Polyphonic Internationalism

“Chapter 1: Polyphonic Internationalism” explores the production of a Third World avant-garde in the first iterations of the Bienal de La Habana. It contextualizes this effort in Havana's internationally oriented effervescent cultural and intellectual life of the 1980s, and the time's renovation of Marxist political thought. Drawing from close analysis of artist selection in the biennial and debates on the nature of avant-garde art in postrevolutionary Cuba, the chapter offers a detailed discussion of a kinetic art public festival by Argentinean artist Julio Le Parc. This chapter argues that the Bienal's mission had a twofold political and epistemic impact: on the one hand, the exhibition helped bolster Cuba's cultural leadership in the Third World, and on the other hand, the Bienal contributed to international contemporary art debates by exhibiting the work of artists formerly excluded from North-Atlantic–centric art circuits."