6 billboards, oil on canvas and lacquered metal supports
400.0 x 1200.0 x 1200.0 (cm)
157.5 x 472.4 x 472.4 (inch)
Diango Hernández
“Words to Sea”, 2015 ;
Words to Sea is a ‘translation’ of six quotations extracted from Fidel Castro’s 1961 speech ‘Words to Intellectuals’. The ‘translation’ has been made using a font called Waves that Hernández has created especially for this work. All characters in the font look the same, therefore once the text is changed into his Waves font what we see looks like a repetition of the waves of the sea. The six billboards are arranged in two rows form a corridor through which the viewer may pass, or which itself might block the expected sight-lines of the billboards. The scale of the billboards is such that they will be visible and ‘readable’ from great distances, and yet the content of their texts is unknowable in the translated, visualised, form. The supporting armatures are as visible as the ‘information’ they present and function in a sculptural way. These canvas screens not only resemble commercial signage but might also resonate simultaneously with a history of painterly abstraction and agitprop. Castro’s speech contains the significant phrase ‘Inside the Revolution, everything; outside, nothing’. This manifested itself in increasing control of artistic life, while growing shortages led to a hierarchy of cultural priorities. The importance of culture within the nationalist paradigm is expressed by the concept that every Cuban has the right to acquire cultural skills and, following the success of the literacy campaign, this resulted in a programme which used young ‘instructores de arte’ to carry artistic training to schools, factories and the countryside. Such ‘vulgar popularisation’ alienated and alarmed many established artists as much as ‘Stalinisation’ and, seeing their once privileged position being devalued, drove many to leave to an exile where they felt more valued.
