Cuba's '1 percent' is not who you think it is

Cuba's '1 percent' is not who you think it is

Published: Friday, 19 Jul 2013 | 7:00 AM ET

By: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera | CNBC Chief International Correspondent



In most parts of the world, artists struggle to make a living. In Cuba,

they're part of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.



Two quirks of fate have led to an explosion of well-paid artists on the

island: an exception to the U.S. embargo on Cuban goods that allows

Americans to spend money on Cuban art, and an accident of Cuban history

that lets artists keep the money they earn.



Dionel Delgado, 29, is emblematic of financially successful Cuban

artists. His new gallery is in an apartment he just bought in a prime

ground-floor location in old Havana that gets lots of tourist foot traffic.



As he painted a large, lush landscape of the Cuban countryside, he told

CNBC, "A big part about my work is about the landscape. The love of my

country, my space, my dream space."



Don't try to buy the work however—it's already sold to a Mexican gallery

for $10,000. He said that, on average, he sells a painting every two months.



Thousands of Americans travel legally to Cuba every year under what the

Treasury calls "people to people" licenses. Remember Jay-Z and Beyoncé's

trip? On such junkets, American tourists are prohibited from buying any

kind of souvenir—except for books, music and art.



As a result, as one moves through old Havana, some of the most prevalent

items for sale aren't T-shirts, hats or magnets, but paintings. In fact,

the government put up a new building a few years ago expressly for art

vendors.



An accident of Cuban history



Vendors there don't have to be as successful as Delgado to make a good

living. Most of the paintings for sale to tourists are $100 or less.

Selling just one a month, a painter makes more than double the average

Cuban, who earns only $19 in a government job.



Artists have held a special place in the Cuban economy since the early

1990s—an extremely difficult period in which the Soviet Union cut off

the billions of dollars in subsidies it had supplied to Fidel Castro's

government. Even food was hard to come by. During that time, the

government carved out a special exemption for musicians and artists,

allowing them to travel freely in and out of the country and, more

importantly, to be self-employed as artists and to keep the money they made.



The exemptions made them rich compared with other members of Cuban

society, as well as more cosmopolitan.



Abel Barroso Arencibia, 46, who specializes in wood carvings, agrees

that artists are lucky to hold a special place in the Cuban economy.



Barroso is in the middle of a major renovation on his apartment. Two

museums in New York—the Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of

Modern Art—hold his pieces in their collections. He has traveled all

over the world, from the U.S. to Japan, and was able to do so long

before other Cubans, who received that right only at the beginning of

this year.



Critical of the government? It's up to the viewer



Also remarkable is that the Cuban government seems willing to tolerate

art that could be interpreted as critical of it. Barroso, for example,

is working on a woodcut of a tablet computer. It obviously doesn't work,

but the "apps" on the wooden machine are all related to emigrating from

Cuba.



Barroso makes many woodcuts of communication devices. He calls the work

an "ironic" commentary on technology. When asked if it's a criticism of

the government—given that most Cubans don't have a cellphone or access

to the Internet—he responds, "How it's interpreted is up to the viewer."

Besides landscapes, Delgado has created a series of large-format

paintings that depict fake magazine covers. He said he was inspired by

Norman Rockwell, famous for painting real magazine covers that portray

an idyllic American life.



One of Delgado's magazine cover paintings shows people preparing to jump

over the malecon—the famous seawall in Havana—in inner tubes. It's a

scene repeated by thousands of Cubans who, desperate to leave, took to

the open ocean.



When asked if the painting is intended as a criticism of the government,

Delgado said no, adding that "it talks about the troubles of Cuba."



"It's normal for all the Cubans to have this constant on our minds," he

said. For a Cuban, the sea means "one way to take his dreams out there,

the American dream," he added. "It's a reflection of ... how many people

take this option, you know? For finding a way, you know?"



—By CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera



Editor's note: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera owns works of Dionel Delgado,

among works of several other Cuban artists.



Source: "Cuba's '1 percent' is not who you think it is" -

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100896610