Novoa plays the part of tour guide to Castro, stopping in front of photographs and paintings, each sparking Castro\u2019s reminiscences of the 1980s, right before the whole socialist experiment nearly collapsed along with the Soviet Union and its satellite states (1989). Castro\u2019s one-piece Adidas jumpsuit indicates that the persona portrayed here in Guest <\/em>is not the young, virile guerilla leader, but the thoughtful, even regretful, octogenarian in his twilight, pondering the past. Castro mawkishly prattles on about the things he sees\/remembers with a contrived air of authority unbefitting one dressed like he just rolled out of bed. His semi-nonsensical narration maintains our focus on him stroking his beard, this gesture seemingly helping him toss out memories corresponding to the artwork he and Novoa stop to look at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The video camera records him remarking, \u201ces interesante\u2026. este tipo de trabajo\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/em>or, this type of work is interesting, possibly the most hackneyed statement one can enlist to avoid precise artistic examination\u2014attributing \u201cinteresting\u201d to a work of art is the bane of an Art Historian\u2019s existence. We cannot see what it is that he finds \u201cinteresting\u201d; what matters is that the artwork leaves dumbfounded the famously verbose Castro. Likewise, the next section of the gallery tour leaves Castro awkwardly torn between his limited remembrance about the subject matter, and his wanting to be the authority on it. It is apparent that Castro is a fish who has been out of water for too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The camera pans to the gallery wall, which is covered with magazine clippings. One such clipping is of American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), who visited Cuba in 1988, just before the collapse of the Soviet Bloc weakened Castro\u2019s control over the island\u2019s destiny. \u201cAqui es [el artista] Robert Rauschenberg,<\/em>\u201d or, here is the [North American] artist Robert Rauschenberg, Novoa informs his companion. \u201cI know him well,\u201d Castro replies, referring to Rauschenberg. \u201cA few times we were up until three in the morning chatting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Castro does not embellish his anecdote any further, leaving us with the impression that he is either too old to remember anything else, or that he has never been capable of understanding the real value of artists and their art, save whatever the captions provided. Castro makes statements and declarations, but he does not pose questions, or appear to allow for any ambivalence. He has a simple, smug answer for everything. He tells Novoa, \u201cYo he hecho mucho performance in mi vida<\/em>,\u201d\u00a0or, I have done many performances in my life. Though this may be correct from a technical point of view, Castro completely misses the point of performance \u201cArt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In summary, Castro completely lacks the capacity to understand performance art, if not art altogether. Honorary Guest <\/em>is intended to lampoon Castro, highlighting the impoverishment of his ideology in service of him understanding Cuban Performance Art. Were Castro to have asked his tour guide anything, he may have learned that Novoa had a far more \u201cinteresting,\u201d if not more memorable, encounter with Robert Rauschenberg, during the same visit when Castro was up all night \u201cchatting\u201d with the celebrated American artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following study is the result of an investigation of archival video evidence documenting Glexis Novoa\u2019s eventful 1988 encounter with Rauschenberg. This investigation reveals what is known about this encounter is not much different than \u201cCastro\u2019s\u201d ideologically \u201ccolored\u201d version of the past. That is to say, video evidence proves conclusively that scholarship is incorrect about this rare meeting of artists from both sides of the proverbial Iron Curtain, due in large part to over-reliance on limited testimony that provided an unreliable narrative. This study corrects this record by providing more accurate details that will help us re-examine and better understand the significance of Glexis Novoa\u2019s 1988 encounter with Robert Rauschenberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we all know, for Americans, visiting Cuba has never been as easy as hopping on an airplane, but Rauschenberg\u2019s 1988 Cuba visit was hardly tourism. Cuba was one of twenty-two countries invited to participate (eleven accepted) in an ambitious international project of artistic collaboration, envisioned by Rauschenberg, and which he called the Rauschenberg Oversees Interchange, or ROCI, a nod to his pet turtle and mascot, Rocky. Here is the artist in his own words on the subject:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel strong in my beliefs, based on my varied and widely traveled collaborations, that a one-to-one contact through art contains potent peaceful powers, and is the most non-elitist way to share exotic and common information, seducing us into creative mutual understandings for the benefit of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don Saff,\u00a0then, an artist and professor at the University of South Florida, helped the artist to decide which countries would participate in the ROCI endeavor. In addition to Cuba, Rauschenberg and his entourage also visited China, Tibet, Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, the U.S.S.R., Germany, Japan, and the United States. According to Saff, ROCI countries would be \u201csocieties less familiar with non-political ideas or communicating through art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Rauschenberg] has allowed himself to mimic the positions of old as if they are no longer relevant in a global artistic endeavor. Positions that were created by the West and which through ROCI we can clearly see are perceived in contemporary communication. In effect, the artist has passed judgment on each country he visits. He has determined that it is his position to enlighten people on how to communicate non-politically and worldly through art. Although he sees his project as an exchange, it is difficult for any Cuban participant to see past a history of colonialism in this circumstance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like his itinerary, Rauschenberg\u2019s intentions were all over the map. On one hand, he wanted to \u201ccollaborate with [local artists] and indigenous techniques to make work.\u201d\u00a0On the other, he wanted to produce artwork reflecting his own personal reaction to the \u201cconditions\u201d of host countries.\u00a0According to the\u00a0New Yorker<\/em>, \u201c[Rauschenberg] was sure some corporation would sponsor this dreamy concept, but none did, and he ended up spending eleven million dollars to finance it himself.\u201d\u00a0He even sold artwork in his personal collection, including works by close friends Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Cy Twombly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project\u2019s artistic collaboration-for-collaboration\u2019s-sake attitude did not put it above criticism, and some cited ROCI\u2019s resemblance to colonialism, highlighting ROCI\u2019s \u201cinvasion\u201d overtones, and Rauschenberg\u2019s \u201cinvader\u201d attributes. Then again, even at its worst, colonialism was a two-way exchange\u2014and this would be the case in Cuba, with both artists brushing off a little on the other. A less critical observer may have thought of Rauschenberg\u2019s desire to be an objective outside observer more Alexander von Humboldt, or more Alexis du Tocqueville, taking nothing for granted while holding up a mirror to the host country, than Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s. In laymen\u2019s terms, Rauschenberg was a fish out of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike the other countries visited, Rauschenberg\u2019s Cuba visit was special because it formed a second bookend to his long and illustrious career, the first one marking his artistic point of origin. According to the Guggenheim Museum, \u201cduring a [1952] trip to Cuba\u2026 [Rauschenberg] first experimented with transfer drawings, taking printed images, primarily from newspapers and magazines, placing them face down on sheets of paper, and then rubbing the backs of the images with an empty ballpoint pen or other burnishing device to transfer the original to the paper.