The "Secret Process" Against Graffiti Artist El Sexto

The "Secret Process" Against Graffiti Artist El Sexto / El Sexto –
Danilo Maldonado Machado
Posted on May 31, 2013
By Ernesto Santana

In his five years as a graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto (The
Sixth), has gone through violent and arbitrary arrests, the seizure of
his personal property, threats and other abuses, but has continued to
stamp his works throughout Havana.

State Security has kidnapped him and even taken him to visit Alexis
Leyva, Kcho, an "example of artist" according to them. In vain, El
Sexto, is backsliding and the direct and confrontational tone of his art
grows ever stronger. If at one time he used great ironies such as
"Return my five euros," he now puts "Down With Castro" on a bloody
background or paints a swastika over the face of Fidel Castro.

"I'm like a dog with a bone," says Danilo in conversation with this
reporter, "even though every time they erase my graffiti faster." When
they increased the pressure on him, he decided to combine the marginal
arts of tattoo and graffiti and began to draw on his own skin what he
wanted to denounce; and in addition, as an example of his persistence,
he wrote his signature over the police pink paint-outs over his previous
graffiti.

abajo-castro,,-741206A Spray Can as a Weapon

But they have to catch him in the act to stop him. Simply carrying a
spray can in his pocket, as happened on Friday May 17, when he went with
some friends to buy some beer at the corner of Twenty and G about nine
in the evening. A policeman asked for documentation and took him to the
station at Zapata and C, where he had to wait until the next day to meet
with the chief of the station.

"When I finally talked to him," Danilo said, "he asked me, 'So you're
the one who does all that out there?' I gave him a disc with my work, so
he would know what I was doing. " The reaction was take odor samples
(they tried to get him to give them urine samples, but he declined,
although they disrespected him with extreme rudeness) and they took him
in two patrol cars to make a search of his home.

"They started to take canvases, sprays, a laptop, a camera, memory
cards, discs and unused canvases, and put everything in nylon bags that
said 'Forensics'," El Sexto said. Then they took him back to the police
station and at midnight that same Saturday, the 18th, they returned to
take him to the office of the chief, now absent. "There was a woman who
behaved with very little respect. All my belongings were on a table, any
old way, all mixed up," says Danilo.

SP_A1069-779127The officer informed him that three of his paintings
would be confiscated, as well as templates for stencils, his artistic
projects, thirty-seven enamel spray cans and even four cans of oil paint
and even his resume, arguing that they were objects related to "a crime
under investigation." Then they handed him a record of what had been
seized and released him.

Not Unemployed: Artist

Two days later, El Sexto started a legal process with an attorney to get
them to return what they had seized him, because when they searched his
home and confiscated objects, he was not given a copy of what
confiscated, as dictated by the procedures. "Why did they return some
works and not others?" the graffiti artist asked. "Why did they keep the
spray paint that I bought at State stores? They did what they felt like,
violating many things," he said.

He had been branded unemployed and he had replied: "I am an artist,
although I am not your artist. I'm not here to worship any god. I have
the right to criticize and say what I want." And it was more clear when
he told the police: "You're not talking about some revolution, but a
phalanx who loves the F of Fidel. It is illegal for me to paint the
walls, but not to write "Long live Fidel" or "In line with Fidel"
without asking anyone. Why do I have to check with you to say something?"

fidel-fasisssta-729672The Secret Process

Determined not to be passed over, he will continue to demand the return
of his works. "I did not kill anyone, I am an honest person, I live in
my work and my wife is pregnant," he pointed out to the officer. "In
fact, my greatest endorsement is what you do, punishing me, which
confirms that I'm doing my job. How ironic."

When the informed his attorney that a file had been opened on his
client, the counsel asked what he was accused of, and the only response,
according to what Danilo said, "they told him they couldn't tell him,
because it was a secret process. I insisted, but the only thing they
told me was "soon" they would tell me what I was accused of. They
alleged that it was a falsehood that they'd made an accusation and that
I had refused to sign it. But we wrote letters of complaint and
delivered them to the appropriate places," Danilo Maldonado concluded.

escupeloThe Criminal Value of the Artwork

From these events, Otari Oliva, one of the project coordinators of
Christ the Saviour Gallery (which did a great series of exhibitions of
Cuban graffiti between September and November), wrote a text setting out
his concerns as an artist: "The situation of El Sexto makes me reflect:
a work of art can possess criminal value and this is referred to in the
criminal code of my country. Starting today I would like to be able to
determine, as I can determine the criminal value of certain acts, the
criminal value which may lie in a work of art." And then he made his
position clear: "Either the criminal code will be adequate and judgment
will be pronounced from an exercise in transparency, clarifying for
Danilo and everyone the reasoning of the authorities, or we are
dangerously close to a burning pyre of books, in addition to the hands
of our artists trembling perhaps a little more from now on."

Either way, El Sexto does not have among his plans, backing down. In the
coarse search they did of his home, the experts like a bag with the word
"Forensics" printed on it, which he now thinks of using to create a
work. A gift that they gave him to continue honing his art.

Photos courtesy of Ernesto Santana. Originally published on Cubanet.

30 May 2013

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