has one of the largest collections of fine arts in Latin America, in addition to the vast collection of European art, and is the largest public museum in the Caribbean islands. Throughout its more than 100 years of existence, the history of the institution has run parallel to national and global events and happenings: its foundation a few years after the establishment of the independent republic (1902), the inauguration of the Palace of Fine Arts as the venue for the 2nd Hispano-American Art Biennial (1954), the increase and reorganization of its collections after the triumph of the Revolution (1959), the May Salon of 1968 or the hosting of the first three editions of the Havana Biennial (1984, 1986 and 1989).
This seminar aims to bring together a series of reflections on the past and recent history of the institution and its collections, as well as to offer a historical-critical panorama of the plastic arts in Cuba and the Iberian Peninsula.

Seminar organized within the framework of the subject “Art i Història” de la Facultad de Geografía e Historia de la Universidad de Barcelona and the cultural activities of Cátedra de Cultura Catalana de la Universidad de La Habana in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba and the international platform MoDe(s) – Modernidad(es) Descentralizada(s). Arte, política y contracultural en el eje transatlántico durante la Guerra Fría.

Direction: Anita Orzes (Universidad de Barcelona / PRE2018-085848)
Coordination: Barbara Beatriz Laffita Menocal (Universidad de La Habana)

Image: Panormanica Sala Edificio Arte Cubano, 2021. Cortesia Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba.