The Friends of José Martí

  The Friends of José Martí Sculpture Project is an initiative of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and a leader in the field of cultural exchange with Cuba and Latin America. www.friendsofjosemarti.com

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In Death of a Bureaucrat, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s 1966 film, he introduced an early criticism of the Cult of Personality surrounding the image of José Martí.

In Vedado, a once wealthy neighborhood in Havana, busts of Martí can be seen twice on every block. Some are stone, carved with varying degrees of artistic interpretations and others are plastic, factory made.

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After six months in a Cuban labor camp as a political dissident, Martí was granted clemency and in 1871 he left for Spain. Once there he published “El presidio político en Cuba” about his experiences in prison.   

These writings  mark the depth, pain and difficulties of his experience, and had a huge impact on Spanish liberals, Cuban exiles and  all supporters of the cause of Cuban independence from Spain.

Photo: self portrait found in the margins of one of Martí’s notebooks while in Spain.

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Glitch-art Martí. We’re very excited to 3d scan the original sculpture of Martí soon with KC Fabrications but in the meantime we’re experimenting with different methods of 3d rendering Martí.

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In Diego Rivera’s “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park,” found in the Museo Mural Diego Rivera, we can see José Martí hiding behind Mexican dictator, Porfirio Diaz’s, elegantly dressed wife and daughter and next to a young Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Martí returned to Mexico in 1894, during the Cuban revolt against Spain in desperate need of financial support. He sought an audience with Porfirio Diaz and gave a speech preaching the necessity of an independent Cuba from the hands of a “corrupted Spain,” a struggle Mexico also had to endure.

Díaz’s dictatorship ended in 1911 after he tried to rig the election. One might wonder why Rivera, a revolutionary, placed Martí, another revolutionary hero, behind the opulence of Díaz’s daughter and wife.

This mural is full of conflict, symbolized by the yin and yang held by Kahlo.

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Photo: A portrait of Martí during his return to Mexico in 1894,  Iconografía del apóstol José Martí

In 1875, José Martí arrived in Mexico City, where he worked as a high school teacher and began to gain attention as a journalist, playwright and orator.

His articles criticized growing inequality in Mexico City, eventually resulting in Mexico’s dictator Porfirio Díaz pressuring him to leave.

He did not return to Mexico for another 17 years, until during the the 1894 revolutionary uprising in Cuba, he turns to the Mexicans as a last resort for aid.

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José Julian Martí Perez was born in Havana on January 28, 1853. At the age of sixteen, he founded a newspaper, La Patria Libra, and published his first work as a writer. In that same paper, he published "Abdala", a patriotic drama in verse. Shortly after this publication, Marti was imprisoned by the Spanish authorities.

“And so much love for this patch of earth?

Did it protect you in your childhood?

Did it bear you lovingly in its bosom?

Was it the land that gave birth to your daring,

Your strength?”

Abdala, 1869

Photo: Playbill from Teatro Universitario de La Habana

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Welcome to the Friends of José Martí Sculpture Project

In 1958, Cuba presented Anna Hyatt Huntington’s sculpture of José Martí, the “apostle of Cuban independence,” to the people of the U.S. Now, decades later, with the goal of utilizing the arts as a platform for promoting cross-cultural understanding between residents of the U.S. and Cuba, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, a leading museum of contemporary art with a three-decade history of cultural exchange with Cuba, in cooperation with the City of New York, is replicating the original sculpture in New York’s Central Park to present to the people of,Cuba, for permanent display on the Avenida Misiones in Havana’s historic  colonial section.

In the following weeks, the Friends of Jose Martí Sculpture project will engage in 3d scanning of the original sculpture, creating the bronze replica and sending it to Cuba. This page will update the public on the process as well as explain the historical significance of the project.