Renelio Studio

Los Palestinos.

2026-06-20T13:48:35.670-04:00

Cuando yo era nino alla en La Habana de los anos setenta, las calles de mi barrio en la Habana Vieja, en esa zona que va desde el Parque de la India frente al antiguo hotel Saratoga hasta la Terminal de Trenes, estaba llena de flores y mariposas. Las calles estaban limpias, las sillas y mesas de metal con disenos florales, eran blancas y limpias, las estatuas tambien. El agua salia de la fuente de los delfines. Hoy en dia todo es un desastre. Basura por todas partes. Ruido a niveles insoporbles que te destrozan no solo el timpano sino tambien la orientacion espacio-temporal. Se conversa entre vecinos a los 4 am. igual que si fueran las 4 de la tarde. El mismo tono y nivel de voz. Todo el caos empezo cuando empezaron a llegar los Palestinos. Los Palestinos venian de Oriente, la zona Este del pais donde las caracteristicas demograficas y culturales son muy distintas a las de la Capital. Las diferencias en ADN, fisicas, raciales, culturales y de valores, determina el regionalismo y las actitudes de conflicto entre ambas partes. La parte Oriental es la mas belicosa. Tiene la actitud y la aptitud de un invasor. De hecho han sido muy exitosos durante 67 anos con sus Jefes de Tribu Fidel y Raul Castro. La primera vez que yo escuche la palabra Palestino fue por boca de mi abuela. Mis abuelos maternos eran negros y venian de esa parte del pais que nosotros los Cubanos llaman Oriente. Sera acso una alusion al Oriente exotico de Delacroix and Lord Byron? Creo que si. En lo que concierne al exoticismo cultural y racial no hay dudas, Mis abuelos emigraron a la La Habana alla a principios de los anos 40s. Emigraron desde Camaguey buscando el exito. Y exito encontraron. Mi abuelo se asocio con un Polaco, que es como llamaban a los Judios en ese tiempo, y crearon una fabrica de zapatos. Mi abuelo era el disenador y el creativo. El judio el era el que se encargaba de la inversion y el management en general. Mi abuelo vendia sus productos en la calle Monte que era en esa tiempo el Madison Avenue de Centro Habana. De ahi salia el sustento de mi mama y mis tios, el ultimos de los cuales nacio despues de la Revolucion por los pedidos de mi abuelo a mi abuela de 40 anos. El nino nacio sano y muy inteligenre. Pero quizas no tanto porque creyo hasta el final de sus dias en la Revolucion y en Fidel. El dominio de la tribu ha llegado a su fin. Ha durado mucho. Demasiado. Ha envejecido no solo asi mismo sino al pais entero. Lo ha sumido en la mas abjecta pobreza. Le ha negado los sustentos necesarios para la vida como el agua y la comida. Los tortura con apagones. Los sacrifica y manipula en nombre de una idea que no es solamente macabra sino que tambien en la coyuntura teoria/practica termina siendo estupida por la repeticion del fracaso. Cuando yo era nino alla en La Habana de los anos setenta, las calles de mi barrio en la Habana Vieja, en esa zona que va desde el Parque de la India frente al antiguo hotel Saratoga hasta la Terminal de Trenes, estaba llena de flores y mariposas. Las calles estaban limpias, las sillas y mesas de metal con disenos florales, eran blancas y limpias, las estatuas tambien. El agua salia de la fuente de los delfines. Hoy en dia todo es un desastre. Basura por todas partes. Ruido a niveles insoporbles que te destrozan no solo el timpano sino tambien la orientacion espacio-temporal. Se conversa entre vecinos a los 4 am. igual que si fueran las 4 de la tarde. El mismo tono y nivel de voz. Todo el caos empezo cuando empezaron a llegar los Palestinos. Los Palestinos venian de Oriente, la zona Este del pais donde las caracteristicas demograficas y culturales son muy distintas a las de la Capital. Las diferencias en ADN, fisicas, raciales, culturales y de valores, determina el regionalismo y las actitudes de conflicto entre ambas partes. La parte Oriental es la mas belicosa. Tiene la actitud y la aptitud de un invasor. De hecho han sido muy exitosos durante 67 anos con sus Jefes de Tribu Fidel y Raul Castro. El dominio de la tribu ha llegado a su fin. Ha durado mucho. Demasiado. Ha envejecido no solo asi mismo sino al pais entero. Lo ha sumido en la mas abjecta pobreza. Le ha negado los sustentos necesarios para la vida como el agua y la comida. Los tortura con apagones. Los sacrifica y manipula en nombre de una idea que no es solamente macabra sino que tambien en la coyuntura teoria/practica termina siendo estupida por la repeticion del fracaso.

