It was 1988.
The gallery was located at the former town house where Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn used to live. The walls had the reverberations of Watergate intrigues. Now, it was under a new ownership, who converted the historic— or infamous — townhouse into an Art Gallery which was located very closed to Dupont Circle.
The new owner was a dentist who loved the arts. I had met her before at one of my previous art exhibitions. She had admired my work. One day, she called and asked me if I wanted to exhibit at her gallery. I went to see her space. The exhibits were held in the rooms downstairs. She, her husband, and children lived upstairs. When she showed me her living quarters I was able to see the all-pink bathroom of Sally Quinn! Even the bidet! I never thought “Sally” will have such a color in her bathroom!
After a 20-year career exhibiting in Washington, DC with a variety of my collections inspired by Egyptian art, I had been invited on an official visit to Egypt by the Ministry of Higher Education in Cairo in 1978 and given special pass to visit the Cairo Museum all the times I wanted, and an interview with its Director. Also the government gave me a car and a chauffeur for trips around Cairo.
The first expedition was to the pyramids in Giza. When I was alone in the chamber, I was able to lie down inside the sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. Then, I was taken to the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Later, they took me to Luxor, Karnak, The Valley of the Kings, Aswan and Abu Simbel and other important archaeological sites.
I had an interview published by the leading Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. Also interviews and photos of my art were published in many international publications. The authorities in Pharonic Egypt had valued my work.
So back in Washington ten years after my trip to Egypt, I decided to have a retrospective of my paintings in my new friend’s gallery. And I had room for exhibiting 105 pieces. This exhibit looked very good!
For some reason, unlike in Egypt, and despite my career as an artist with 20 years of exhibitions and regardless of honors from experts as well as very good comments from the public not a single Washington, DC “critic” had been willing to review my work until then.
This time, as usual, once again my exhibit was completely ignored by art critics.What was the reason? Perhaps I was too shy?
This was the time of Boy George and other unusually dressed singers and artists. I decided that maybe I needed a “gimmick” to at least attract the attention of those subjective individuals who call themselves “critics.”
So I tried my scheme. I dressed outrageously for the first time at an art center in Maryland mansion having a group show. I went alone, leaving somebody in the car outside in case I had to escape in a hurry. To my surprise, I was a success and managed to be the center of attention. Not that I wanted to be, I am the opposite of that! I was doing that of pure necessity, only to finally get some publicity for my work! So although it was a success, I left with a sense of relief…that no one had called the police.
Afterwards, I read that People Magazine was having its 10-year anniversary party at a historic mansion in Washington, DC. What an opportunity for publicity. The problem was that it was by invitation and I didn’t know of anybody who received one!
But necessity does wonders. I decided to try to repeat my previous success and dressed outrageously. Because whatever will be will be. The house was on a hill in Washington. My platform shoes were killing me as I walked. I was concerned that I would fall down before reaching my target. I went with a friend who was holding me during the climbing of the hill. I was hoping that I didn’t have to make a running escape, because we didn’t had an official invitation.
I had been present at an art exhibit that didn’t require an invitation in that same historical mansion before. So I had an idea of the floor plan. I had to walk up to some steps to enter the foyer. And if allowed, go upstairs via the grand stairway. Before departing, my friend had asked me whether I had an invitation. I replied, “Of course.” I lied. If I had told him the truth he would have refusde to go with me. But before we entered the mansion I told him, “Follow me—whatever happens and whatever I do.”
I made my entrance. Disbelieving eyes immediately turned to me. A man and a woman came running to see who in the hell I was, and if my companion and I were on the guest list. The man asked for my name, which I gave him. Of course, he went up and down the invitation list a few times but could not find my name anywhere.
“I received an invitation,” I said calmly.
And I pretended to look in what was not a pocket in my outfi,t and said, “Oh I must have left it at home.”
Turning to my companion I asked him, “Do you have it in your pocket?”
