Lesbia at 89 celebrates her memories

November 7, 2021

Lesbia Vent Dumois, who is one of the most restless and active artists in the entire panorama of Cuban culture (those who know her know this is not an exaggerated statement), celebrates her birthday this Saturday. And she celebrates it with an excellent exhibition of her work at the National Museum of Fine Arts. Memory, as it is titled. And it is a journey through the creative itinerary of a woman who has never stopped drawing, painting or engraving, no matter that some only see in her the civil servant she has also been… and with great honor.

The main hall of temporary exhibitions in the Cuban Art building hosts the exhibition, which can be seen throughout this month.

Lesbia has lived much, intensely. She has much to tell and in her exhibition she tells it. Lesbia is a rooted artist. And the memories of an artist can be, and Lesbia's certainly are, a wonderful realm of confluences.

"Everyone thought I was going to do a retrospective, based on the title of the exhibition," says the artist. "I thought of it better as an anthology. Because the anthology gives me the opportunity to evoke the moments when I produced some change in my work. I have kept from each period the works that best represent that evolution and I exhibit them here. These are the pieces that make a stronger proposal. Almost all of them are here."

Engraving, painting, sculpture, installation… And a very broad thematic spectrum and one could even say stylistic. But Lesbia identifies some constants:

"The first, I think, is woman. I don't think I set out to do this, but in the end it turns out to be evident. I myself discovered it when I saw these works together. The female figure has been very attractive to me, not only formally, but also as a creative impulse, as intention, as discourse.

"The other constant is José Martí. Martí is vital to me, he is an irreplaceable reference. Martí is thought, idea, example. My father always instilled in my sister and me the love for Martí. I remember perfectly what he told us, what he recounted about this extraordinary man. That remained in me. And I have put it in my work, in all my work, even though sometimes it may not be evident.

"And the other thing, although perhaps some may not notice it right away, is irony. I have never been an orthodox woman, I have always seen everything with great humor. Fine, incisive humor, which is what I like."

In the exhibition, three aspects of Lesbia's creative work converge: the artist, the curator and the museographer. She shared the museographic conception with specialist Teresa Toranzo. And she even went so far as to write on the wall herself, with her beautiful handwriting, the work captions.

It is that memory, for Lesbia, has much of craftsmanship. And it is evocation and homage.

"In my memory is the remembrance of my grandmother, who was very patriotic and very educated. I think that part of the education we have in the family we owe to her. From my parents I always keep present their teachings about the value of craft. They also made me see that as important as craft was friendship. I have always cultivated that. In this exhibition are also my friends, and there are many of them. There is my sister Odenia, who died so young. She always inhabits my memory, we were very close, even in our common profession: we both studied teaching, we both studied plastic arts… and we began together to make engravings, which is why one of her works is displayed. There is my life companion, my work companion, who was also my teacher: Carmelo González. There are, ultimately, my lifelong friends. I believe very much in friendship."