On Garde

Even constructed, it takes a moment for Abel Barroso's work to sink in.

Pulled from a Hasbro-esque box, hundreds of pieces of carved wood resembling children's construction toys connect to form the skeletal outline of a familiar tower. A jetliner intersects the upper half of the structure. Simulated debris rests near the bottom, scattered around a white platform.

The title of Barroso's 9/11 piece is a mouthful. Translated from the Cuban artist's native Spanish, it reads, "The Cold War Has Ended. Let's Enjoy Globalization (World Trade Center), 2004 ('Dedicated to the lives of the people who unexpectedly became playing pieces of the game of terror')."

An ironic comment on globalized capitalism and its manipulation of iconic images, "Cold War" addresses the way we construct, arrange and look at history. The piece is meant to be assembled and disassembled by the user -- instructions come both in a printed manual and a CD-ROM.

"Cold War" is a marvel, layered with meaning and subtlety, unafraid to face the big conundrums of the contemporary world. And if you want an example of what the Ringling Museum's new contemporary-oriented Searing Wing could and should be, look no further.

The same could be said for the exhibition "Cold War" belongs to, Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art From the Farber Collection. The 58 pieces on display belong to the private collection of Howard and Patricia Farber and were shown publicly for the first time earlier this year at Gainesville's Harn Museum of Art -- Ringling is only the second institution to feature the works. The Farbers became enchanted with Cuba during a trip in 2001 and began snatching up samples of the various crosscurrents coursing through the island's contemporary art.

The Farbers could hardly have selected more fertile territory. In the period covered by the exhibition (the past two decades, roughly), Cuba has become a vital center of global art. Work by Cuban artists has become renowned for its formal experiments and its unmediated engagement with the most tumultuous upheavals of the last 20 years: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the pressures of economic globalization.

Resulting pieces address the iconography of Fidel and Che, the underbelly of the socialist dream, the alternately alluring and terrifying specter of the United States, the role of non-Christian religions and personal tragedy, all with an unapologetic brio.

In "Perda do sentido" ("Loss of Sense"), Elsa Mora eulogizes a fellow artist, her face covered in pitch-black makeup and the title scrawled across her forehead. "Héroe" ("Hero"), Juan Pablo Ballester Carmenates' documentary-style photograph, plays with the imagery of one of the foundational events of the Cuban Revolution. In "1...2...3...Probando" ("1...2...3...Testing"), Yoan Capote bluntly depicts the invisible wall blocking communication between Cuba and the U.S., and with "Winter Is Coming to an End," Pedro Reinaldo Álvarez Castelló parodies the historical mythology of the Spanish-American War. This is imaginative art directly engaged with the looming questions of the day (repression, ideology, the management of truth), far removed from the faux edginess and narcissistic self-referencing that often color today's avant-garde.

Although the Farber collection may seem a hard sell for the Ringling, the watchword at the museum is "accessible." While curator Stephen D. Borys has heard questions about the collection's heavy political themes, he thinks the intimate scale of the exhibition -- 58 works, 42 artists -- makes the works more approachable, and believes a comparable survey of American art would be dominated just as much by weighty concerns.

Borys points out a display of anti-establishment etchings by Francisco Goya hanging just down the hallway from Cuba Avant-Garde, pieces that aroused deep controversy in their day. Two centuries later, they remain provocative, but no one's up in arms. His point: Contentious art is nothing new.

The Ringling may go out of its way to soften the political implications of some of the Cuban pieces, but, truly, there's little need. It's difficult to picture any visitor -- no matter how reactionary -- scandalized by what's on the walls, particularly considering the artists' critique of Cuban society right alongside their ambivalence about American influence.

One example is Arturo Cuenca Sigaretta's "Ciencia e ideología: Che" ("Science and Ideology: Che"). Cuenca photographed the back of a massive Havana billboard featuring the face of Che Guevara and a slogan translated as "A revolutionary must be an indefatigable worker." From behind, Che's iconic face becomes little more than the vague outline of a head; the kitschy phrase nothing but gibberish.

Glexis Novoa Vián launches a similar critique in his irreverent "De la etapa práctica" ("On the Practical Stage"). The large-scale oil painting is dominated by towering, commanding block shapes that almost resemble Cyrillic letters. The painting seems to exhort you to some kind of action, but delivers its message in a nonsensical pseudo-language, denying any direct meaning at all. It is a powerful parody of bureaucratic official-ese, a smart observation about the opaque language of power.

Too often, "controversial art" goes for the easy, one-dimensional shock. And while Cuba Avant-Garde does shock, the pieces are nuanced -- instead of beating you over the head with a single message, these artists draw you in, affording you the time and space to peel back the layers of their work.