--- --- Sep 15, 2021 # Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara by Ai Weiwei  Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara Alexandre Meneghini—File Photo/Reuters Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara Alexandre Meneghini—File Photo/ReutersAlexandre Meneghini—File Photo/Reuters Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara’s art, his unignorable fight for freedom of expression and his uncompromising stance against autocracy reveal the power of resistance. Otero Alcántara is a symbol of and a leader within Cuba’s San Isidro movement, an influential group of artists and intellectuals who demanded greater freedoms as antigovernment protests spread across the country this summer. Although he has since been imprisoned, his life, behavior and expression as a whole are so powerful that they can resist the aesthetic and ethical degeneration of authoritarianism. Art needs courage, which he has repeatedly demonstrated. Its aesthetics need a solid philosophical background and a strong sense of ethics—this, too, he has shown. It is through such struggles for free expression that art transcends the condition of banality and mediocracy. _Ai is an artist and activist_ Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara Is on the 2021 TIME100 List ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6096092/luis-manuel-otero-alcantara/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6096092/luis-manuel-otero-alcantara/"},"headline":"Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara","datePublished":"2021-09-15T11:19:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:41.701Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6096092/luis-manuel-otero-alcantara/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","T100 2021"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ddf61b18982d1a0/698a1cb109208f7215418415/luis-manuel-otero-alcantara-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ddf61b18982d1a0/698a1cb109208f7215418415/luis-manuel-otero-alcantara-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6096092/luis-manuel-otero-alcantara/","name":"Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara"}}]}] ```