\u201d Such early experimentation was a catalyst for Rauschenberg\u2019s trailblazing artistic career, with him making major contributions in both the visual and performance arts, his career a one-man chronicle of American Postmodernism. In terms of his artistic journey, Cuba was Rauschenberg\u2019s point of origin; the turtle was returning to his nest. But 1988 Cuba was very different from the 1952 Cuba. Decades of cultural transformation initiated in 1959 by Castro\u2019s Revolution transformed the nation into a Communist Society, with far-reaching implications for Cuban culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PART I: <\/strong>THE CUBAN REVOLUTION: INSIDE THE REVOLUTION, EVERYTHING<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In\u00a0Mural<\/em>\u00a0(by Jackson Pollock) and Cuban artist Wifredo Lam\u2019s\u00a0Jungle<\/em>, both painted In 1943, we see a fragmented, undulating soup of semi-figurative shapes reflective of Pablo Picasso\u2019s influence. Any similarities between art from Cuba and the United States ended with the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Cuba\u2019s new political and cultural transformations were outlined by then-Cuban President, Fidel Castro, who declared the following in 1961:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem under discussion here, and that we are attacking, is the problem of freedom of expression for writers and artists… The Revolution has to understand that reality, and for instance it has to act in order to give artists and intellectuals that are not genuine revolutionaries, within the Revolution a field to work and to create, and that their creative spirit, although they are not revolutionary writers and artist, has opportunity and freedom of expression within the Revolution. That means, that within the Revolution everything; against the Revolution, nothing. Against it nothing because the Revolution has its rights and the first right of the Revolution is to exist; therefore, in the face of the Revolution\u2019s right to be and to exist, no one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initially, \u201cwithin the Revolution everything\u201d was limited to the countryside, where literacy campaigns, schools, clean water, and electricity brought the Cuban\u00a0campesino\u00a0<\/em>(peasant) out of the proverbial darkness of ignorance and poverty. But in the 1970s, the Cuban government tried to deepen the Revolution\u2019s ideological penetration of all aspects of Cuban society by enlisting the arts in its effort to transform Cuban culture. Born in 1964,\u00a0Glexis Novoa owes one hundred percent of his free arts education and training to the Cuban government. The following statement encapsulates Cuban attitudes about the inseparability of culture and ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We aspire to universality. The bankruptcy of the imperialist and bourgeoisie cultural project is based on their ignorance. They tried to dominate the rest of the world, denying an equal integration with the international cultural movement. With dreadful regional and colonialist criterion it is not possible to represent the cultural being of the peoples of the West… We are also, geographically and culturally, in the West. But we do not close our borders, on the contrary. We fight our cultural battles on the principles that inspire Western culture and on its aspirations and vocation of universality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The use of the term \u201ccultural battle\u201d was very important. During the 1980s, the Cuban military was engaged on several real battlefronts with armed struggles in Central America, including Guatemala. The visual arts became a weapon of propaganda used by the government, extoling Cuba\u2019s free education, including training in the fine arts. However, unlike film, for instance, the visual arts remained relatively unaffected by state censorship of the 1960s\u2014and onward into the 70s. This would change in the 1980s as a result of performance artists\u2014like Glexis Novoa\u2014who disrupted public events with increasingly provocative acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1980s Havana art collectives formed with names that suggested links to Cuba\u2019s guerilla past, such as\u00a0El Grupo Provisional<\/em>, which Glexis Novoa founded (late 80s) with two other young Havana performance artists (Francisco Lastra and Carlos C\u00e1rdenas). According to Novoa, \u201c[el Grupo Provisional<\/em>] existed when we were going to do a project. When the opportunity arose we [conveniently] used the name\u00a0Provisional<\/em>\u00a0and included any number of artists in that exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group\u2019s strategy was influenced by both the Russian revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) and the 1916-17 Zurich Dada Cabaret Voltaire. They believed that \u201cthose past experiences were also a reaction to a political environment and could find a similar fate in Cuba.\u201d\u00a0This statement reveals Novoa consciously, if not conscientiously, understood\u00a0El Grupo Provisional\u00a0<\/em>was primarily a reaction to a political \u201cenvironment.\u201d Ironically, during the 1980s Cuban performance artists, like Novoa, would enlist Cuba\u2019s revolutionary heritage in its incremental war of attrition against the frontiers of acceptability. Their appropriation of this militarism denotes awareness of the \u201cwithin the Revolution, everything\u201d environment in which they acted, or performed. According to Novoa, performance art developed very late in Cuba compared to other countries due to restrictions on information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A key moment in the history of performance in Cuba was the incorporation of performance into the program at the\u00a0Instituto Superior de Arte<\/em>\u00a0of Havana in the mid \u201880s. Even when it was not taught as part of the curriculum, some professors, like Consuelo Casta\u00f1eda and Flavio Garcilandia, promoted performance art in the academic arena. The spread of performance by this means created a wider audience and promoted the realization of performances in different artistic events. At that time, the majority of happenings were elaborate pieces that included artists, musicians, dancers, poets and even critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of the instructors mentioned above taught where Novoa studied; he was a recent graduate of at the time of Rauschenberg\u2019s talk at\u00a0el Castillo<\/em>. In 1981, three new art spaces (re) opened,\u00a0Galer\u00eda Habana<\/em>;\u00a0Centro de Arte 23 y 12<\/em>, and\u00a0Centro Provincial de Artes Pl\u00e1sticas<\/em>, that play important parts in recognizing emerging talent, like Glexis Novoa.\u00a0According to Novoa, \u201cthere was an art for art\u2019s sake attitude due to the lack of commercial forces driving galleries, sales, etc.\u201d At that time there was no private sector in Cuba, no auctions at Sotheby\u2019s, and no articles in\u00a0Vanity Fair.