INTERNACIONAL
Morocco museum hosts one of Africa’s first exhibitions of Cuban art
- The exhibition at Morocco’s Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art showcases Cuban art.
- It represents one of the first displays of Cuban artwork at an African museum.
- Themes explored in the exhibition range from isolation and economic embargo to heritage and identity.
When Morocco ‘s King Mohamed VI visited Havana in 2017, Cuban-American gallery owner Alberto Magnan impressed him with a «full immersion» in the Caribbean island’s art and culture, drawing a line between the cultural and historical themes tackled by Cuban artists and those from across Africa.
Seven years after that encounter, one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum is showing at Morocco’s Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
It’s part of an effort to give visitors a view beyond the European artists who often remain part of the school curriculum in the North African nation and other former French colonies, museum director Abdelaziz El Idrissi said.
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«The Moroccan public might know Giacometti, Picasso or impressionists,» El Idrissi said. The museum has shown them all. «We’ve seen them and are looking for other things, too.»
The Cuba show contains 44 pieces by Wifredo Lam — a major showing of the Afro-Cuban painter’s work more than a year before New York City’s Museum of Modern Art will honor him with a career retrospective show in 2025.
«We’re kind of beating MoMA to the punch,» Magnan said.
The Morocco show also marks the first time that the work of another luminary, Jose Angel Toirac, is being displayed outside Cuba. Previously, his paintings depicting the country’s late anti-capitalist president Fidel Castro in the iconography of American advertisements and consumer culture were not allowed off the island.
Other works in «Cuban Art: On the other side of the Atlantic» — open until June 16 — show prevalent themes in Cuban art ranging from isolation and economic embargo to heritage and identity.
In Cuba, almost half of the population identifies as mixed race and more than 1 million people are Afro-Cuban. The island’s diversity is a recurring subject for its painters and artists, including Lam. That’s why it was important to show his work — including paintings of African-inspired masks and use of vibrant color — in Africa, Magnan said.
Morocco is among countries that have shown new interest in Cuban art since the United States restored diplomatic ties with Cuba in 2014 and Castro died in 2016. American art dealers and major museums flocked to the previously difficult-to-visit island.
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But the intrigue was curbed by the COVID-19 pandemic and former U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to redesignate the country as a «state sponsor of terrorism,» Magnan said.
Meanwhile, Morocco has increased funding for arts and culture in an effort to boost its «geopolitical soft power» in North Africa and beyond.
In both Morocco and Cuba, 20th century artists responded to political transition — decolonization in Morocco, revolution in Cuba — by drawing from history and engaging in trends shaping contemporary art worldwide.
But the current show does not touch on Moroccan-Cuban diplomatic relations, which were restored following King Mohamed VI’s 2017 visit to Cuba.
The countries had cut ties decades ago over Cuba’s position on the disputed Western Sahara, which Morocco claims. Cuba has historically trained Sahrawi soldiers and doctors and backed the Polisario Front’s agenda at the United Nations.
INTERNACIONAL
Wife of US hostage Keith Siegel pleads for holiday miracle: ‘we need to get them back’
FIRST ON FOX – Aviva Siegel, the wife of American hostage Kieth Siegel and a former hostage herself, is pleading with everyone and anyone involved in the hostage negotiations to get her husband, and the others, freed from Hamas captivity after they have spent more than 440 days in deplorable conditions.
«Hamas released a video of Keith, and I just saw the picture,» Aviva told Fox News Digital in an emotional interview in reference to a video Hamas released in April. «He looks terrible. His bones are out, and you can see that he’s lost a lot of weight.
«He doesn’t look like himself. And I’m just so worried about him, because so [many] days and minutes have passed since that video that we received,» she said. «I just don’t know what kind of Keith that we’re going to get back.»
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«I’m worried about all the hostages, because the conditions that they are in are the worst conditions that any human being could go through,» Aviva said. «I was there. I touched death. I know what it feels being underneath the ground with no oxygen.
«Keith and I were just left there. We were left there to die,» she added.
Aviva and her husband of, at the time 42 years, were brutally abducted from their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and held together for 51 days before she was released in the November 2023 hostage exchange after suffering from a stomach infection that left her incredibly ill.
She has since tirelessly fought for Kieth’s release, meeting with top officials in the U.S. and Israel, traveling to the United States nine times in the last year and becoming a prominent advocate for the hostages.
«I just hope that he’s with other people from Israel, and if he has them, he’s going to be okay,» Aviva said. «He’s just the person that will make them feel that they’re together. That’s what he did when I was there – he was 100% for me and the hostages that we were with.»
«If you get kidnapped, get kidnapped with Keith, because he was outstanding to everybody. He was strong for all of us. And I’m sure that he’s keeping strong and keeping his hope to come out,» she said.
Aviva recounted their last moments together before they were separated ahead of her release, telling Fox News Digital, «When I left him, I told him to be the strongest – that he needs to be strong for me, and I’ll be strong for him.»
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY UNDER PRESSURE AMID RISING RESISTANCE, POPULARITY OF IRAN-BACKED TERROR GROUPS
Top security officials from the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar have been pushing Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire and the return of hostages.
Reports on Thursday suggested that negotiators are pushing for a 42-day cease-fire in which 34 of the at least 50 hostages still assessed to be alive, could be exchanged.
Hamas is also believed to continue to hold at least 38 who were taken hostage and then killed while in captivity, along with at least seven who are believed to have been killed on Oct. 7, 2023 and then taken into Gaza.
Though all the hostages are believed to have been held in deplorable conditions, the children, women – including the female IDF soldiers – the sick and the elderly have reportedly been front listed to be freed first in exchange for Hamas terrorists currently imprisoned.
«I’m keeping my hope and holding on and just waiting – waiting to hug Keith, and waiting for all the families, to get their families back,» Aviva said. «We need to get them back.»
Aviva said she dreams of the moment that she gets to hug her husband again and watch their grandchildren «jump into his arms.»
«We’ll be the happiest people on Earth,» she said. «All the hostages, I can’t imagine them coming home. It’ll be just the happiest moment for all of the families. We need it to happen.»
Reports in recent weeks suggest there is an increased sense of optimism in bringing home the hostages, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged some caution when speaking with MSNBC Morning Joe on Thursday when he said, «We are encouraged because this should happen, and it should happen because Hamas is at a point where the cavalry it thought might come to the rescue isn’t coming to the rescue, [Hezbollah’s] not coming to the rescue, [Iran’s] not coming to the rescue.»
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«In the absence of that, I think the pressure is on Hamas to finally get to yes,» he added. «But look, I think we also have to be very realistic. We’ve had these Lucy and the football moments several times over the last months where we thought we were there, and the football gets pulled away.
«The real question is: Is Hamas capable of making a decision and getting to yes? We’ve been fanning out with every possible partner on this to try to get the necessary pressure exerted on Hamas to say yes,» Blinken added.
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