Fidel With a Rainbow: Drawings at the Centro Fidel Castro Ruz

In a glass case, drawings of Fidel Castro hang in two columns, one above another. Green uniform, cap, black beard, with a rainbow over some and red splashes over others that look like fireworks, or like paint straight from the tube. The hand is a child's, the colours are loud, and no sheet strays from the pattern.

The Centro Fidel Castro Ruz in the Vedado district opened in November 2021 in a late 19th-century mansion, with nine exhibition rooms, a library and a theatre. At the opening Raúl Castro called it the most moving thing he had ever seen. Exile newspapers criticised the cost of building it in the middle of the pandemic.

The case shows how a personality cult reaches the youngest. Every sheet repeats the same three features, uniform, cap and beard, and none of them shows a person. As a document it says more than the institution probably intends.

Centro Fidel Castro Ruz, Vedado, Havana.