<\/em>\u00a0A Cuban artist working \u201coutside\u201d of the political system would be like a US artist working \u201coutside\u201d the market. Fidel Castro did not mince words: within the Revolution, everything\u2026 against it, nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without full support from the Cuban state cultural apparatus it was difficult, if not impossible for a Cuban artist to be known abroad. According to Fusco, in Cuba, artists who deviated from ideology faced \u201cinternal exile, expulsion from professional organizations and jobs, and social marginalization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n True power is not reducible to censorship, the extreme state scenario\u2026. The power of the state is much more sophisticated, more elaborate, more diffused insofar as the cooperation of the art community is engendered through as series of social engineering moves, the limit of choices and the attractiveness of rewards. You don\u2019t need censorship when everyone [self-] censors. Even so, \u201csome of the artists who engaged in performance were emboldened by the widely held belief that Soviet style\u00a0perestroika<\/em>\u00a0would reach Cuba. In 1986, Castro had announced a plan to rectify Cuban socialism and some artists saw this as an invitation to act as the critical conscience of society. Havana\u2019s art scene in the late 1980s was the country\u2019s most dynamic cultural front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, as previously noted, Cuban visual artists were relatively privileged; living fruit of Cuba\u2019s free education. There may no equivalent Cuban expression for giving an inch and one taking a yard, but the idea applies. In 1983, during\u00a0Conferencia Ilustrada<\/em>, a roundtable about Dada art at the National School of Art (ISA), Novoa performed the first of many performances to come, collaborating with a group of other artists. They produced a \u201cscatological work\u201d within a series of simultaneous actions, such as painting upon an easel with excrement stored in a can. With a palette knife he painted a representation of a toilet. In 1984, Cuba hosted its first Biennial, which galvanized Cuba\u2019s position as a global cultural bellwether. Such cultural grandstanding on the world stage emboldened Cuban visual artists. For artists, like Glexis Novoa, the Genie was out of the bottle. For the Cuban Government, it was more like opening a Pandora\u2019s box. According to Luis Camnitzer, a leading expert on Cuban Art, the Biennial would be the \u201cundisputed platform from which the international success of the eighties generation could be launched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The year 1989 is also a time marker: the fall of the Soviet empire and the emergence of what was came to be called \u201cglobalization.\u201d It is also when the concept of the curator-as-explorer emerged in the contemporary art world, registering what James Clifford had observed and Hal Foster was soon to label as the \u201cartist-as-ethnographer\u201d paradigm\u2026 new impetus in the movement. The island and Havana city in particular was at once center, margin, harbor, and platform. The debates had implications in all levels; Cuban cultural policy became an example for the Third World. \u2026. The debates were translated into institutions, plans, and programs, resulting in particular cultural and artistic practices. This view would later inspire events such as the Havana Biennale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cuba\u2019s cultural leadership in the Third World was yet another shield behind which El Grupo Provisional <\/em>could \u201creact\u201d to the political environment. By the time of Rauschenberg\u2019s 1988 arrival in Havana, Novoa had executed five performances in Havana, including a group show held at the University of Havana in 1987. He had discovered that performance art required fewer resources than installation art\u2014his second \u201cgenre\u201d of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Novoa\u2019s bold work would earn him recognition as part of a \u201cconceptually and critically aggressive generation.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0After using visual artists as a propaganda tool for several decades, the Cuban Government could hardly throw them all in prison, not without its reputation as a cultural beacon diminishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the island\u2019s much heralded visual art\u2019s renaissance of the 1980s, performance art had become the aesthetic strategy of choice for serving up irreverent critiques of state art pedagogy, the state\u2019s power over artists, and the perceived hypocrisy of socialist officials. Artists in comic get up would interrupt academic conferences with satirical gestures\u2026 Lampooning bureaucrats\u2026 performance is cheap to produce and portable\u2026 Unlike painting and sculpture, performance art is imperceptible to authority before it is, making it an ideal means of intervening in unexpected places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similar \u201clampooning\u201d happened to Rauschenberg during his Havana public appearance for ROCI. The timing of Rauschenberg\u2019s Cuba ROCI visit coincided with the apex of Havana\u2019s 1980s performance art scene. Similarities between Rauschenberg\u2019s ROCI objectives (collaboration, indigenous techniques, etc.) and the following characterization of Havana performance art in 1988 should not be lost on readers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nineteen eighty-eight was the year [when performance proliferated] in the city of Havana. One might say they became fashionable. But the real reason was the urgency and need for free expression. Furthermore, the characteristics of such direct and independent practice to performance became the ideal tool for communicating ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rauschenberg\u2019s Cuba ROCI exhibit was Novoa\u2019s first real exposure to a contemporary (non-Cuban) artist. The texture of Rauschenberg\u2019s paintings as well as Rauschenberg\u2019s incorporation of everyday objects in his artwork greatly impressed Novoa. Like most Cuban artists, he had only been exposed to foreign art through the \u201cflattening language\u201d of magazines, newspapers, books, and television. He notes, Most of the pop artists had a very flat language\u2026remember\u2026we received flat information\u2026.so this integration of big, life-size objects suggesting the use of these objects\u2026objects often of industrial design\u2026.that make a link between the use and the object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The subtleties of Rauschenberg\u2019s work notwithstanding, by \u201coccupying\u201d all of Havana\u2019s major art venues, he might as well have painted a bull\u2019s eye on his back. Rauschenberg\u2019s 1988 Havana exhibit was the first time any artist\u2014an American one at that\u2014had taken over Havana\u2019s galleries and museums. Keeping one\u2019s enemies close is one thing, opening the gates to the proverbial barbarian \u201cinvasion\u201d quite another. A US citizen gaining total access to Cuba\u2019s museums beggared belief. One critic called him an \u201cart imperialist,\u201d who behaves like, a \u201cbig-time visiting American aided by ambassadors and surrounded by his entourage.\u201d\u00a0In the age of post-colonial theory, ROCI seemed to some critical eyes like a project of cultural invasion.\u201d\u00a0Even if we were to agree with this cynical outlook, we would still have to explain why the Cuban Government, arguably the embodiment of post-colonial theory, welcomed the US artist with open arms. By way of investigation, we turn to a government-run newspaper, that announced Rauschenberg\u2019s intentions in the following way: \u201cEl Norteamericano que quiere unir el mundo por el arte<\/em>,\u201d or, the North American\u2014meaning Rauschenberg\u2014who wants to unite the world through art.