Art Collectors Predict "Stampede" to Cuba

Originally Published by the Wall Street Journal 2014

http://www.wsj.com/articles/art-collectors-predict-stampede-to-cuba-1418946548

Art Collectors Predict ‘Stampede’ to Cuba

With the U.S. and Cuba restoring diplomatic ties, some art-world cognoscenti are betting that the tiny island could become the next hot corner of the global art market

By Kelly Crow

With the U.S. and Cuba restoring diplomatic ties, some art-world cognoscenti are betting that the tiny island could become the next hot corner of the global art market.

Collectors in the U.S. have been circling - and collecting - Cuban art for years, thanks to a little-known exception to the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba that makes it legal for Americans to buy Cuban art, which the U.S. government classifies as cultural assets (unlike, say, rum or cigars).

Now, collectors like Miami’s Howard Farber say they expect American art lovers to “stampede” to Cuba’s studios and galleries as soon as it becomes easier for them to travel and shop there. “I believe Cuban art has been a best-kept secret among a few collectors,” Mr. Farber said, “and now that Cuba is opening up to us I think more people will discover a genre that’s fresh and great.”

Prices for Cuban art began climbing during the recession, driven by collectors like Mr. Farber and Miami-based philanthropist Ella Cisneros as well as major museums like London’s Tate. Currently, prices for works by Cuba’s living art stars like Yoan Capote, Carlos Garaicoia and the conceptual art duo Los Carpinteros swing between $5,000 and $400,000 apiece.

Cuban art embodies a mix of Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences and motifs. Wifredo Lam, who died in 1982, is considered Cuba’s Picasso; Sotheby’s sold his 1944 work, “Ídolo (Oya/Divinité de l’air et de la mort),” for $4.6 million two years ago, a record price for the artist.

Cuban artists tend to favor found objects like weathered woods and scrap metals. Cuban art also has long addressed themes specific to the island, such as isolation and the sea: Rafts, towers and oars are frequent symbols. Political criticism tended to be depicted in coded imagery to sidestep censors; lately, more art has tried to address global concerns like immigration and the economy.

Miami collector Steven Eber said he plans to keep an eye on Cuban art to see if its artists experiment with different motifs should closer ties to the U.S. give them greater

access to the Internet and permission to travel more widely. “How many paintings of boats do we really need?” he said, half-joking.

Dealer George Adams said the art scene also will need to stand up on its own merits after its “forbidden fruit” allure falls away.

Right now, works by Cuban artists aren’t necessarily less expensive in Havana than in New York or London. But collectors who visit the island can meet and form relationships with artists there that may result in small discounts or first dibs on new pieces—before the artists’ works reach galleries in Europe or New York. This type of access is particularly valuable for Americans competing with European and Latin American collectors who have been traveling to Cuba for years. Cuban dealers say Americans currently make up more than a third of their buyers.

New York dealer Sean Kelly, who represents Los Carpinteros, said he expects American collectors to focus on finding and visiting younger, edgy artists in Cuba who might not yet have been widely shown abroad. He said collectors also likely will crowd the next star-making biennial in Havana in May.

“If you’re the 24-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat of Cuba, nobody in the U.S. has been able to discover your work. Now, we will,” Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly also thinks it could become easier for artists in Cuba to get permission to travel to the U.S.—still a difficult task now—and sell their work to Americans wielding U.S.-based currency and credit cards.

Getting into Cuba to shop has long been a tricky proposition. For decades following Fidel Castro’s 1959 communist revolution, collectors wishing to travel to Cuba needed a travel license from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which doled out a handful of licenses a year to Americans seeking to scout Cuba for “informational materials” like art.

Other collectors took advantage of different legal loopholes to get into Cuba to shop for art. The Treasury Department, for instance, agreed to issue travel permits to Americans who pledged to do humanitarian, scholarly or religious work in Cuba.

Mr. Farber, who made his fortune as co-owner of the Video Shack chain, sees parallels between the rebellious art made in China following the Tiananmen Square protests and art made during pivotal periods in Cuba’s revolutionary history. To gain access to Cuba’s art studios, he had to set up a charitable foundation five years ago and create an award for Cuban artists. Now, he owns more than 200 works and plans to go again next month.

Mr. Kelly is leveraging his educational license to fly his immediate family to Havana next week to attend the Dec. 28 wedding of one of the members of Los Carpinteros, Dagoberto Rodriguez Sanchez. “For Cuba,this is equivalent to Berlin’s Wall coming down,” he said. “We’re all ready to party.”