“I do not, you didn’t give it to me.” He nervously said.
“Well,” I said, “I guess it is at home…”
The gatekeeper and the woman with him told me “wait a second” and went away I don’t know where in a big rush. Not long after they came back and announced, “Welcome.”
And we went upstairs very, very slowly because I was worried that I would have an accident because of my platform shoes and fall down the stairs. Many curious people in attendance followed me with their eyes, trying to figure out “who was that strange vision who made that entrance.”
In the main room, their eyes were on me again and I didn’t see any familiar faces. I walked around, pretending to look at the photographs of the front covers of People magazine over the last 10 years. Some people approached me out of curiosity and smiled like they approved my look. I smiled back, but didn’t introduce myself, remaining aloof.
After a while, a lady came over to introduce herself. She told me she owned a castle in England, and invited me to visit. I let her talk all she wanted to, and replied in simple monosyllables. Later, while some of the invited guests were leaving, the lady kept talking me excitedly, when two skinny little women walking side-by-side who reminded me of the Godzilla Mothra Twins appeared like magic. Then they came in my direction. Fortunately they interrupted the woman with the castle in England!
They said they were very interested in me. They were People Magazine reporters. And they asked all kind of questions, trying to find out more about me. I finally broke down under their questioning, and mentioned that I was an artist specializing in Egyptian Art of the Pharaonic era. They might have guessed, since I was wearing three necklaces I bought in Luxor in 1978—but they didn’t.
I tried to continue the conversation about Egypt but they keep asking me where I was born. I didn’t have a typical Spanish accent, because I was had been an actor in my country and in Spain. So I told them that I had lived in Europe and continued my conversation about Egypt. But they kept interrupting me, asking, “Are you Italian?’”
I said, “No.”
And tried to continue talking about my artwork.
“Are you French?”
I replied, “I lived in Paris, but I am not French.”
You may wonder why I was so insistent upon the maintaining mystery of my origin. So I will tell you. My friend, the late and well-known writer, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, had advised me to keep mum way back when I lived in Madrid, Spain, as a young man, in 1966. He told me: “The art world, and the publishing world, are dominated by left-wing Marxists and Communists, so if you want to be in the arts do not mention that you are Cuban — because it will close all the doors for you.”
Based on his advice, as soon as I began exhibiting in the United States, I decided to write in my published biographies that I was born on a Caribbean island… but not mention which one.
But these People Magazine Godzilla Mothra little twins were pressing me about my birthplace. They were so curious that I forgot the advice of Cabrera Infante, and began to blab.
I finally said, “On a Caribbean island.”
But they didn’t leave me alone with that, and asked, “Which island?”
I wanted to say “None of your business.”
But I didn’t. I failed because I didn’t want to be rude. After many more questions about which island, asked in many different ways, I finally blabbed the magic name, “Cuba.”
As automatically as two persons at once can be, they did an immediate about-face movement and abandoned me instantly. I felt like a used piece of toilet paper that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the salon.
I decided to leave immediately. My friend had to follow me as I walked extra carefully out the door in my platform shoes.
My friend Cabrera Infante had been right. Obviously, the People Magazine reporters had deserted me in a flash because they saw I was not a lover of the “Cuban Paradise” that Fidel Castro made of my island.
The Marxists and American left think that any Cuban should be in Cuba supporting Castro instead of living in the U.S. as a Cuban-American.
So, there was nothing else I could do in the art world of the country which I had become a citizen. I was a non-person. I did not exist as an artist to them, no matter what. And that was the moment I decided not to bother exhibiting my work here any longer.
For I had found myself completely “canceled” decades before the “Woke” cancellations in America today. Because I was a Cuban-American who did not like Castro, I had become a non-person who was treated as if he did not exist. It was pretty much like in the Soviet Union, except for the gulags and firing squads.
At that instant, I knew my career as an artist in America had come to an end.
AUTHOR
EDITORS NOTE: This Spider & The Fly column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