\u00a0We must wonder how his artwork could live up to such (local) lofty expectations? Maybe this was the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty minutes into Rauschenberg\u2019s public appearance, Novoa and two collaborators (aka, El Grupo Provisional<\/em>) staged a performance. Though not on the agenda, this performance did not stray far from the ROCI agenda: Novoa and his co-provocateurs used an \u201cindigenous technique\u201d\u2014performance art\u2014to lure Rauschenberg into collaborating with them. Novoa\u2019s collaborative performance art during Rauschenberg\u2019s 1988 public appearance in Havana, which is the central focus of this investigation, may have been Novoa\u2019s boldest and most significant. In hindsight, it also appears to have marked the beginning of the end, both for him and his fellow generation of performance artists. Rauschenberg\u2019s Havana public appearance was held to address local confusion, if not criticism, about his work, which filled the museum, in addition to two other big time Havana art institutions, wherein his public appearance occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\u00a0ROCI CUBA<\/em>, Rauschenberg produced a series of paintings on aluminum and steel using vivid primary colors, evoking the pre-1959 American cars commonly seen in Havana. His works were exhibited in 1988 at the\u00a0Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes<\/em>, the\u00a0Castillo de la Fuerza<\/em>and\u00a0Casa de las Am\u00e9ricas<\/em>, and at the\u00a0Galleria Haydee Santamar\u00eda,<\/em>\u00a0Havana. Countering criticism that his paintings did not celebrate the complete history of Cuba, Rauschenberg, during an open forum for students and the public, maintained, \u201cTo break down barriers, I think you need to see as an alien does\u2014to get lost in the city, or in the country, to see things in Cuba that maybe you are blind to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rauschenberg may not have been much of a celebrity in Cuba, but the government sure treated him like he was, and this no doubt fueled frustration by Cuban artists who must have been perplexed by Rauschenberg\u2019s seemingly apolitical artistic style. In the next section of this study, we read criticism about Rauschenberg\u2019s perceived \u201cfailure\u201d to celebrate the \u00a0\u201ccomplete history of Cuba\u201d sufficiently. What about Glexis Novoa\u2014what was his reaction to Rauschenberg\u2019s artwork? Glexis Novoa, then twenty-three, was struck by the presence of an \u201carmy\u201d of art handlers helping to mount Rauschenberg\u2019s exhibition inside the\u00a0Castillo de la Fuerza,\u00a0<\/em>a Spanish fortress overlooking the mouth of Havana\u2019s harbor, and a UNESCO-designated (1982) World Heritage Site.\u00a0He watched with disbelief as art handlers drilled holes into the walls of the\u00a0Castillo.<\/em>\u00a0Far from celebrating Cuban history, Rauschenberg was defacing it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Novoa, Rauschenberg\u2019s artwork of monumental \u201cmacho-man sized\u201d proportions struck a dissonant chord. However, not all of Rauschenberg\u2019s ROCI work in Cuba was super-sized. In addition to the much larger works he displayed in three locations in Havana, Rauschenberg also designed three posters, one for each of his Havana shows. These posters were much smaller in size (the size of a typical poster) than Rauschenberg\u2019s artwork inside Havana\u2019s museums. Another difference was their public display (posting) all over Havana to announce Rauschenberg\u2019s three exhibits. Print editions of Rauschenberg\u2019s posters did not remain in public view for long. According to the\u00a0Miami Herald<\/em>, \u201cRauschenberg\u2019s catalogues disappeared in the first hour.\u201d Paper was (still is) a precious commodity in Cuba.\u00a0Novoa swiped one of Rauschenberg\u2019s posters for want of paper, but before we address\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0he needed the paper for, we can also consider Rauschenberg\u2019s three ROCI posters, starting with the one that Novoa brought along with him to Rauschenberg\u2019s 1988 Havana public appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RAUSCHENBERG\u2019S ROCI CUBA POSTERS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rauschenberg\u2019s signature use of photo transfers and bright graphic colors is superficially reminiscent of Cuban propaganda art, but such similarities are more style than substance. In Cuba, images are highly political. In Rauschenberg\u2019s artwork, images are subverted into a metaphysical language of form, color, and verisimilitude. Rauschenberg\u2019s primary objective, as we recall, was to play the part of the alien observer, holding up a mirror, albeit one distorted to his liking, into which his host country could gaze. His three ROCI posters reflect a playful obsession with the Cuban flag, specifically its big white five-pointed star. This conclusion is meaningful to this investigation because it underscores Rauschenberg\u2019s total devotion to being a fish out of water. If he had not embraced his outsider status so thoroughly, Novoa and his colleagues may not have been so emboldened; Rauschenberg\u2019s neutrality was their shield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four stripes of text run horizontally across the\u00a0Castillo de la Fuerza\u00a0<\/em>poster, providing the date and location (February 10\u2013April 3) of Rauschenberg\u2019s\u00a0Castillo\u00a0<\/em>exhibit. The topmost line of text reads, \u201cRauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange.\u201d Excluding the text, most of the visual elements are photographic transfers of objects\/ideas that struck Rauschenberg\u2019s visual fancy in Cuba. \u201cThe artist likes to point out that his palette is not limited to paints; it consists of an infinite repertory of photographs, most of them taken by him.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0One of his few \u201cunfulfilled dreams\u201d was to photograph the world in its entirety, \u201cbig as life.\u201d \u00a0His only fear is that he might \u201crun out of world.\u201d\u00a0Perhaps ROCI was his attempt to fulfill this dream.\u00a0The world provided his raw materials for art, as demonstrated by his posters. Cuba is both subject and the medium. The artist is ancillary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0(He called this indexing visual strategy \u201cintroducing the world to itself.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Close inspection reveals triangles, stripes, and even stars; all the elements of the Cuban flag! The red, white, and blue color palette of Rauschenberg\u2019s Castillo poster references the colors of the Cuban flag. The colors dominate the viewing experience, as do the crisscrossing lines and silhouettes. The crooked lamppost, another ubiquitous object in Cuba, leans over the horizontal red stripe, nearly forming a red triangle. Even the little red man resembles a star. This red, star-like figure, serves as self-visualization: the artist gazing at his surroundings. The poster portrays Rauschenberg observing inasmuch as it illustrates the things, the places, and the people, he observed. The\u00a0Castillo<\/em>\u00a0poster, we note, is equal parts self-portrait and landscape. Rauschenberg has provided us the raw materials of a flag, but the viewer must weave them together.\u00a0In Rauschenberg\u2019s two remaining posters, he also played with the Cuban flag and its five-pointed white star, wedging it in between letters and words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are subtle references to flags in the form of draped fabric hanging (very flag-like) from clotheslines in the lower portion of his second poster, this one designed for his Casa de las Americas <\/em>exhibit. In the upper portion, flag references include a bright yellow star hovering slightly off-center. This yellow star is masquerading as the letter \u201cA,\u201d of the word \u201cAmericas<\/em>.\u201d As soon as we acknowledge the (subtle) presence of a yellow star, we begin to notice stars in multiple places. The star is also wedged into the words, \u201cHABANA CUBA,\u201d where it likewise masquerades as the letter \u201cA.\u201d In Cuba, the star is a stand in for the Revolution as well as Cuba, a reduction of the Cuban flag into a visual essence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his third and final poster for his exhibition at El Museo Nacional <\/em>we see continued fascination for stars. In it, flag allusions are seen in visual concert with highly politically charged iconography. In Cuba, painting Che Guevara or Jose Mart\u00ed is the easiest way for an artist to declare revolutionary solidarity. Rauschenberg painted both. Portraits of Che Guevara and statues of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed are as omnipresent in Cuba as ceiling fans. Even so, we note that the bright green word \u201cOVERSEAS\u201d is a complete visual obfuscation of Che\u2019s little star\u2014the prominent one on his beret, worn in all of his photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He could have moved the image slightly to the left in order to have the letter \u201cA\u201d in \u201cOVERSEAS\u201d floating directly over Che\u2019s star, or where it should be located. In the other two posters, we noted Rauschenberg\u2019s attention to these seemingly small compositional details, specifically with the letter \u201cA.