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Minorista Group

{{Short description|Cuban Avant-garde art movement}}

File:Grupo_Minorista.jpg

File:Grupo_Minorista_at_dinner.webp (seated center right)]]

The Minorista Group, or Retail Group (Spanish: Grupo Minorista), was an avant-garde group of Cuban artists, writers, philosophers, poets, and others collectively called the "vanguard of the intelligencia," active during the 1920s that had an enormous influence on events in Cuban politics and society in the early half of the twentieth century.{{Cite web |last=Torriente |first=Lolo de la |date=2019 |title=The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Chapter 4. |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/68657 |website=Project Muse |publisher=Duke University Press}}{{Citation |last=Unruh |first=Vicky |title=The Fluid Expressive Communities of Cuba's Interwar Avant-Gardes |date=2024 |work=The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature |pages=246–262 |editor-last=Loss |editor-first=Jacqueline |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-cuban-literature/fluid-expressive-communities-of-cubas-interwar-avantgardes/EAF398EAC809FCD45B7F2A132FE64306 |access-date=2024-10-16 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-009-16834-2 |editor2-last=Unruh |editor2-first=Vicky}} The Minorista Group was founded in 1923 by Rubén Martínez Villena.{{Cite web |last=Martinez |first=Juan A. |title=The Social and the Real — Modern Cuban Art |url=https://moderncubanart.com/The-Social-and-the-Real |access-date=2024-10-16 |website=moderncubanart.com |language=en}} The Minorista Group was created after the events of the Protest of the Thirteen, which had been led by Villena, and came to challenge the administration of Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso.{{Cite web |title=The Republic (1898–1959) {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/republic-1898-1959 |access-date=2024-10-16 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}} The original protest was against the sale of the Santa Clara convent by the government for corrupt purposes.{{Cite journal |last=Wilkinson |first=Stephen |date=2011 |title=Review of Fantoches 1926: Folletín Moderno por once escritores Cubanos, Ana María Hernández; Indicios, señales y narraciones: Literatura Policíaca en lengua española |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41945967 |journal=International Journal of Cuban Studies |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=389–391 |jstor=41945967 |issn=1756-3461}}

The group met on Saturdays at the Hotel Lafayette in Havana.

Collaborative projects

The Minoristas were not only officially responsible for the creation of Revista de Avance, but also primarily held the leadership roles at the popular magazine Social.{{Cite journal |last=Masiello |first=Francine |date=1993 |title=Rethinking Neocolonial Esthetics: Literature, Politics, and Intellectual Community in Cuba's Revista de Avance |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2503576 |journal=Latin American Research Review |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=3–31 |doi=10.1017/S0023879100037389 |jstor=2503576 |issn=0023-8791}}{{Cite journal |last=García |first=Rainer Rubira |date=2011 |title=Los usos comerciales de la caricatura en Cuba: Conrado Walter Massaguer y la revista 'Cinelandia' como dispositivo para la construcción de la hegemonía del 'start system' hollywoodense en la isla |url=https://indexcomunicacion.es//index.php/indexcomunicacion/article/view/22/282 |journal=Index.comunicación |language=es |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=145–169 |issn=2174-1859}}

In 1926, no fewer than eleven Minoristas collaborated to write the novel "Fantoches 1926." Each month, a different member would contribute a chapter to the book. Carlos Loveira wrote the first and last chapters of the book. The final chapter of Fantoches 1926 was illustrated by Conrado Walter Massaguer. Fantoches 1926 was published in twelve serial installments in Social.{{Cite web |last=Wilkinson |first=Stephen |date=February 2000 |title=Detective fiction in Cuban society and culture |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30695775.pdf |website=Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London |page=92}}

Contemporary society

In 2023, on the Centenary of the Minoristas founding, the German artist Hans Winkler opened an exhibit called the "Minorista Cafe," at the Cuban National Museum of Fine Arts. This exhibit was intended to show a link between the Minoristas and the Dada movement.{{Cite web |date=March 29, 2023 |title=Germany's Hans Winkler exhibits Cafe Minorista installation in Cuba |url=https://www.plenglish.com/news/2023/03/29/germanys-hans-winkler-exhibits-cafe-minorista-installation-in-cuba/ |website=Presna Latina English}}

Members

References

Category:Cuban artists

Category:Cuban art

Category:Cuban writers

Category:Cuban poets

Category:History of Cuba

Category:Cuban activists

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