Acuario Fish Store Dreams

2024-12-22T16:54:00.002-05:00

Yo tendria unos 7- 8 anos cuando despues de varios meses rogando ppr fin pude tener una pescera. Gracias a una tia mia y unos primos que no les interesaba, me hice de una coleccion de libros que ensenaban a como criar peces y mantener un acuario. Creo que los libros eran de un publisher Argentink si mal no recue4do. El caso ed que aprendi en corto tiempo a criar peces Beta o pez peleador, en pomitos en un estante que mi tio y yo construimos en la azotea. Incluso aprendi a criar calandracas yo mismo gracias a los l8bros, las cuales mantenia viviendo entre algunas piedras en las cuales caia un chorrito de agua continua la cual se iba por uno de los canos o tuberiae de desague dr la azotea. Las cuales alimentaba con nata de leche di mal no recue4o. Ni corto ni perezoso mi tio, como 10-11 de edad, empexo a traer a sus amiguitos del barrio y venderles los peces Beta a 25 centavos cada uno. Lo cual en esa epoca te daba para comprar un durofrio. Pero el mejor negocio lo tuve yo con una senora que se drdicaba a crear peces en su apartamento de La Habana del Este. Senora la cual conoci a travez de mi mejor smigo en esos dias de infancia, Ariel. Pues la senora me ofrecio 120 pesos por todos los oeces peleadores. No se cuanto realmente me ofrecio, no me recuerdo. Pero el equivalente de un buen deal, mucho mas que un Beta por aqui o por alla sino todos a la vez. Desafortunadamente, ser un nino y estar haciendo negocios no era bien visto. Y si mi padre se enteraba que yo andaba en negocios de venta de pececitos al por mayor me iba castigar de por vida. Por cspitalista, por burgues, por intetesado rn las fosas materiales. Muchos anos mas tarde vivienfo en New York tuve oportunidad de ver a un padre jugando fon sus hijos de 4 y 6 anos de edad, ensenandoles de finanzas e inversiones mientras jugaban Monopolio. Desafortonudamente mi buen padre (que Dios lp tenga rn el cielo y en la gloria) quiso que yo fueta como el Che. Y aqui en New York, pasando frio. Pero esta es mi casa. Home of the brave como dice la cancipn.

The Blue (and brown) Jungle

2022-01-17T20:18:00.008-05:00

This painting is about insertion into a culture that is not the one someone belonged to.

originally belonged to.

2022-01-17T19:15:00.005-05:00

On the upper half of the painting lies the instincts with the force of a whale. They move like a river, produce a shadow on the eater and metaphorphosises into reason. The mask that is the human being.

RenMetawarehouse

https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/73539020155948845623370639327134244547321839606465090988948202963298510962689/

The Jungle Original and NFT

2022-01-13T19:04:00.006-05:00

The Jungle is a series of paintings that originated ca. 2005 and continue to present. They started as sketches on paper before they moved onto oil on canvas. Here the NFT has its clone in the physical world in the form of a unique original drawing on paper which is also for sale and to be delivered to the buyer of the NFT. The original work on paper is signed.

Split clown Drawing NFT

2022-01-12T09:01:00.003-05:00

To make the Split Clown I went to Burger King on 42nd street to take pictures of the hamburgers and fries that I ordered. It was around 2-4 am and I was the only customer in the store except for a guy that looked like old timer pimp. This was in the early 2000's. I ordered a meal, arranged it on a table by the window, took out my Canon camera and started taking pictures of it. A manager came and asked if I worked for Burger King, perhaps he thought I was some some of quality inspector. The following days i thought I didn't have enough to make the painting I had in mind. So I went to the McDonalds on 42nd street close to 5th avenue and mostly took pictures of the setting, the ceiling and walls. Having finished with the photographic aspect of then process I combined the images in Photoshp, tasted the colors and composition. Once I got the image I set up to draw it on canvas. After some days of intense drawing with pencil I added layer of oil paint which made the final product which is now in a private collection. The NFT here is based in a picture that I took before the oil layers made the color pencil drawing

disappear.https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/73539020155948845623370639327134244547321839606465090988948202943507301662721/

NFT + Physical Art pricing model

2022-01-10T22:46:00.006-05:00

At the top is the original and unique work on canvas, usually a big size oil painting, Following bellow are the works on paper whose prices are less than the big oil on canvas. The prices of both the oil on canvas and the work on paper are based on time spent, the quality and cost of the materials and overhead cost (rent, electricity, etc.)

Bellow the works on paper are the dynamic NFTs. The price is based on time spent making them. They require several layers to be able to be dynamic. Price is based in the complexity of the process dictated by the amount of layers and computer work spent.

The base is the static NFT. They are static images as the name conveys. Since they are less complex and require less time making them the price is bellow the dynamic NFT.

