Doing More With Less

Art fairs and biennials around the world are cutting back amid the economic crisis, but the tenth edition of the Havana Biennial opening today could be a playbook on how to do more with less. On a budget of a million Cuban pesos, or roughly $200,000, organizers have orchestrated more than a dozen exhibits involving 300-plus artists from 54 countries in venues throughout the city.

Financing the event was a global affair, with some artists paying their own way to Cuba and others seeking help from art nonprofits in their home countries. At least a half-dozen countries, such as Spain and Brazil, are also paying costs for their artistic delegations, according to Ruben del Valle Lanterón, director of the biennial's organizing committee. Most of the local workers staffing the biennial's sites are also volunteers, he adds: "People work for free because they want to -- this is our moment."The theme of the biennial is "Integration and Resistance in the Global Age," so plenty of artists have brought work that tackles globalization, immigration and the economy. Cuban artist Alexandre Arrechea has constructed "The Room of All," a spine-like metal device that contracts or expands according the jumps in the Dow Industrial Average. Annalee Davis's installation "Just Beyond My Imagination," is a faux golf course with sand traps shaped like the Caribbean islands, her sly take on the region's play-land reputation.

Elsewhere, the biennial features a group of Chinese artists, from the eerie expressionism of Chen Bo to Liu Xiaodong. For the first time since the inaugural biennial in 1984, art from the U.S. will also be on major display at the National Museum of International Fine Arts, giving local artists a rare chance to take in the latest trends from the New York art scene. (Cuba's artists rarely get U.S. visas.) "Chelsea Meets Havana" includes works from over three dozen artists, including Doug Young's "Nuclear Launch Center," a sea-foam green desk built to look the kind used by the commander of an Arizona nuclear silo.

Kelly Crow Wall St. Journal