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Mural of the Granma unveiled in presence of
Raúl
BY MICHEL HERNANDEZ—Granma daily staff writer—
EL arca de la libertad
(The Ark of Freedom) mural, painted by 15 Cuban
artists convened by the eminent painter and sculptor
Alexis Leyva Machado (Kcho) has been unveiled in the
presence of General of the Army Raúl Castro Ruz,
second secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party.
 At
the ceremony in the Cuban Art Building of the Museum
of Fine Arts, Kcho explained that the work is “a
present to Fidel for his 80th birthday and to the
crew of the Granma yacht on the 50th
anniversary of its landing.
“The Granma is a special
boat in the history of Cuba, it is the boat that
changed all our lives,” he said. The internationally
recognized artist commented on the genesis of the
project: “I called on various friends who love the
Revolution and I felt very happy when Fidel said
that “this Granma is going to the Museum of
Fine Arts, because that is where it should be,
because this work has to be shared with the people,
the people have to see the work that you did to pay
tribute to the expedition.”
In his speech at the mural
launching, National Literature Prize winner Miguel
Barnet stated that “the Granma today is not
just a yacht, it is a lighthouse, a luminous stripe
of the flag; investing it with the attributes
created by the artists is to confer on it a new
dimension of its prodigious imagery.”
A highly moving moment of the
ceremony was an interpretation of “La Lupe,” at Raúl
Castro’s request, sung by the National Choir of
Cuba, conducted on this occasion by its director
Digna Guerra and its author, Commander of the
Revolution Juan Almeida Bosque who, from his seat
and visibly moved, symbolically conducted the voices
that once again gave life to the well-known musical
theme.
Among those attending the event
were likewise Commander of the Revolution Ramiro
Valdés Menéndez; members of the Political Bureau
Carlos Lage, Abel Prieto and Pedro Ross, and Nobel
Prize Winner Gabriel García Márquez.
Before the mural was unveiled, a
group of assailants on the Moncada Garrison and
Granma expeditionaries toured the show Un
abrazo de Guayasamín a Fidel (An Embrace from
Guayasamín to Fidel) in the Universal Arts building
and appreciated the collective work Cinco Palmas,
installed facing that building and inaugurated at
the end of the colloquium Memoria y futuro: Cuba
y Fidel (Memory and Future: Cuba and Fidel) on
December 1.
Translated by Granma
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