Habana Libre Book – “The Cubans are the Chosen People — chosen by themselves,” wrote Luis Aguilar Leon in his book, the Prophet.
This apt remark should have prefaced Michael Dweck’s lavish monochrome images in his photographic study Habana Libre. Dweck has captured the tangible confidence of the bright, the beautiful, the narcissistic, and the artistic 21st century Cuban to produce a book of silvery, seductive portraits.
Dweck writes in his introduction: “Despite the negative wire-service photographs imprinted on the world’s brain, there’s a pretty good life here for many. To name a few: artists and directors, actors and models and musicians. The creative class.”
Dweck’s lens has forayed into the elusive world of Cuba’s farándula, the Cuban artistic elite who are permitted to travel to perform, stage, strut and exhibit, and who carry plenty of hard currency in their pockets.
This book, for the first time, visually reveals the lives of the moneyed and creative, portraying a scene that few knew existed, or could exist, in the Castros’ Cuba. Although those on intimate terms with Cuba know that for nearly two decades now social and financial inequalities have existed inside the communist paradigm.
Dweck’s book also acts, unwittingly, as a latest guide to fashionable Havana hotspots — Don Cangrejo is an in vogue late-night music haunt in Miramar and, at night, along Avenida de los Presidentes, throngs of youngsters hang out amid the sparse bushes, benches and odd statues to heroes. It’s also where the goths and frikis congregate, flocking in their numbers.
Some of the most curious and hypnotising pictures are of the Castro oligarchy. The children of Fidel and Raúl Castro are rarely photographed and yet Dweck’s camera intimately portrays them living a comfortable lifestyle. Alejandro Castro, Fidel Castro’s son, is pictured smoking with beauty Roselyn Mereno Pérez.
All the more interesting, then, that Dweck’s photos will be exhibited at Fototeca de Cuba, Plaza Vieja, La Habana Vieja, from February 24th-March 24th 2012.
To many, Dweck’s book is confusing. Cuba is confusing. The classless society no longer exists in one of the world’s last communist states. As Dweck summarises himself:
“Here’s the t-shirt: Cuba. It’s complicated.”
Habana Libre by Michael Dweck.
Published by Damiani editore http://www.damianieditore.it/catalogue/557
€50.