\u201d In this instance, it is squarely in the center of the poster, created out of the letter \u201cA\u201d in \u201cNACIONAL.\u201d Prominent stars visually compensates for its absences elsewhere. Like his play with the star on Che\u2019s beret, Rauschenberg camouflaged the letter \u201cA\u201d into the reaching right hand of Jose Mart\u00ed, who stands Prospero-like and all-powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where is Che\u2019s star? Is it up Jose Mart\u00ed\u2019s sleeve? We find it nested within the word \u201cNACIONAL\u201d\u2014a\u00a0fitting<\/em>\u00a0location. The triangle, or pyramid-shaped ceiling fan mirrors this visual balancing act and serves as a compass for viewers. Its four extensions establish four-dimensional space, with length, width, height, and depth. These lines lead up, down, diagonal, and across to easily resemble a star\u2019s pointing extremities. A \u201cstar\u201d appears hovering directly above Che\u2019s beret, where the little star should be. The star icon masquerades as everyday objects, like the ceiling fan. Such visual play with politically charged symbols might have been received poorly by his Cuban audience had Rauschenberg not balanced it out with a fierce monochromatic red, which gives the entire composition a Communist tone. Rauschenberg\u2019s fascination with the Cuban star may not have been rooted in Cuba. The star was an important local icon as well as a personal one for Rauschenberg. Take a look at the red star in his 1950 painting\u00a0The Lily White.\u00a0<\/em>It is incised with random numerals in a rough geometrical pattern and embellished with a little red star\u2014\u201csomething that makes every painting look better,\u201d Rauschenberg stated, as it implies a sale.\u00a0The star in\u00a0Lily White<\/em>\u00a0is a visual point of origin, one loaded with personal meaning for Rauschenberg. Behind all the stars there is a highly personalized visual reference. He mentions it midway through his public appearance, which will now be our focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PART III: CASTILLO DE LA FUERZA PUBLIC APPEARANCE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that we have reviewed Rauschenberg\u2019s three posters, we can concentrate on his appearance at the Castillo de la Fuerza<\/em>, during which Glexis Novoa and other members of El Grupo Provisional <\/em>staged a performance. The Castillo de la Fuerza<\/em>, a colonial fortress located at the mouth of Havana\u2019s Harbor, served as the location for one of Rauschenberg\u2019s three exhibits, as well as his public appearance. Rauschenberg\u2019s public appearance was held, in part, to address criticism about his failure to celebrate Cuban culture fully and accurately. Between him and his audience stood a language barrier, a generation gap, and an Iron Curtain. His audience, enviably young and tan, watches him ramble with amused boredom. In the words of one observer,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rauschenberg\u2019s [Castillo<\/em>\u00a0show] was received [by his Cuban artist audience] with reservation\u2026 or with a mix of irony and indifference\u2026 by Cuban artists\u2026 who were engrossed in resolving more pressing problems than those presented by the traveling tortoise.\u201d The same observer also asked, \u201cWas [Rauschenberg\u2019s] incursion an effort to facilitate a dialogue or a blind monologue?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several aspects of Rauschenberg\u2019s Q&A can be enlisted in his defense against such criticism. First, Rauschenberg\u2019s disheveled appearance conveys little pretense about his authority. Second, allowing the public to ask him questions is not a monologue, though, in truth, he did all the answering and none of the questioning. The Q&A format suggests Rauschenberg\u2019s intention to have a one-on-one interchange, instead of a blind monologue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had a couple of colleagues, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Rauschenberg states,\u00a0\u201cand we didn\u2019t have a kind of self-pity attitude about the world. We worked as though the world was a fact, and it was filled with objects that were real, and without criticism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We may wonder if his having \u201chad two colleagues, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly,\u201d refers to paintings by Johns and Twombly sold to finance his ROCI project. The translator, seated on Rauschenberg\u2019s right, struggles with the word, \u201cself-pity.\u201d Frustrated, he discards the translation altogether. Rauschenberg goes ahead without realizing that his translator needed more time. The hare speeding ahead of the tortoise characterizes the first twenty minutes of Q&A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To make matters worse, Rauschenberg\u2019s poetic license with words works with English, but fails to translate into Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow later another generation came\u2026.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Rauschenberg says, picking up his meandering train of thought.\u00a0\u201cThen pop art began\u2026 I think after we had revealed the fact that the world\u2014reality\u2014was nothing to be ashamed of.\u201d<\/em> Rauschenberg\u2019s rambling statement meets silence. He acknowledges this with an aside,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m not through, am I?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Translation: I am bombing here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI never thought of myself as one idea leading to another\u2026\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he informs his audience.\u00a0\u201cBecause that\u2019s, uh, didactic. As far as what the Northern part of the United States is doing, is, it\u2019s a big cafeteria for artists making money\u2026. I am not particularly happy about what\u2019s going on there. It\u2019s not as innovative and creative as it was, say, in the 50s and in the 60s\u2026 I think success is a kind of disease for creative people and spreads very rapidly. I have met colleagues who are interested in just promoting their own style and their financial stability. And that has nothing to do with creativity. You have to be excitingly raw, in order to [awaken] the world.\u201d<\/em> Rauschenberg tells his audience,\u00a0\u201cI have a turtle that I\u2019ve had for thirty-five years. His name is Rocky\u2026, he wins all the races.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Talk about one idea leading to another!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apparently, Rauschenberg saw himself as a refugee fleeing from a bad habitat\u2014a \u201cdiseased capitalist\u201d art world. However, someone in the audience protests that Rauschenberg\u2019s turtle comments do not, \u201cprovide any explanation whatsoever.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Perhaps about him uniting the world with art?)\u00a0\u201cOk, alright,<\/em>\u201d he states, meaning, if my last comment didn\u2019t explain things, then the following will:\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s the international legendary connotation from Hindu and many other religions that the turtle carries the weight of the world. So it\u2019s both.