ABSTRACT
The iconography of the revolution has been a major source of political and aesthetic influence. This chapter analyzes various forms of representation that promote an intense material experience: the installation Atados de memorias Bundles of Memories by Jose Manuel Fors; the photographic series Ojos desnudos Naked Eyes by Abigail Gonzalez and Man Made Materials by Rene Pena; the novels Contrabando de sombras Smuggling Shadows by Antonio Jose Ponte, Trilogia sucia de La Habana Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutierrez, and Los palacios distantes Distant Palaces by Abilio Estevez; and the film Suite Habana by Fernando Perez. With an aesthetics that approximates and combines the techniques and effects of both documentary photography and pornography, Abigail Gonzalez uses the aesthetic assumptions cultivated during the collective euphoria of the 1960s so as to better portray the profound moral disenchantment of the 1990s.
