A graphic art exhibit was recently inaugurated at the modern Museum of the TAMA Art University in Tokyo, in celebration of the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the First Declaration of Havana (September 2, 1960), which called for the end of the exploitation of the peoples of Latin America.

The exhibition, which includes 39 engravings and 34 posters by Cuban graphic artists, plus 18 photographs by Kondo, a Japanese artist, is meant as “a vigorous political testimony,” said Cuban ambassador José Fernandez de Cossio during the opening ceremony. He highlighted that it is meant to remind the world of the principles and objectives of the Cuban Revolution as it faces once again the “shady maneuvers of US imperialism as seen at the assembly of the OAS recently held in Costa Rica.” He recalled that the First Declaration of Havana, of “deep anti-imperialist and vindicating nature,” was adopted in a “gigantic assembly of the people carried out at the Jose Martí Revolution Square, in a categorical, massive and direct exercise of popular will.” It was a categorical response -underlined Fernandez de Cossio- to the hostile and aggressive policies of the US government against the young Revolution, an attitude that persists today through “the illegal economic blockade imposed by Washington on the island for some fifty years now.”

The ambassador thanked painter Taeko Tomiyama for having provided the excellent collection of engravings, which was given to her by Cuba’s National Poet Nicolas Guillén when she visited the Caribbean island in the autumn of 1960.

A group of snapshots of significant moments of the Revolution and of some of the people who played a leading role in this process, captured by the lens of the renowned Japanese photographer –Kondo-, complete the exhibition.

For more go to http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2010/0428artejapon.htm