Valuing Cuban Art

Originally published in the April 2015 issue of Trust and Estates Magazine

Valuing Cuban Art by Alex Rosenberg and Leslie Koot Art, Auctions & Antiques Report

While the quality and desirability of Cuban art has been apparent to sophisticated collectors for quite some time, recent developments in restoring diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba are spiking the interest in Cuban art among a whole new group of American art buyers

and sellers.

Howard Farber, Ella Cisneros and Rosa de la Cruz in Miami were early prominent collectors, while Shelley and Donald Rubin, founders of the Rubin Museum of Tibetan art in New York, have amassed a considerable collection of contemporary Cuban art in more recent years. With the upcoming Havana Biennial in May 2015 and the easing of travel restrictions, a new wave of American collectors is expected to travel to Cuba and acquire Cuban art.

Estate-planning professionals whose clients collect art will need to familiarize themselves with a unique set of opportunities, as well as possible pitfalls, when advising their clients on valuations of Cuban art. Both established and new collectors will haveto face decisions regarding passing on their collections to heirs and/or donating artworks to tax-free institutions, requiring collectors to determine the fair market value (FMV) of this art for Internal Revenue Service purposes.

A Brief (Legal) History

Rather than talking about the discovery of Cuban art, a more fitting term, perhaps, is “re-discovery.” Back in 1944, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York featured the groundbreaking exhibition Modern Cuban Painters, inspired by a visit to Cuba by its then- director, Alfred Barr Jr. Nearly all of Cuba’s avant-garde (Vanguardia) artists were represented in the show, including Amelia Peláez, Carlos Enriquez and Victor Manuel. It led to wide critical acclaim and purchases of artworks by important collectors, as well as MoMA for its permanent collection, most notably, “The Jungle (1943),” by Wifredo Lam.

With the exception of Lam, who already enjoyed an international reputation at the time of the breakout show and split his time between Havana, Paris and New York, the other Vanguardia painters, who were based in Cuba, quickly disappeared from collectors’ radars following Cu- ba’s

revolution in 1959. The United States broke off diplomatic relations soon after, and on Sept. 4, 1961, Congress enacted the Foreign Assistance Act, authorizing a total embargo on all trade between the two countries, including art, and imposing strict travel restrictions.

Art Exempt

It would take nearly 30 years for the free exchange of Cuban art to be restored. In 1989, a Florida–based Cuban art dealer successfully sued the federal government for the return of his Cuban art collection, previously confiscated from him, on the grounds that he had violated the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917.1 The dealer cited the Berman Amendment, enacted in 1988, which clarified that the President’s powers under TWEA were subject to an exemption, excluding “informational materials” from trade sanctions. Although the language in the amendment included books as an example of informational materials, it failed to specifically mention works of art. The court, however, ruled that informational materials did include original paintings and that they were, therefore, exempt from the import prohibited under TWEA.

It would take another action, headed by the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC) in 1990, to solidify U.S. citizens’ rights to legally obtain Cuban art. A lawsuit was filed against the George H.W. Bush Administration for banning the free exchange of art in violation of the 1988 Berman Amendment and the First Amendment, arguing that paintings were as much a part of the First Amendment as books. Prominent figures in the U.S. art world, including scholars, museum

directors, art dealers and major auction houses supplied their signatures in support of the suit.The court ruled that paintings and

drawings were indeed exempt from the embargo and that denying their free exchange was a violation of one of the most respected rights of U.S. citizens. Following the ruling, the Treasury Department agreed to issue new regulations exempting Cuban art from any general trade embargo. Art dealers and collectors who already had ties to Cuba started taking advantage of this newly sanctioned opportunity, but the trade in Cuban art remained a little-known exemp- tion among most mainstream collectors and, with significant travel and other restrictions still in place, a difficult undertaking, until the recent changes in government policy.

The Artists

In the meantime, while U.S. interest in the Cuban Vanguardia artists had largely faded and knowledge of contemporary artists was largely absent, a new generation of artists had emerged in Cuba, straddling the influences of their Vanguardia predecessors and contemporary issues. The first Havana Biennial was inaugurated by Cuba’s Ministry of Culture in 1984 and, with every subsequent event, provided an important platform for artists, such as Manuel Mendive, José Bedia and Tomás Sánchez, who through their veiled references and tongue-in-cheek texts, commented on the everyday realities of post-revolution society, not shying away from criticisms. As a result of this exposure, a number of artists were invited to exhibit internationally, although not in the United States.4 Both Bedia and Sánchez are now based outside of Cuba, selling successfully at auction and through art galleries.

