IT’S a fact. No media campaign, no withdrawal of finance on the part of official European foundations, or any direct threats to artists could stop it going ahead. The 8th Havana Biennial has been opened in the Plaza Vieja in Old Havana, a Universal Heritage Site, with the presence of more than 100 artists and some 750 curators, dealers, gallery owners and museum directors, mostly from the United States.

That was pointed out to the accredited press by Rafael Acosta, president of the Visual Arts Council, during a meeting in the Museum of Fine Arts Theater, who also explained that after the campaign unleashed by the Venezuelan reactionary press in the summer and the withdrawal of funding from Dutch and German foundations, the boycott of the Biennial took the form of direct pressure on artists, including threatening some of them with loss of funds for their projects.

"We can say with complete satisfaction that the artists have arrived, have worked on their projects and their pieces can be seen in all the Biennial’s spaces." These are many, including the Wifredo Lam Center (which is organizing the event that takes place from November 1 through December 15), the secular vaults of the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress, the Visual Arts Development Center, the National Museum of Fine Arts, Pabellón Cuba and a large number of galleries.

Hilda María Rodríguez, director of the Biennial and the Lam Center, commented that the this festival of art was convened in the spirit of Arts with Life, " to facilitate reflections on daily life, its conflicts and good times, problems and sketches of our cities," and the role of art in the spaces of coexistence.

She also noted that the link with peoples, with different sectors, attempts to "establish potential bridges of conciliation and to call attention to physical and social aspects of our urban scenarios."

In that content the Espacios (Space) project in the Alamar district developed by artists from Brazil, the United States, Guatemala, the Ivory Coast, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Cuba, and the Isaroko design in La California tenement block by Cubans Roberto Diago, Eduardo Roca and Manuel Mendive are particularly notable.

Meanwhile in the Pabellón Cuba the group RAIN, founded in Los Angeles in 2000 and composed of artists, architects and curators, is imposing its own contribution: the physical transformation of a specific space, thanks to the intervention of the artists, who are "obliged" to do their work in line with the conditions created. RAIN has previously visited various cities and now the "Pabellón Cuba is once again under construction."

As Hilda María Rodríguez says, given that "the Biennial’s plural nature is a kind of sine qua non condition," performance art once again has an outstanding place in this 8th edition, not only works done by individual artists, but through the art performances’ ‘Encounter’ (known as Black Market International) led by Le Lieu Center of Actual Art from Quebec with the Lam Center.

Although the Biennial director acknowledged that the sudden withdrawal of funds by European foundations affected, principally, an Asian and African presence (evidently due to the distance), artists from Egypt, India, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Nigeria, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Benin, the Ivory Coast and China have all arrived in Havana.

In spite of its governments, Europe has its presence (from Germany, Finland, Malta, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Austria).

And the Latin Americans and Caribbean artists are here in force (Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Martinique, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Peru, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Panama).

Cuba is represented by 18 artists at the Biennial, the Enema Collective and the Departamento de Intervenciones Públicas, but the pulse of contemporary art on the island can also be taken in 53 personal exhibitions and 47 collective ones.

Given the success of the 1st Humanitarian Auction at the 7th Havana Biennial (the money collected was handed over to the Havana Oncological Hospital’s children’s ward) Casa de las Américas has organized a second edition, to which 50 Cuban artists have donated their works. But, on this occasion, the funds collected will go to the renovation of the Villa Clara Pediatric Hospital’s onco-hematology ward.

Dr. Bertha Vergara, director of the ward, informed this publication that they are hoping to acquire various pieces of equipment, such as a laminar flow camera for cytostatic treatments as these are highly toxic for workers in the long term and even for the environment; and an electronic cell counter. Also planned is a games room to improve the children’s quality of life: "in addition to tranquility, they need entertainment as they are normally admitted for months."

The works for auction went on display in the Casa galleries on October 24, and those who have attended can appreciate that the exhibition is a kind of tour of the Cuban contemporary visual arts: including Juan Carlos Alom, Bejerano, Raúl Corrales, Liborio Noval, Korda (1928-2001, photos donated by his daughter), Fabelo, Diago, Garaicoa, Garciandía, KCHO, Montoto, Oliva, Zaida del Río and Choco.