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The Cuban artist Diango Hernández published a powerful political message this Tuesday on his Instagram account a strong political message: "¡Cuba libre! ¡No más dictadores! ¡No más comunismo!" ("FREE CUBA! NO MORE DICTATORS! NO MORE COMMUNISM!").
The post includes the hashtags #freecuba and #nomorecommunism along with the flags of the United States and the bald eagle. This marks a notable shift in the artist's public discourse, who has historically avoided making explicit political statements about the Cuban regime, preferring to encode his criticism through conceptual art.
Hernández was born in 1970 in Sancti Spíritus and studied at the Higher Institute of Design in Havana, graduating in 1994. That same year, he co-founded the collective Ordo Amoris Cabinet along with Ernesto Oroza, Juan Bernal, Francis Acea, and Manuel Piña, with which he addressed material scarcity and social issues in Cuba during the Special Period. In 2003, he emigrated to Europe and currently resides in Düsseldorf, Germany.
His international trajectory positions him among the most globally prominent Cuban artists: his work is part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, and MUSAC, among other institutions. In 2009 he received the Rubens Prize and has participated in the Venice Biennale (2005), as well as the São Paulo and Sydney Biennials (2006).
The contrast with his previous statements is striking. In an interview, he stated that his only passport is the Cuban one. Hernández had noted: "I have never exiled myself. My only passport is the Cuban one, and my permanent residence address is in Centro Habana. I am traveling."
His criticism of the regime had always taken indirect routes: he encoded Fidel Castro's speeches into visual patterns and used José Martí's Versos sencillos as a symbolic reference in his exhibition 'Salvavidas', inaugurated in Havana in December 2018, his first show on the island after 13 years of absence.
Hernández's post came the day before the Free Cuba Rally held this Wednesday at Milander Park in Hialeah, Florida, organized by Mayor Bryan Calvo and the Cuban Anti-Communist Foundation.
The rally's slogans included "Cuba Next!" addressed to President Donald Trump, "Cuba Libre," and "Intervene Now. No Dialog," in an atmosphere of increasing mobilization of the Cuban exile community that seems to have also reached figures in the art world who had previously maintained a more reserved stance.
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