During the late 1980s, the Soviet Union’s support of Cuba ceased, contributing to extreme economic hardship, a time Cubans refer to as the “special period.” Hunger and absence of basic goods and materials were part of daily life. From this environment of scarcity, some of the most evocative and soon to be best known contemporary Cuban artists emerged: Belkis Ayón, brothers Ivan and Yoan Capote, Roberto Fabelo, Carlos Garaicoa, Kcho, Sandra Ramos and a group called Los Carpinteros were incorporating found and recycled items in their work and managed with minimal materials and ingenuity to express themes of discontent, using coded imagery. Many of these artists now exhibit and sell internationally, at ever-increasing

prices, and a new generation is fresh on their heels, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to show their work to a larger group of U.S. collectors, as recent developments promise to provide.

Problems in Valuation

Authenticity. Because of the lack of communication between Cuba and the outside world, the trade in dubious Modern Cuban art is thriving. The Vanguardia artists are all deceased, and (museum) experts in Cuba are difficult to contact. Some fake works are painted in the style of Vanguardia painters. Others are flagrant copies of works by these and other artists that may be on view at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, but unknown to most American collectors. Especially in the Florida area, a significant number of collectors are suspected of unwittingly holding inauthentic works in their collections, often accompanied by fancy but worthless certificates. Even in the New York area, a simple Internet search for “Cuban art authentications” yields a supply of firms that promise to provide so-called “Certificates of Authenticity.” Estates of art collectors could be potentially faced withpaying estate taxes on these works, requiring the help of an objective professional to determine authenticity. There are, in fact, excellent authenticity experts practicing in Cuba, although they’re few. But, unless an appraiser has established local relationships, these experts are difficult to locate

and contact.

Patrimony regulations. Although U.S. regulations allow importation of artwork into the United States, when purchasing art in Cuba for exportation, several procedures need to be followed. During the years the Soviets were involved in Cuba, it’s believed that many important works of art were sold to foreign buyers, at prices far below market value. Today, with the developing expertise of appraisers, this loss of patrimony is virtually impossible if legal channels are followed.5 A seller of art in Cuba needs to provide the buyer with the proper documentation that allows the art to be exported. This procedure is necessary to ensure that a valuable piece of Cuban

patrimony isn’t smuggled out of the country. If the seller can’t provide an export permit,

proper documentation for the art needs to be obtained from the Registro Nacional de Bienes Culturales (National Registry of Cultural Goods) and Centro de Patrimonio Cultural (Center of Cultural Heritage) in Havana. If these institutions rule that the subject work of art is part of national patrimony, they won’t issue an export certificate, and the work may not leave Cuba. The value of Cuban art may be greatly compromised if it was exported illegally from Cuba. A certified and experienced appraiser won’t value an object unless certain questions regarding legal ownership, authenticity and provenance have been satisfactorily answered. When in doubt, the appraiser will contact the appropriate local experts and authorities to ensure that correct procedures were followed. This ethical requirement helps ensure that forged or illegally obtained art won’t be traded.

Lack of sales information. Only a handful of contemporary Cuban artists have international auction records, and often, prices achieved there aren’t representative. The primary work by these artists is mostly sold at the gallery level, leaving only their secondary work to be sold at auction. Valuing the art by emerging Cuban contemporary artists is even more complicated and requires consultation with experts who have close contacts with local Cuban galleries and auction venues to determine FMV.

Quality. With the new wave of U.S. collectors expected to crowd Cuba’s artist studios and galleries, eager to scoop up the latest contemporary star, issues of quality will, no doubt, emerge. Almost invariably, current successful Cuban artists graduated from Havana’s prestigious San Alejandro or Instituto Superior de Arte art schools, following rigorous training. A larger audience isn’t expected to seriously affect the quality or prices of their work in the short term, as they already mostly sell all the work they produce. However, me- diocre, lesser trained artists are expected to tailor their art to satisfy a much larger and less sophisticated audience to sig- nificantly boost their sales and prices. But, prices paid in Cuba can’t be automatically translated to FMVs in the United States, making the need for connoisseurship even more urgent.

A Promising Future

Cuban art promises to be the next point of focus of the international art market, offering exciting opportunities for both U.S. collectors and Cuban artists. It’s expected to take years, however, for a fully free flow of information and cooperation to be realized between the two nations and to establish essential reference systems, such as verified auction sales databases and catalogs of confirmed works of the Vanguardia and other major artists. Until that time, caution is warranted in valuing Cuban art, and the assistance of qualified, objective

experts indispensable.

