Raúl Martínez Painting in Upcoming Auction

September 17, 2023

On September 22nd, the New York branch of the auction house Christie's will hold its usual sale of Latin American art. Among works by Toledo, Zúñiga, Soto and other artists, a group of contemporary Cuban artworks from Howard Farber's collection will be auctioned.

Everyone knows that Farber asks for discounts from artists, always with the excuse that he is building an important collection that will end up in a museum. At the same time, we regularly see him auctioning works from said collection.

Although Farber has collected certain important exile artists (Luis Cruz Azaceta, for example), the majority of his collection consists of artists from the Island. This auction will feature "the usual suspects": the overrated Los Carpinteros, the artiviste Tania Bruguera, Tonel, Flavio Garcíandia, etc.

The press release and the note on their website mention the aesthetic and historical importance of these works. Regarding contemporary art, this type of commentary always ends up being a fatuous conversation. There is not enough time to judge a work of the moment in terms of its aesthetic and historical value. Much of the problem with today's inflated art market is that "geniuses" are identified all too easily and "masterpieces" are produced by the dozen. Time must be given to time.

But when the work is by an artist who died in 1995, with a contradictory and problematic track record like Raúl Martínez (1927-1995), one cannot remain silent on the matter.

First of all, Christie's has every right to auction said work, just as Farber had the right to acquire it, and the painter to create it. The painting, a canvas titled Rosas y estrellas, from 1972, represents in Martínez's pop style an implausible group from history: José Martí, in the foreground with a handful of white roses clasped to his chest, followed by a Fidel Castro in a beret and Ernesto "Che" Guevara (who has his hand "affectionately" on the Apostle's shoulder), followed in the background by Simón Bolívar, Camilo Cienfuegos, Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo.

A white rose appears on the Che's lapel and a white star between Bolívar and Camilo. The composition contains brilliant shades of blue, orange, yellow and green. It is a "family portrait" with five patriots, a dictator and a delirious murderous guerrilla fighter.

This 1972 work is one of many that Martínez painted as part of his capitulation to a system that repressed and marginalized him because of his sexual orientation. The canvas reflects the "revolutionary machismo" of the period known as the "Gray Five Years."

Rosas y estrellas is not a work of aesthetic or historical importance, as are his abstract canvases from the 1950s or his mixed media techniques (under the influence of Rauschenberg) until the mid-60s, or his magnificent posters from the 70s (the one for the film Lucía). Rosas y estrellas is nothing more than a minor piece of propaganda.

Hopefully, Christie's would have the ethics to say so. Historical context, which always illuminates the truth of the facts, should be more important than the market.