Thread by @t_ings

🇨🇺120 years ago today, Cuban painter #WifredoLam (1902-1982) was born. His Cantonese father did calligraphy, inspired by Confucian/Daoist traditions, mother was a Congolese descendant, and godmother, an Afro-Cuban priestess. You can say he was made in and of the Third World.🧵1/7

Over his 80 years, #WifredoLam was conscientised by the Spanish Civil War, anti-colonial struggles, Negritude, Surrealism, and the Cuban Revolution. He drew, painted, sculpted, illustrated, engraved, and gave expression to aspirations of colonised peoples. 2/7

In Europe, #WifredoLam befriended Surrealist André Breton, Communist painter Pablo Picasso, and Caribbean anti-colonial thinkers, later visiting Aimé Césaire in Martinique. In a growing anti-colonial and black consciousness, Lam turned towards his African roots in his art. 3/7

#WifredoLam’s work sought to displace the authority of European modernism and aesthetics on the colonised world. In ‘The Jungle’ (1943), a pair of scissors is held high, so as to cut away at Cuba's colonial past to give way to new shoots being born from their roots. 4/7

#WifredoLam looked to the past to pave a future for Cuba: ‘I wanted with all my heart to paint the drama of my country. In this way I could act as a Trojan horse that would spew forth hallucinating figures with the power to surprise, to disturb the dreams of the exploiters.’ 5/7

After the Cuban Revolution, #WifredoLam returned to Cuba. He painted “El Tercer Mundo” (The Third World) (1965) for the Presidential Palace, an homage to Fidel Castro and the revolutionary struggle. 6/7

‘With regard to life, modern painting is a revolutionary activity…We need it in order to transform the world into a more humane place where humankind can live in liberty…We must accept these things with passion. It means that we must live imaginatively.’
—#WifredoLam 7/7

For anyone interested, check out the colloquium organized by @CACWifredoLam in homage #WifredoLam on the 120th anniversary of his birth (in Spanish):