Escapes
art without freedom
Since April 7th, the international museum of modest arts in Sète presented the exhibition Escapes : art without freedom.
Beyond what is commonly named “art in prison” the exhibition gathered, for the first time, several works made in locations deprived of liberty, such as: jails, refugees camps or concentration camps.
On this occasion the gallery lent more than works produced by the Cuban artist Boris Santamaria and very rare paintings by Leon Schwartz-Abrys produced during his stay in Sainte-Anne Hospital, under the Nazi-occupation.
Born in 1971 in Havana, Boris is the descendant of one of the greatest revolutionary families in Cuban before 1959: the Santamarias. His aunt, Haydee Santamaria, was one of the three most important women of the revolution, a heroine of the attack on the barracks of Moncada lead by a revolutionary group under the direction of Fidel Castro, and the director of the “Maison des Amériques” (the Center for the Americas) until her suicide. His first name, Boris, was given to him to commemorate the martyr of the revolution, Boris Luis Santa Coloma, who was his aunt’s partner during the clandestine battles. He was brutally tortured and then killed by the armed forces of Fulgenico Batista’s police.[…]