Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 87

the problem of the black subject, religiosity, racial and gender discrimination, sexual orientation, negrismo and Negritude.
The Big Bang
The Big Bang - regarding themes of Afro-Cubanness, racism, race, religiosity and other problems
about blacks in contemporary Cuban society and
art - exploded on the scene at the exhibits held at
the Casa de Africa and Centro de Desarrollo de
las Artes Visuales [Center for the Development of
the Visual Arts] (CDAV) at the end of the nineties. While some of these events were not sufficiently promoted, all revealed other expressive
directions on the subject of blacks and blackness:
they were more incisive and no less offensive,
laying bare the “darker side” of black lived experience in the midst of the nation’s worst crisis.
Formal contributions and freedom concerning
content indicated that it was possible to address
this topic, rooted in living tradition, with a postmodern idiom beyond the limits set by cultural
policy.
The Antillean group’s artistic proposals had established a new frontier, finding discursive
strength in the works of Alexis Esquivel, Elio
Rodríguez, Armando Mariño and others. The artistic discourse of the a 'F