Ana Menendez, The Miami Herald

February 11, 2008

Ana Menendez

The Miami Herald

One Herald Plaza

Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: It’s better in Latin – “Art is long; life is short” – but, heaven forefend, you might think me to be an elitist and a captive of Dead White European Males. A somewhat different take on the woes of “Afro-Cuban surrealist” artist Wifredo Lam when the Philistines of Miami went after him as outlined in your column on Sunday, February 10, 2008.

Ms. Menendez,

A tale about any “Afro-Cuban surrealist” is worthy of comment. My favorite description of an artist is still “alcoholic homosexual dwarf”. “Afro-Cuban surrealist” is worthy of inclusion on the short list of contenders.

Move over, Dali! There’s a new kid in town.

“Enforcers of cultural orthodoxy” has a whiff of hubris about it. After all, how could an “Afro-Cuban surrealist” who has “never hid his sympathies for Castro’s revolution” be anything but a superior artist? If you don’t like his politics you won’t like his art, right? Even for someone who doesn’t know anything about art but who knows his politics would like him, right? As Jake Kite, the noted British labor leader, used to say, “All them corn fields and ballet at night”.

If ever there were music for which the words lush and plush were coined it was written by Wagner. Israel banned his music for more than 50 years even though he died 10years before Hitler was born. Despite being grounded for more than half a century the Valkyries soared when finally let out of their cages.

Ezra Pound, without whom 20^th Century Literature would be unrecognizable, was snatched off the streets of a foreign country in 1945. He was held in an asylum in Washington, D.C. without being charged, arraigned, tried, or convicted of anything until 1958.

If Wifredo Lam felt the sting of Pecksniffian anti-Castro bluenoses 20 years ago what did Anita Bryant feel 39 years ago?

The large tent called “art” is surely wide enough to include her, isn’t it?

If Senor Lam was penalized for his politics could not the same be said of her?

Since we are instructed by the dramatist that “Free men speak with free tongues” we must err on the side of license. If speech and art are to be unfettered it must be universal. Either you are pregnant or you are not.

The appreciation of art is a universe for which the word “subjective” was invented. Since it – “art” and all its attendants - is a component part of speech it is either free or it is not.

The “liberal fascism” that condemned Anita Bryant cannot expect one of its supposed good guys – “Afro-Cuban surrealist”, Wifredo Lam – to be exempt from the same type of criticism.

Thomas More asked a true believer what he would do to stop the devil. “I’d cut down every law in England to get at him”, was the reply. The answer, “And when he turned round and came at you what would you do, all the laws being flat? Where would you hide?”

The petard upon which Anita Bryant was hoisted worked quite well for Senor Lam.

Send up a flare when an exhibit of cartoons mocking Mohammed is presented in Havana.