Puerto Rican Artist at Havana Biennial

By Irina Echarry, Photos: Caridad

HAVANA TIMES, March 25 – Well-known Puerto Rican artist and communicator Antonio Martorell is in Cuba to conduct an engraving workshop at the Experimental Graphics Workshop located in Old Havana.

“It will be a workshop for teachers, an exchange. I will share my experiences with the artists, and they will teach me theirs,” said Martorell, invited to teach the class by the organizers and sponsors of the 10th Biennial Art Show (March 27-April 30).

Martorell has visited Cuba on several occasions. This time he brings us a unique proposal employing a technique which unites several disciplines. He selected this approach -which is also employed by other graphic artists in Puerto Rico- because he is a lover of mixtures and likes to interact with diverse art forms.

Not by chance, the workshop that began on March 23 has the multi-thematic title “Recordings and Impressions: Music, Words and Image.”

Martorell will not limit himself to working with his pupils, but will offer opportunities for wider participation, selecting various days in which the community can identify with engraving. People will be able to express themselves through prints, which will later be displayed in the street.

Accustomed to distinct forms of dialogue, the Puerto Rican artist conveyed his ideas on art saying, “It’s as important as any science. It’s more (important). I believe that it is a perfectly inexact science – both useful and enjoyable.”

The workshop ends on April 4. Starting on that day, the works produced in the teacher-led encounter will be exhibited along with those of several Cuban artists.

While in Cuba, Martorell will celebrate his 70th birthday. He says he is comfortable both with his advancing age and his ever more contemporary art. Experts consider his work a gauge for measuring the art of engraving in the Caribbean.

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