The Salón de Mayo (May Salon) was an art exhibition held in

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

, in July 1967. It took its name from the

Salon de Mai The Salon de Mai (the ''salon (gathering), May Salon'') is a group of French artists which formed in a café on the Rue Dauphine in Paris in 1943 during the German occupation of France during World War II, German occupation of France.Ferrier, Jean ...

, an artists collective founded during the

Nazi occupation of France The Military Administration in France (; ) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western France. This so-called ' was established in June 19 ...

. It was organized by

Carlos Franqui Carlos Franqui (December 4, 1921 – April 16, 2010) was a Cuban writer, poet, journalist, art critic, and political activist. After the Fulgencio Batista coup in 1952, he became involved with the 26th of July Movement which was headed by Fidel ...

with the assistance of such artists as

Wifredo Lam Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (; December 8, 1902 – September 11, 1982), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cubans, Afro-Cuban spirit and culture. Inspired by ...

, René Portocarrero,

Alexander Calder Alexander "Sandy" Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobile (sculpture), mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, hi ...

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

. The exhibition presented works by more than a hundred artists and represented rival schools of twentieth-century art: early modernists (Picasso, Miro, Magritte); the next generation (Lam, Calder,

Jacques Hérold Jacques Hérold (born Herold Blumer; 10 October 191011 January 1987) was a prominent Surrealism, surrealist painter born in Piatra Neamț, Romania. Biography Considered one of the most important late-period Surrealism, Surrealist painters, Hér ...

Stanley Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and master printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers ...

); and postwar (

Asger Jorn Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. The largest collection of Jorn's works� ...

Antonio Saura Antonio Saura Atarés (September 22, 1930 – July 22, 1998) was a Spanish artist and writer, one of the major post-war painters to emerge in Spain in the fifties whose work has marked several generations of artists and whose critical voice is ...

, Jorge Soto). Lam wrote to Franqui in anticipation of the event of his hopes: Some artists were invited to create works in Cuba in the weeks preceding the exhibition, with those works donated to the Cuban government to form the nucleus of the collection of a contemporary art museum. The museum was never constructed. Collaborative engagement was a principle theme of the event. On 19 July 1967, more than eighty artists and writers contributed to a mural, ''Cuba colectiva'', in front of the Cuba Pavilion in Havana, adding either images or text inside spiral bands that circled outward from a central image of "rhomboid heads" by Lam. A Paris newspaper described the event: In Franqui's words the enterprise represented: The

Surrealists Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and id ...

had dreamed of "a revolutionary imagination that could support social change" and this event, in the estimation of one art historian, "delivered the opportunity for Surrealist adherents to participate satisfactorily–if only briefly–in an act of solidarity with an actual revolutionary regime ... that accommodated both sensuality and revolutionary rectitude." The radical poet Alain Jouffroy wrote: The Salón was a unique event under a regime that, in the words of a writer who was later imprisoned, "used every imaginable pretext to keep culture on a short leash". As a demonstration of vigorous self-expression, the Salón de Mayo has also been interpreted as a rejection of the Soviet Union's approach to artistic endeavor, an assertion on the part of Communist Cuba of its independence from the Soviet model. Within Cuba, the Salón de Mayo represented the high point of free artistic expression. Some in Cuba's cultural establishment resented the influence of foreigners and visiting intellectuals, and they took measures soon after it against writers identified as dissidents. The Cuban government released a series of

commemorative stamps A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike defi ...

that depicted 25 of the works included in the show.

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Picture of participants
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salon de Mayo 1967 in art 1967 in Cuba Visual arts exhibitions Culture in Havana Surrealism Freedom of expression Public art International artist groups and collectives

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