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Why does the artist make so much ado about turtles? The answer can be found in revisiting Rauschenberg\u2019s obsession with stars. Rauschenberg\u2019s strained effort to win over his audience to the turtle camp was due to the fact that the turtle was a kind of personal syncretism,\u00a0as we will see by returning to his ROCI poster depicting his turtle Rocky. In it, we see a single subject sandwiched between horizontal lines of text. We can guess who this turtle is and to whom it belongs. The turtle\u2019s pedigree is not so interesting at its physical form, or shape. This bird\u2019s eye view highlights Rocky\u2019s resemblance to a five-pointed star. Four appendages, two arms, and two legs, extending from the shell, form the four cardinal points of a star. Rocky\u2019s head forms the fifth point of the star, or its spire. In terms our earlier analysis of Rauschenberg\u2019s stars, we can speculate that Rauschenberg was not only aware of Rocky\u2019s star-like resemblance, or to a star representation, but also that this resemblance crystalized a personal visual motif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rauschenberg\u2019s fascination with stars seems to be a visual analog of him being a fish out of water. He does not evaluate\u2014he only observes, he does not evaluate. If any verisimilitude is to be uncovered it is in the pure idiosyncrasy of his effort. Whatever may or may not be the merits of this approach, we must agree that it was one of the key ingredients necessary for the Novoa-Rauschenberg interchange to arise, partly because Novoa incorporated one of Rauschenberg\u2019s posters\u2014the Castillo de la Fuerza <\/em>poster\u2014into the performance he staged during Rauschenberg\u2019s Castillo <\/em>public appearance. But also because Rauschenberg\u2019s outsider status\u2014his neutrality\u2014served as cover for El Grupo Provisional<\/em>\u2019s \u201cmanifestation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n PART IV: VERY GOOD RAUSCHENBERG<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Near the end of Rauschenberg\u2019s public appearance, Novoa and the two other Provisional <\/em>members \u201cstole the show.\u201d They enter from the back of the room, wading through the audience upstage toward Rauschenberg. The poster is so big it requires two men and both of their arms to carry it. But where is Novoa? We don\u2019t notice him because the outsized sheet of cardboard obscures him from view, but he is present, standing to the left of his comrades. He carries something that viewers can\u2019t see. The rest of us have no problem seeing what\u2019s on the bigger placard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVery Good Rauschenberg\u201d is written in large capital letters. On the lower right is written \u201cGrupo Provisional.\u201d Unlike Rauschenberg, El Grupo Provisional<\/em> did not cling to their mother tongue, using English to literally proclaim to the artist, \u201cVery Good!\u201d To the right of those words is the profile of a Ta\u00edno <\/em>Indian, a clear reference to the Indian chief (Hatuey) who led a failed rebellion against Columbus. The three diagonal scratch marks on the warrior\u2019s left cheek simultaneously suggest paint and blood\u2014a visual connection between art and violence. The crude black border framing the subject matter and the text emerging from the stylized Indian\u2019s mouth appear to reflect comic book art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The intention seems clear: the imagery summons parallels between colonialism and Rauschenberg\u2019s artistic \u201cinvasion.\u201d Next, Novoa\u2019s colleagues place Very Good Rauschenberg <\/em>in front of the visiting artist. The placard is so big that it acts like a mini-Iron Curtain, isolating Rauschenberg from his Castillo<\/em> audience. This division produces simultaneous impressions of intimacy and claustrophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing indicates that Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em> is part of the program. \u201c\u00bfQue es esto?,\u201d<\/em> the Cuban official on Rauschenberg\u2019s left exclaims with an amused tone. \u201cWhat is this<\/em>?\u201d Photographers surround Rauschenberg, further obscuring the audience\u2019s view of what\u2019s transpiring. A murmur fills the room as the audience shifts to get a better look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Held by Novoa in his right hand is the Castillo de la Fuerza<\/em> poster evaluated earlier. Novoa hands it to Rauschenberg, while reaching into his back pocket to find the paintbrush for Rauschenberg to use to sign his name on the (his? Novoa\u2019s?) Castillo de la Fuerza <\/em>poster. All of this is happening in front of Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>, the large square placard that forms an impromptu backdrop. Next, Novoa leans in and asks Rauschenberg to sign the poster with the provided paintbrush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy this?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Rauschenberg politely asks, referring to the brush, though we must also wonder the same in reference to the\u00a0Castillo\u00a0<\/em>poster. \u201cIt will look better this way<\/em>,\u201d is Novoa\u2019s reply.\u00a0What he probably meant was, \u201cIt will be more valuable this way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rauschenberg immediately obliges\u2014or takes Novoa to task, depending on our interpretation of events. Up to this point, Rauschenberg has been more of a prop, or pawn, on Novoa\u2019s \u201cchessboard.\u201d This changes when Rauschenberg writes his (sprawling) signature across the poster, from the left edge to the right. Rauschenberg\u2019s hand reaches the far right edge of the poster, but he does not lift the brush. Instead, he allows it to slip over the edge onto Novoa\u2019s plaid pants, Novoa\u2019s pants becoming a medium drawn unexpectedly into this scenario. This singular gesture transforms Rauschenberg\u2019s role from participant to collaborator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Novoa may have tricked Rauschenberg into leaving his mark, but Rauschenberg retaliated by leaving an additional (spontaneous) mark on Novoa\u2019s plaid pants. Nevertheless, the day belonged to Novoa: Rauschenberg\u2019s act of signing one of his own works\u2014the poster\u2014inadvertently made it, the poster, a work by Glexis Novoa. \u201cThank you very much<\/em>,\u201d Novoa says to Rauschenberg, who has just finished marking Novoa\u2019s pants. It is over. El Grupo Provisional <\/em>retreats back into the jungle\u2014mission accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PART V: CORRECTING THE RECORD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Scholarship about what just happened relies exclusively on eyewitnesses who were blocked from seeing what really transpired behind\u00a0Very Good Rauschenberg. El Grupo Provisional\u2019<\/em>s makeshift \u201ccardboard curtain.\u201d A comparison of scholarship about the Novoa-Rauschenberg interchange with the video archival accounts\u00a0yields striking disparities. This comparison reveals that scholarship about the Novoa-Rauschenberg exchange, based entirely on eyewitness accounts, provides an unreliable narrative. The witnessed subject, the large, obstructive square placard\u2014limited the audience\u2019s view of what happened. Scholars state that Rauschenberg signed his name on\u00a0Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>, mistakenly omitting the presence of a second, smaller placard that Novoa requested Rauschenberg sign\u2014aka the\u00a0Castillo de la Fuerza\u00a0<\/em>poster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The black and white photo (above) clearly shows Rauschenberg signing his Castillo <\/em>poster, which we have spent enough time analyzing in this paper that we should take no time recognizing it. (Apparently, in addition to neglecting the video record of the event, scholars have also overlooked the photographic record.) If we are to believe existing scholarship about what happened, Rauschenberg signed Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>, not his Castillo de la Fuerza <\/em>poster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rauschenberg \u201cwas greeted by\u00a0El<\/em>\u00a0Grupo Provisional<\/em>\u2026. who stormed the museum\u2019s auditorium bearing a sign reading \u201cVery Good Rauschenberg\u201d that they insisted (in Spanish, which he did not understand) the befuddled artist autograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We saw in our earlier analysis of Rauschenberg\u2019s public appearance that Novoa, in fact, did not ask Rauschenberg to sign\u00a0Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>. Clearly, eyewitness testimony of the interchange was limited, if not mistaken. Photographic and video evidence shows no insistence, nor do we observe any \u201cbefuddling.