Endnotes

1. Cernuda et al v. Heavey, et al., 720 F. Supp. 1544 (S.D. Fla. 1989).

2. Author Alex J. Rosenberg, then active as a private art dealer and member of the Executive Committee of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, solicited these signatures.

3. Dore Ashton v. Newcomb, et al., Case 90-03799-LLS (S.D.N.Y. 1991).

4. G. Gelburd, “Cuba and the Art of Trading with the Enemy,” Art Journal (Spring 2009), Vol. 68, No. 1, at pp. 26-31.

5. Alex J. Rosenberg, “The Role of the Appraiser in Preserving Patrimony,” An Approach to Advanced Problems in Appraising, with a Special Focus on Cuba, American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba (New York 2011), at p. 205.

Artist Profile: Adislén Reyes Pino

Adislén Reyes Pino was born in Havana in 1984. She graduated from the Higher Institute of Arts and the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, where she is now working as a professor. Pino’s work has been exhibited in several solo exhibitions in Havana, Cuba. Her work has been featured in the Taipei Fine Art Museum in China, The Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C. and the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Costa Rica.

Pino draws her inspiration from the personal narrative. Her creative process stems from the idea that the personal angst of the individual often reflects the trepidation of the public realm.

Adislén spoke with Assistant Director, Maria Guerrero (via email) about her work relating to the pieces currently on exhibition in the gallery. The interview has been translated from Spanish; the original is available for download here.

Hi Maria,

In the series Crisis, part of the personal crisis process can correspond with another crisis that occurred previously at a generational level, sparking all kinds of questions and placing ourselves in a state of vulnerability and expectation. 

The works convey a calm, associated to the moment before or after a crisis; they reflect the complexities that arise from the creative process and how they influence psychological, ethical and social factors.  It talks about the relationship between the artist and their work, and how the creation process can be made long and systematic, manifesting itself into a relationship that oscillates between dialogue and lack of communication; closeness and distance.

Can you explain in more detail what kind of crises you are referring to?

It all stems from a personal and existential crisis that I had which sparked my creative process.  At the same time, the result can be read like the crisis of an entire generation that may have many questions, anxieties, dissatisfactions and worries that are similar to mine. 

Can you explain the use of paper and graphic style?

I choose drawing on paper (card stock) as the primary exercise to capture ideas... it’s a systematic exercise each artist performs. In this series, I incorporate discarded materials in their own series to create new works. For example, drawings that came out wrong and were crumpled and tossed or the broken points from a pencil.  I recycle them, creating works that allude to these drawings that were never made. These points of a pencil that cannot draw anymore, but at the same time find a form of revenge inside each series trying to destroy the figure of the girl (me-the artist). The illustration and the graphic style bring a level of synthesis that I could not find in another visual style. 

Explain how the style of your drawings comments on the concept of "crisis"?

I am interested in reflecting on the crisis from a totally opposite visual from what we associate with a crisis. I want to steer away from chaos because I want to convey tranquility, so I think many times when we are in a crisis we try to behave and look like nothing happened. Therefore the drawing style is simple, clean, but the ideas of the precarious moments allude to the tension we feel in a crisis that cause us to go into an existential state of mind.

I want to know more about your process: how do you choose the paper and how do you choose the cartoons?

The girl, the main character,  I have been working since 2007.  Initially it had no age, no sex, no name and I used it to address the issue of gender and identity ambiguity from every point of view. With time it became more self-referential. In “Crisis”, the character is defined as a girl for the first time. In this series the character alludes to me, but at the same time to the figure of the artist. Meanwhile the dog (a character I use for the first time in this series) embodies the art itself.  The whole time the series chronicles the relationship between the artist (girl) and their work (dog), as a variable relationship, because sometimes it manifests itself as love and other times it manifests as hate, dependency, etc. I work on the paper or the compositions with my hands and it’s almost a therapeutic process. I rub the graphite with my fingertips or rip the paper by hand.

Any other information for the Crisis series?

Crisis series began in 2015 but I am currently still working on it. It functions as a kind of diary because it is an exercise for me. I showed it at the Havana Biennial in 2015, in a personal exhibition that just title: Crisis.

Straight from Cuba: A Woman's Perspective is currently on exhibition at the Lois Lambert Gallery through July 10th.