Smithsonian canceled ambitious project with Cuba

David J. Skorton, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, during his visit to Cuba last April.

Officials from Cuba, the highest level of the government that Collazo, never responded to the final version of the contract, said Linda St. Thomas, chief spokesman for the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian Institute has canceled an ambitious plan to show the Cuban culture in the Mall in Washington during the Folklife Festival 2017, because negotiators could not agree with the authorities of the island on the contract that will govern all aspects of the event, she said The Washington Post Saturday.

After thorough preparations by Cuban and American scholars began more than a decade, culminating in last - minute efforts to redraft a memorandum of understanding last spring, the document was unsigned late last month .

"The Smithsonian and Cuba have failed to finalize a clear plan for next summer , " said Michael Atwood Mason, director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, on September 22, his Cuban counterpart, Gladys Collazo Usallán, president of National Council of Cultural Heritage.

"Since we now have less than nine months before the festival, is no longer feasible to produce a memorable thinking program for the 2017 festival , " Mason said, according to the Washington Post.

Officials from Cuba, the highest level of the government that Collazo, never responded to the final version of the contract, said Linda St. Thomas, chief spokesman for the Smithsonian.

Collazo in Havana, and officials of the Embassy of Cuba in Washington, did not respond to requests for comment, he told the Washington Post.

But this is not the first problem that arises in so -called cultural exchanges between the two countries encouraged by the Obama administration.

Last August, when the Art Museum of Bronx sought to expand its reach beyond the city of New York with a new building, a policy of free admission and ambitious projects of international appeal, including several projects in Cuba, happened in the if the island was too far, worrying local authorities for their plan to spend $ 2.5 million to create a replica of a sculpture of Jose Marti, the Cuban revolutionary leader and an exchange of artworks with Havana.

In a big jolt, in which two senior officials resigned along with four other board members, authorities criticized the institution arguing that some of those projects in Cuba have betrayed their local mission.

"We are alarmed by the seriousness of these problems, and the lack of an impartial mechanism for resolution , " then said Laura White, the president of the board of the Bronx Museum, and Mary Beth Mandanas, the vice president, in a message email in which notified their resignation from the rest of the board.

The United States has funded the exchange of visits by Cuban and American artists show as part of the process of rapprochement between the two countries, as reported in April from Havana high US official.

" This is the first time that the US government will provide financial support for this exchange , " said Jane Chu, president of the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States during a visit to the island by a US delegation that was part David J. Skorton, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.