Carlos Cruz-Diez, Venezuelan plastic artist and one the biggest representatives of kinetic art, dies at 95 years of age. In his official webpage it was stated that it happened the 27th of July in Paris, France. We share this letter from Cruz-Diez addressing the Venezuelan youth in the sociopolitical frame of the 2017 protests.
“Writing this message to all Venezuelans, and specially to the young people who are risking their lives daily in the streets of Venezuela, emanates from the pain and anguish when coming face to face with the tragic events that are burdening my country. I also want to express my admiration for the decisive attitude that has led them to confront a regime built on a spent and obsolete model that has insisted on destroying the human values that are the only guarantee to build a society based on dignity, progress and social justice. I also want to say that you are living a unique opportunity to change your own destiny and that of the country.
If my effort in life to try to obtain a place in the art world could be used by you as reference, I will tell you that I was able to do it in a context of absolute liberty, and liberty is only obtained through democracy. A liberty without prejudice or dogma. I think that this last part is the necessary condition to be able to seriously tackle the crisis of models that we are facing in Venezuela in the present.
During the reign of terror set up by the military dictatorship of Pérez Jiménez, under which I lived and suffered, it was known that the people, specially political opponents detained by National Security, suffered from torture and, in many instances, would disappear without a trace. I left Venezuela because it was a humiliating situation, there was no place there for culture or art. The objective of a military soldier was to destroy or demolish the enemy. At the other end of the spectrum, art is generous, an artist’s purpose is to enrich the spirit of his fellow beings. Art in all of its manifestations, poetry, literature, music, dance, theatre, painting; they are all nutrients for the spirit of a community.
They were the same military officers, alongside organised civil resistance, that trumped the dictator, establishing in Venezuela a military junta that catalyzed the return to democracy, elections and the Punto Fijo pact. The latter was a unanimous agreement of the political parties to reach a government, although some used it to gain wealth instead of administering it. I will also tell you that I have been a witness to the transformation of the concept of “country” and “motherland” in a place for the usufruct and dispossession for the benefit of a few.
Nonetheless, with democracy and during 40 years, the country lived a dynamic cultural activity without precedent: the big museums, the theatre festivals, and the musical movement, among others, were subjects of cultural reviews in the entire continent. Only two cities were named as relevant to culture: New York and Caracas. After this came the “Revolution”, an archaic word from the eighteenth century, a word does not make sense at present, it lacks meaning. We lived the start of a new civilization, of new paradigms, not that of a revolution. The so-called “revolution” destroyed all that had been built during the democracy.
I think that the political concepts are goals to regulate, balance the just development, evolution and progress of society. Sometimes these concepts take a quasi religious turn, becoming doctrines with their inevitable dogmas. Managing the economy based on a dogma is contradictory because a dogma is not necessarily a truth nor matches the behavior of society. The dogma is a belief, a supposition that intends to make the thinking and feeling of the ever-evolving individual static and unmovable.
In Venezuela, it’s been tragic for the country that those lacking in “understanding and reason”, as the margariteña tune says, have taken power, proceeding the destruction of the democratic institutions that are the guarantee of freedom and human progress. The ignorant person promotes ignorance, not realizing it’s triggering the isolation and destruction of his own country and that, in the end, will hopelessly lead to his own destruction. I say this as an artist, since art does not have ideology. If art were an ideology impregnated with fanatism, it would need to crush, jail, torture or kill its enemies to make itself understood. No artist kills another because he doesn’t like his discourse. But we can see this doesn’t happen in politics in this fateful hour that Venezuela is living through.
In addition to this is the difficulty of the leaders, the experts to help find the way, as well as the lack of motivation of the citizen within himself, that will allow him to overcome himself and to remove from his mind the idea that it’s easier to be a beggar. Each person has to think about being autonomous, self-sufficient and to generate wealth for himself and others. To the youngsters, I encourage you to consider these objectives. There are a lot of thinking, intelligent people in our country, which is why I have hope that permanent change is coming. It is a certainty, and the reason for my sharing these thoughts.
In the personal aspect, I believe in the need for an education that can be used to reason, create or invent a new social and economic organization in society and shake off the obsolete political religions, and contribute to desacralize all that has created false beliefs and myths that have caused us so much pain.
If we do not urgently change the perceptions and concepts that drive us to a new way of seeing the country, the consequences will be dramatic. I have observed with pain the diaspora of young talents that have left the country, and the pictures of their departures over my work in the airport of Maiquetía. I just hope it becomes a reason for reunion in the near future.
The democratic and ethical values of the Venezuelan youth of today show a stark contrast with those of who have administered power in the last fifty years, and even more so with those who have governed in the last eighteen years. Starting from these values, I invite you to reflect on the new paradigms that must be created for the failed model that our dear country lives through, and that way prevent repeating the dreadful episodes in the future.
At my 94 years of age, I tell you with all honesty that you have had to live in an extraordinary time, because everything is obsolete and everything must be reinvented, a new political language that talks about democracy, ethical values, freedom, progress and social justice must be invented, education must be invented, to create a country of entrepreneurs, artists and inventors, a dignified and sovereign country in the global context, anyway, in Venezuela everything must be invented. How wonderful!
Panama City, April 2017.