\u201d Rauschenberg\u2019s decision to mark Novoa\u2019s pants was without hesitation: direct and straightforward. Another citation about the occasion ignores Rauschenberg\u2019s having signed anything at all: \u201cProvisional\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0carnivalesque, faux-groupie play was masterfully impish in its dismissal of the \u201cvery good\u201d artist, the simple, silly gesture\u00a0farting<\/em>\u00a0on myth at several levels: the art student\u2019s adulation of fame, the anti-imperialist position of the Cuban national institution, the \u201cIndian\u2019s\u201d warm embrace of the conqueror, the \u201cuniversality\u201d of the language of art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDismissive\u201d is an inapt characterization of what happened. This scholar concludes that the entire interchange was \u201cfarting\u201d in Rauschenberg\u2019s face. Video evidence confirms that the exchange was polite, even cordial. Novoa politely asked Rauschenberg for his autograph, and thanked Rauschenberg for providing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the same conference,\u00a0Grupo Provisional<\/em>\u00a0staged the performance \u201cVery Good Rauschenberg,\u201d during which Novoa, Lastra, and Rodriguez approached Rauschenberg with a placard, painted with the face of an Indian, which read \u201cVery Good Rauschenberg,\u201d and they asked him to autograph it. Surprised by the intervention, the disconcerted artist finally accepted to sign the placard, thus participating in a way in the criticism of himself. According to Novoa, both performances showed an irreverent attitude before \u201cthe<\/em>\u00a0gringo\u201d<\/em>\u00a0who was doing what he wanted in different spaces of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This citation above portrays a \u201cdisconcerted\u201d Rauschenberg, who \u201cfinally\u201d agreed to sign \u201cthe placard.\u201d The video evidence shows no deliberation by Rauschenberg. Novoa handed him the brush and Rauschenberg immediately complied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grupo Provisional<\/em>\u00a0members Glexis Novoa, Carlos C\u00e1rdenas and Francisco Lastra presented Rauschenberg with a crudely painted placard bearing an Indian head that said, \u2018Very Good Rauschenberg\u2019, and asked him to sign it, which he did. Although they addressed Rauschenberg in these performances, the artists were once again making fun of the hypocritical obsequiousness of the Cuban cultural bureaucrats, who, despite the anti-American stance of the Cuban government, had given the \u2018Yankee imperialist\u2019 free rein to show his art in several of Havana\u2019s art spaces at once, a gesture they viewed as a form of neocolonial submission. It was a symbolic assault on the cultural bureaucracy in which body language spoke louder than words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This following citation repeats the same erroneous account: \u201cDuring a reception at the museum the artists stormed [into] the auditorium bearing signs that said\u00a0Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>, which they insisted he autograph.\u201d\u00a0Though\u00a0Provisional\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0entrance may be characterized as \u201cstorming the auditorium,\u201d Novoa\u2019s (entrance) cannot. If anything, he was invisible\u2014camouflaged even. In addition, Novoa is not seen touching\u00a0Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>. We cannot assume, therefore, that Novoa is directly involved with the activity, but we do know that Rauschenberg was not asked to sign the piece. Also, note that the author refers erroneously to the two placards involved in the plural, as in \u201cbearing signs\u201d that said\u00a0Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another twist to the story is Novoa\u2019s personal website, which cites the mistaken version of events. Scholarly inaccuracy may be forgiven due to unreliable testimony, but reading this inaccurate account (citation on following page) on the website of Glexis Novoa must raise eyebrows. He knows better\u2014literally. However, when reading his glowing citation, we can understand why the artist likes the fictionalized version:<\/p>\n\n\n\n El Grupo Provisional<\/em>\u00a0[skewered] the self-colonizing impulse behind the museum\u2019s decision to turn itself over to Rauschenberg\u2019s self-aggrandizement. The government did not censor Novoa\u2019s own incursion perhaps because his performance overtly targeted the foreigner, the not-so-subtle jab at the state by reclaiming and institution for Cuban artists clearly having been lost on the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the final analysis, Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em> may have been \u201cmaking fun of the hypocritical obsequiousness of the Cuban cultural bureaucrats,\u201d but Novoa\u2019s less visible collaboration with Rauschenberg does not support this conclusion. Scholars use words like \u201cskewer\u201d in their effort to cast Novoa and his peers as iconoclasts. To observers, especially \u201csecondary\u201d ones, Novoa\u2019s real \u201cperformance\u201d was completely missed, and, therefore, misunderstood:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Novoa\u2019s performance reclaimed this important cultural institution. Arguably it was the most important one in Cuba, and it had been handed over to a foreigner for, what\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>art critic Roberta Smith called, Rauschenberg\u2019s own self-aggrandizement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The above description casts Novoa and his peers in the role of St. Mathew slaying the two-headed dragon, as played by the Cuban Government and Robert Rauschenberg, but we know the story is a little more complicated than that. This above-cited version of the event, its implicit characterization of the proverbial good, the bad, and the ugly, is belied by Novoa\u2019s brief but fruitful exchange with Rauschenberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We now know that Rauschenberg\u2019s Havana public appearance was interrupted by more than one performance piece. When we compare the first, involving Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em>, with the second, involving a signed poster, we see why the first one gets so much attention. Very Good Rauschenberg <\/em>is much bigger in size, more easily seen, while the Castillo <\/em>signing might as well have been invisible. Very Good Rauschenberg<\/em> makes use of familiar visual language with clear references to colonial history. The Castillo <\/em>poster makes use of, well, a Rauschenberg\u2019s poster. Indeed, Novoa\u2019s decision to use Rauschenberg\u2019s artwork challenges the whole premise of authorship, if not flipping it upside down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Art Historians should be quick to recognize the similarities between this \u201cappropriation-of-authorship\u201d and Rauschenberg\u2019s famous\u00a0Erased De Kooning<\/em>. Its importance, we know, is based exclusively on the same kind of execution and authorship that characterizes Novoa\u2019s interchange with Rauschenberg.\u00a0In 1953, Rauschenberg, then in his early twenties, asked artist Willem de Kooning (1904-97) to give him a work of art to erase. \u201cIt had to begin as art\u2026. so it had to be a de Kooning if it was going to be an important piece.\u201d\u00a0De Kooning accepted Rauschenberg\u2019s proposal and the result was\u00a0Erased De Kooning.