Servando Cabrera Moreno on his centennial: painting higher than pain

June 20, 2023

"A writer, or any man, should think that whatever happens to him is an instrument," Borges said. "…all things have been given to him for a purpose and this has to be stronger in the case of an artist. Everything that happens to him, even humiliations, shame, misfortunes, all of that has been given to him as clay, as material for his art."

In 1965, Servando Cabrera (1923-1981), because of his open homosexuality, the ideological commissioners and those of the "stronger sex" prohibited him from teaching. They removed the painter from the academy, from his true bottega, the first nucleus of learning and artistic training, to plunge him further into ostracism; condemned without trial.

But Servando did not stop painting; and not only did he continue painting, but precisely body and desire shaped his creative focus in what is considered his most enduring thematic period.

That fracture that makes him grow in another direction, that moment of maximum darkness before dawn, is what filmmaker Claudio Peláez Sordo chose as the guiding thread of La Hora Azul, a documentary about the influential Cuban painter, in which his life and artistic legacy are recreated through the testimony of those who were his friends and specialists in his work.

The film is part of the celebration of Cabrera Moreno's centennial, which has as its central tribute La memoria de los borrados, an exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts curated by Teresa Toranzo Castillo and Rosemary Rodríguez Cruz.

The museum's theater room recently hosted the premiere of La Hora Azul; a moment when Reynaldo González, Neyda Peñalver, Rigoberto Otaño and Jorge Fernández also presented a catalog of Servando by the Los Carbonell Foundation, designed by Pepe Menéndez.

How did you decide to make this documentary about Servando?

La Hora Azul is a documentary of which I feel like an adoptive director, because it is not a project that I have accompanied from the beginning. It started filming in February 2020 with Servando's centennial in mind, celebrated on May 28, 2023.

The Los Carbonell Foundation, the film's producer and custodian of part of Servando Cabrera's collection, began working on the project at that time. The shoot included interviews with his friends Natalia Bolívar, Graziella Pogolotti, Reynaldo González and with historians who oversee Servando's work and work in the museum that bears his name (closed for repairs for years).

The documentary was originally shot by Yandro Tamayo, then taken over by Alejandro Gutiérrez. After both emigrated, it fell into my hands and I finished filming the last interviews and scenes. I was in charge of the editing process and giving the documentary form and body, respecting the essence of what the other directors had filmed.

During these three years the screenwriters, Neyda Peñalver and Nibaldo Carbonell, were in charge of preserving what was filmed and maintaining the essence of what they wanted to show. I was fortunate to join this team, to be called and to be able to assume and finish the project.

How would you invite someone to watch La Hora Azul? Why should they see it?

It is a documentary that you have to see because it speaks of the life and work of an artist known by many people in Cuba; but at the same time unknown to many others. And those who know him also ignore part of his work or his motivations.

He was a visual artist who went through several stages; first he had an academic style, then he went through Cubism, with influences from Picasso. And when the Revolution triumphs comes the stage known in him as the epic. From his expulsion from the National School of Art begins an erotic period of his work, including homoeroticism, marked by the effects of a misguided cultural policy and by the homophobia that he himself suffered.

They tried to silence him; but, as Reynaldo González says in the documentary, far from keeping Servando away from his work, this caused him to become more determined and begin to express the freedom of bodies that love each other, that desire each other.

The documentary does not only speak of Servando; it also speaks of the context in which he lived, and that helps us understand a little more, from Servando's life and work, a part of the cultural history of Cuba after '59. A visit to memory, not only of a man, but of the history of Cuba.

Another good reason to watch it is to do justice to Servando and give him the attention he deserves, both nationally and internationally. Especially on an international scale, where his is not a body of work that has enjoyed the attention that other visual artists have received.

How was the working process? What was the most complicated?

The biggest challenge was taking on shoots that were already done; understanding the aesthetics of what had been filmed and trying to respect it; contributing new elements from graphics, editing, montage. So that all the material filmed before would remain within the parameters in which we were filming. Most importantly, we had to make sure it was dynamic.

The documentary is basically testimonies and the challenge was to make them capture the audience's attention; that throughout 55 minutes it would not become boring, but maintain the rhythm.

I had to research Servando's life and work; understand the stages he went through and respect a chronological order. We included testimony from Flavio Garciandía and Tomás Sánchez, other greats of Cuban visual arts. I was in charge of coordinating the filming of those interviews outside Cuba through the producer and the Los Carbonell Foundation, to maintain a uniform aesthetic.

What does La Hora Azul reveal about Servando Cabrera?

The documentary reveals Servando the artist; but above all the human being. A human being who suffered censorship, suffered marginalization for being homosexual; but despite all that, he remained an artist who defended his work all the time.

He was a person who shared knowledge; he had the desire to teach what he had learned and did not allow pain to extinguish the magic he had for teaching or creating. I think that is what the documentary reveals: a human being, a great teacher and an artist who did not let pain silence his brushes; on the contrary, he turned that pain into art, into an art that at the time was irreverent, avant-garde; and that today remains very relevant.

The theme of the body and the rights of minorities continue to be under discussion, and Servando's work reclaims the right of those bodies to exist, to love each other, to desire each other…

What changed in you after making the documentary?

Getting to know Servando in a more intimate way through the testimonies has been a very nice experience. Finding in him, more than an artist, an immense human being who defended the popular when many did not believe it was art and he had the interest and keen eye to see in that popular expression, art.

I am very struck and filled with admiration knowing that the most difficult moments for human beings drive their moments of greatest creation and betting on what they really believe. Servando's coherence is overwhelming. He suffered in silence without ceasing to paint or to bet on what he believed. I admire him more, I know more and better his work, because I was able to perceive the sensitivity that exists in his painting.

What awaits La Hora Azul?

We want to present it at festivals, at the Havana festival, of course, and at other international festivals; but it is a path that we are just beginning to map out now, seeing where a 55-minute documentary about Servando's life might fit.

Above all, we want his work, and the history of our country, to be disseminated, in the hope that sad events do not repeat themselves, especially in the current context, when dialogues are not concrete, when there have been fractures.

What we would like is this: for La Hora Azul to serve to speak of what should not happen; of a new dawn. In photography we always refer to the moment when it dawns. There is a cold color temperature; but not from tension, but to represent the exact moment before the sun rises.