El Sexto in Cuban prison
About ‘the crime’:
1. Earlier this week, Amnesty International issued an urgent call for the release of Cuban graffiti and performance artist Danilo Maldonado Machado, also known as El Sexto. Timing the plea to coincide with the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and naming Maldonado a “prisoner of conscience,” the human rights organization’s Americas Deputy Director for Research Carolina Jiménez said Maldonado’s detention “shows … that while Raúl Castro shakes hands with the world in his historic visit to the USA, things have hardly changed in Cuba, where people are still being thrown in jail solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression.”
Maldonado was detained by Cuban state police on December 25, 2014, after he was observed putting two pigs in the trunk of a taxi. Two familiar names were spray-painted on the sides of the pigs: Fidel and Raúl. Maldonado had planned to use the pigs in a performance art piece scheduled for the next day, when he would release the animals in Havana’s Parque Central, recreating a rural childhood game in which children try to catch greased pigs. (site Hyperallergic)
2. Graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado (aka “El Sexto”) has been in prison since December 2014 for having tried to stage a performance with pigs on which he wrote the names of “Fidel” and “Raul”.
In the end, he wasn’t even able to carry out his plan as he was detained when leading the piglets to the Centro Havana district. In any case, many of us still cherish the memory of the pigs running across the Parque Central.
Artist Tania Bruguera was also arrested in December for having organized a performance #YoTambienExijo (“I also demand”) – an open mic event in the Plaza de la Revolucion. Although she has been subject to several short detentions since then, she still dedicates herself to artivism in Cuba.
Her last performance consisted of an uninterrupted public reading of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, which was held at her home during the Havana Biennial. Everyone was welcome to join in, take the book and read a part of the dreadful anatomy of totalitarianism as interpreted by Hannah.
Tania still firmly believes in art as a tool capable of changing society.
Danilo keeps drawing his pictures behind the walls of the prison. His wings help him leave the cell and fly free. (cubalog.eu)