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0A short summary of this 1953 exchange reveals important parallels to the Novoa-Rauschenberg interchange. Furthermore, these parallels add weight to the significance of the Novoa-Rauschenberg collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With great respect and trepidation, Rauschenberg approached de Kooning to ask for a drawing to erase; with some reluctance and consternation, de Kooning consented. According to Rauschenberg, de Kooning agreed to participate because he understood the concept behind the request and did not want to impede another artist\u2019s work. Back in his studio, Rauschenberg set to work reversing de Kooning\u2019s masterful draftsmanship, a process that took considerable time and numerous erasers. Rauschenberg had a penchant for storytelling, and some of the finer details of his account were embellished over the decades (de Kooning\u2019s demeanor grew more intimidating, the number of erasers increased). However, the central plot points, present in the first major public airing of the tale in Calvin Tomkins\u2019s February 1964\u00a0New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0profile of Rauschenberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The autographed Castillo <\/em>poster adds another twist. Ironically, by signing the poster that Novoa presented to him, Rauschenberg relinquished his authorship and Novoa acquired it. According to Novoa, his 1988 interchange with Rauschenberg was not an attempt to replicate Rauschenberg\u2019s 1953 artistic exchange with Willem de Kooning. I interviewed Glexis Novoa and I asked him if his Castillo<\/em> performance had been inspired by Rauschenberg\u2019s \u201cinterchange\u201d with de Kooning. It had not\u2014he hadn\u2019t even heard of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The similarities between Erased De Kooning<\/em> and the Castillo <\/em>poster are so striking that they make all the more glaring the omission of Novoa\u2019s collaboration with Rauschenberg from the official record. Both involve a young, upstart artist brazenly throwing the gauntlet down before a living legend. Both involve a younger artist appropriating an elder artist\u2019s work. Both challenge the notion of authorship. Both are equal parts performance and painting. Finally, both erase one author while manifesting another simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EPILOGUE: RAUSCHENBERG BRUSHING OFF ON NOVOA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We find evidence of Rauschenberg\u2019s influence on Novoa in work created immediately following the former\u2019s ROCI Cuba visit, as well as in work created by Novoa many years later\u2014namely,\u00a0Honorary Guest<\/em>, which we analyzed at the inception of this study. In Novoa\u2019s 1989 painting,\u00a0Untitled<\/em>, \u00a0his big red star wedged in between a line of text, dominates the frame. This use of a star wedged into text is identical to the stars intruding into text in all three of Rauschenberg\u2019s ROCI posters, including the signed Rauschenberg\u00a0Castillo\u00a0<\/em>poster\u2014Novoa\u2019s\u00a0Erased Rauschenberg.<\/em>\u00a0Therefore, it is easy to conclude that Rauschenberg rubbed off on Novoa, in addition to brushing him with paint. Rauschenberg\u2019s visit marked the beginning of the end of an era. Thereafter, work by Cuban performance artists would become so brazen that the government was obligated to respond, notably jailing one artist (not Novoa) for publicly defecating on the official Cuban newspaper (la Granma<\/em>). Novoa, like many of his peers, left Cuba in the late 80s seeking success abroad. He now resides in Miami, Florida. As of the completion of this study, his website still cites the inaccurate version of how his 1988 interchange with Robert Rauschenberg unfolded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Novoa-Rauschenberg Exchange is a valuable case study proving that the only thing one should expect from an echo chamber are echoes. Scholars parroted other scholars without consulting available primary sources (photographs and video evidence). Due to Cuba\u2019s unique \u201cstate\u201d of cultural isolation, this scholarly lassitude can be understood, if not forgiven. In a world in which not even the artist is necessarily a reliable narrator, we Art Historians must seek hard evidence, where available. Trust but verify. If scholars like Coco Fusco, Luis Camnitzer, and Rachel Weiss (the who\u2019s-who of scholarship about Contemporary Cuban Art) can \u201cget it wrong,\u201d then anyone can. Thanks to places like the Rauschenberg Foundation and its vast archive, valuable evidence is publicly available; it is a shame\u2014if not an academic misdemeanor\u2014to let such a goldmine go to waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This study has shown that, in Cuba, ideology and art blend together so mellifluously that we Art Historians must take extra care when \u201cunpacking\u201d eyewitness testimony. We recall Castro\u2019s 1961 declaration, \u201cwithin the Revolution, everything, outside of it, nothing.\u201d We must evaluate all Cuban art produced \u201cwithin\u201d the Revolution in terms of this underlying cultural superimposition by the State. When evaluating El Grupo Provisional\u2019s<\/em> \u201cmanifestation\u201d during Rauschenberg\u2019s public appearance, scholars accepted the testimony of onlookers as fact. But in Cuba, looks can be especially deceiving. In Cuba, all artwork ineluctably declares its allegiance, aesthetic, ideological, or otherwise, to the Revolution, or it is, by definition, anti-Revolutionary. However, artists, or artist collectives like El Grupo Provisional<\/em>, subverted these parameters by enlisting them in performances, making an ostentatious \u201cshow\u201d of being within<\/em> the Revolution, and, in so doing, satirizing the state with carefully contrived obsequiousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take \u201cVery Good Rauschenberg,\u201d for instance. The large cardboard placard of the angry savage was Provisional\u2019s<\/em> way of proclaiming, \u201cSee? We are within the Revolution,\u201d enlisting conventional, even cartoonish, imagery in their audacious effort. This imagery echoed commonplace anti-imperialist ideology (text and image) that is so publicly pervasive in Cuban society. Such ideological grandstanding allowed Glexis Novoa to momentarily peek through the Iron Curtain, undetected by anybody\u2014not even the scholars. Ordinary Cubans are not supposed to have any private moments with foreign dignitaries, like Rauschenberg. Only Fidel is allowed any all-night \u201cchats\u201d with foreign celebrities. If a (Cuban) artist wanted to ask Rauschenberg questions, it had be in public, with everyone watching, listening, this ensuring that everything remained within the Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But El Grupo Provisional <\/em>guaranteed that Big Brother would not be watching by deploying the disgruntled native, so-to-speak, putting on a quintessentially Cuban anti-imperialist dog \u2018n\u2019 pony show. While Big Brother was looking away, Novoa poked his head through the Iron Curtain and said hello to Robert Rauschenberg, on Novoa\u2019s terms, and with his own devices. Rauschenberg\u2019s autograph, obtained by Novoa during their brief but important exchange, is, in the final analysis, a recording of Novoa\u2019s short stint outside<\/em> of the Revolution. No small feat in Cuba. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ___________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexander Nixon is a writer, journalist, critic, and songwriter. He has written one novel and published several short stories, as well as produced numerous music videos available online with his band, The Violets. He has a BA from Stanford University (Latin American Studies, Fine Arts, 2000), and an MA in Latin American Studies from NYU (2008). <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/artsolido.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/1330117-robert-rauschenberg-serigrafc3ada-20-x-27.522-.jpeg?resize=723%2C527&ssl=1\")
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