CAMAGÜEY.- It is a big hall with works coming from six provinces, with various themes and with the common denominator of being created practically with a magnifying glass, as a requirement for the XI National Biennial of Small Format Julio Hernández in Memoriam.
These are the first impressions of the contest of an event summoned by the Sociocultural Project eJo, from Camagüey, in its first edition without the physical presence of its founder Julio Hernández Figueredo.
The opening night with full space was a parallel sample of the magnetism of a cultural institution that, since its foundation 19 years ago, has the complicity of the artists and the loyalty of the audience.
This explains the warmth of the concert given by the sax player Henry Hernández wand the band Intempore, a musical laboratory where excellent instrumentalist came together, to play with their souls since the first song, "La Chica de Ipanema", the song that Julito Hernández always asked for.
There was of course oral narration, another main course of Project eJo, with a proposal from the actor Luis Andrés Till Sanfield, a guest from Las tunas, popular for his performances in bucolic themes and for conquering three times the Juglar Award to the best show of oral narration in Cuba.
Each gester of the night carried the grief for the loss of Julio Hernández, as much as the gratitude for his encouragement and his works made with aesthetic severity, ethical deepness and acknowledged community impact.
This year, 87 pieces by 57 artists are in competition and are already being analyzed by the main jury─Oscar Rodríguez Martínez, Agustín Calviño Insua and Pedro Quiñones Triana─, and from about a score of institutions committed with side prizes.
“Not because it is about works of small format they lack the magistral use of well performed techniques that by themselves heighten the prestige of this biennial, of its makers and of the good health of visual arts in Cuba”, insisted Luis Michel Ramírez, coordinator of the event.
The Biennial of Small Format will continue this Thursday with the opening of the hall "Grandes que hacen pequeño", at the gallery Alejo Carpentier, at 4:00 p.m.; and in the night, at the seat of eJo, from 9:00 p.m.; with the tribute to Julito Hernández, an artist that, unquestionably, still brings good things.
- Translated by Elianna Díaz Mendieta