UN COUP DE FOUDRE

 A thaw in U.S. – Cuba relations precipitated Havana Jam, a music festival that took place in the Karl Marx Theater in early March of 1979. Tickets were restricted to only those whose party credentials were impeccable. The rabble were consigned to the adjacent alleys and rooftops to hear the faint echoes of Jaco Pastorius, Dexter Gordon, Ruben Blades, Kris Kristofferson and many other musical luminaries. 

Micah Carpentier was among the rabble. So was the dancer Fruma Halajìco.

Fruma Halàjico

 My grandfather, the great Cuban artist Micah Carpentier had a weakness for dance. He had an even greater weakness for dancers. His biggest weakness and by far the most debilitating was his obsession with Fruma Halàjico, La gran dama del bolero.

The sparrows wove an enchanted love story. The demons exerted a wrathful vengeance.

Havana 1951, provided the cauldron where fierce, unbridled passion descended into the low-boil of abject despair.

Carpentier scholars debate whether this was the artist's most fecund period or his most degenerate.

The recent discovery of a cache of Carpentier drawings might offer a window on this issue.  

 

Can Carpentier Be Rehabilitated?

The 20th century Cuban artist Micah Carpentier is loved but rarely admired. Gregarious and playful, his company was sought by his colleagues, his students, foreign visitors, journalists, and even political elites. His work, however, found little favor among the critics. Though he enjoyed a favorable international reputation, it was mostly due to the novelty of his curriculum vitae.

One of his most ridiculous projects, one he took on when he was already in his eighth decade, was to master enough biblical Hebrew to read and appreciate the Old Testament anomaly "The Canticle of Canticles." Drawn to its erotic imagery, Carpentier obsessed over the intricacies of the poem's prosodic innovations. Mocked at the time for what critics saw as mawkish sentimentality, today the work is derided for it's outdated celebration of heterosexual, male virility. 

SPARE US THE ROMANCE

 

 Micah Carpentier never gave a moment's thought to immortality. He was a pragmatist impersonating a dreamer. His love of the Hebrew Bible reflected a love of literature and nothing more.

Dahlia Danton's latest book offers a different viewpoint. Her far-flung speculations veer more toward fantasy fiction than serious art historical scholarship.

When in 1963 he began illustrating The Song of Solomon (שיר השירים), it was merely to facilitate a close reading of the text.

The only saving grace of Danton's misleading book is the lovely preface provided by the Los Angeles artist David Schoffman. Schoffman, a genius in his own right, has a perspective on Carpentier that is both revelatory and emotionally complex.

Micah Carpentier's Shir Ha Shirim

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2022!

A facsimile of this remarkable book, edited and annotated by Dahlia Danton is soon to be published!

LATIN AMERICAN MODERNISM AND THE LEGACY OF MICAH CARPENTIER

Ever since the Cuban government opened access to the Carpentier Archive, we have learned so much about this incredible figure in the history of Latin American Modernism.

 

WHIMPER AGAINST THE MACHINE

My dear uncle, the great Cuban artist, Micah Carpentier, is the subject of this extremely moving portrait by the young Los Angeles filmmaker, Maxwell Gray.