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| Micah Carpentier, 1972 |
In 1973 my uncle, the great Cuban visionary Micah Carpentier was killed under mysterious circumstances. I was nineteen at the time and I petitioned the United States Department of the Treasury for an embargo waiver in order to travel to Havana and set my uncle's affairs in order. (And to attempt to rescue as much of his work as I could from the indifferent clutches of the Castro cultural claque).
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| Roberto Carpentier-Katz at the Malecón, 1979 |
To my great astonishment, permission was granted and reciprocated in Cuba (with the proviso that I bring hard currency and agree to spend at least one-hundred dollars in cash a day - no small feat for a nineteen year-old college drop-out).
Emboldened with righteous consanguineal zeal the probity of the mission all but quashed my well-founded fears.
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| In my uncle's studio, Havana 1979 |
Micah Carpentier's studio was a vast (by Cuban Communist standards) airy space a few blocks south of Avenida de Maceo. A fastidious man, his work was stacked neatly in racks and rows built to his precise specifications. I was totally unprepared for both the quantity and the range of what I found.
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| Para Llevar a Cabo IV, Micah Carpentier, 1967 |
The family in North America, like the rest of the world, knew my uncle exclusively for his paper bag and Chinese take-out drawings. I had no idea that in addition to this he made large paintings, massive sculptures, elaborate theatrical sets and subliminally ironic propaganda posters.
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| Sofia Abulafia-Carpentier |
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| Tutu Daddah |
Her published memoirs (De las Bolsas a la Riqueza, Libros Andrajos, Madrid) has recently been made into a twelve-part docudrama for Spanish cable TV with the role of Carpentier played by the famous Mauritanian hearthrob Tutu Daddah.
My dear, glorious uncle Micah Carpentier lives on!