Other factors on pricing the NFTs includes amount of copies. For example one single NFT could be cloned into hundred of copies and each of them priced and sold at smaller amounts.

I'm not including the cost of computer hardware and software. Neither we are talking here about market forces such as supply and demand and market speculation. I'm also not taking into account the quality of the original artwork on paper or canvas from which the NFT is born. In a further paper I would talk about how these factors influence pricing. But for now let's leave that out.

This layout makes sense for an artist making physical works on canvas or paper such as myself. But if over time the cost of computer hardware and software, as well as labor force necessary to make the NFTs surpasses the amount invested in producing paintings and watercolors, then the pyramid must be inverted accordingly.

NFT Roadmap

2022-01-10T19:27:00.007-05:00

The following is as much as possible a detailed description of the NFT project + art for the upcoming next 2-3 years. I can't project what is going to happen after 2-3 years from now since technology and the way art + things are going to be made is unpredictable. All we know is that the world is changing at high speeds and that we have to adapt lest we would be rendered obsolete.

I'm a visual artist, a painter and my projects usually start in the physical world. I sketch ideas on a piece of paper using traditional mediums such as watercolor, color pencil and markers. I also make works on canvas using oil paint or acrylic. Sometimes the visions come in dreams or while daydreaming. Sometimes the paintings are the result of a clash between the visual elements such as line, color and composition, the result conveying abstract ideas, emotions and attitudes. At other times figures are drawn or painted on the canvas and a narrative is built out of spatial relationships.

Once an idea is developed in the physical world then is time to process it further in the digital world. The image could mutate and the resulting layers could be combined into a single moving image. Sound enters the picture if needed. As time goes by the resulting digital images are developed to make them gain in complexity and beauty.

Once the images are minted they will be displayed not only by means of virtual galleries and stores but also in the physical world. In the physical world you will be able to see them on the wall of the physical gallery by means of customized screens or digital frames. In the Metaverse you will access them in the virtual galleries and NFT platforms and market places. You will be able not only to enjoy their virtual and/or physical presence but also purchase them and display them into your homes or in the public sphere.

The viewer will be left with the joy of seeing a customized screen in the gallery with the art playing on a loop. Or it could go home and access the same image in the metaverse gallery from the comfort of a couch. And if she/he wants to own it can either purchase the physical painting or the NFT, or both. Sometimes it would be either one of the two options since some of the works don't exist anymore in the physical world because their materiality has been destroyed.

The end result is an ecosystem where physical art lives alongside virtual art. Where real world interactions will take place alongside virtual interactions. Aesthetic experiences as well as social experiences will be played out in both the physical and the virtual worlds. Collectors and participants will be able to chose between an oil painting on canvas, a watercolor on paper or a NFT in the Metaverse. Physical originals and prints, as well as virtual originals and editions will be offered and priced accordingly. Payments will be processed via either the traditional banking system using Fiat currency or with crypto currency through the blockchain. Aesthetic experiences as well as social experiences will be played out in both the physical and the virtual worlds.

My NFTs are going to be a bridge between the physical world and the virtual world.

Renelio Studio Meta

Ren Metawarehouse

Opensea profile page

Blue Big

2022-01-06T17:39:00.004-05:00

Blue Big is a take on Big Brother.

American Express Painting

2022-01-06T17:20:00.001-05:00

Amerrican Express, the painting, is an original acrylic and oil on canvas measuring 72 x 92 inches. Made around the year 2014. Its part of a series of works made under the shadow of the work on terror, fear, war, mass migration. But it also about hope and the possibility of a better future for all.

At the Top NFTs

2022-01-05T20:29:00.003-05:00

This NFTs ara bou the will to win.

The Letter of the Year.

2022-01-04T19:13:00.012-05:00

The Letter of the Year NFT collection is made of 40 NFT clones. Based on the classical 1943 poster by J. Howard Miller, the Letter of the Year tokens is a linguistic update more suitable for contemporary times.

https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/73539020155948845623370639327134244547321839606465090988948202925915115618314/

https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/73539020155948845623370639327134244547321839606465090988948202920417557479434/

https://mintable.app/ART/item/Letter-of-the-Year-F/yziyGYz5K0aJH-l

Mad dog Jump NFT

2021-12-28T14:42:00.004-05:00

https://mintable.app/ART/item/Mad-Dog-Jump-The-Mad-Dog-Series/vpHECHt_9mL53TV

En este otro sueno yo iba caminando por un sendero en el campo. Estaba rodeado de arbustos amarillentos, como luce la vegetacion cuando lleva tiempo sin llover. El sendero se desvia a la izquierda y por ese camino voy. Un sentimiento de paz y tranquilidad cubria la zona. Como a unos cincuenta metros de la ruptura del camino donde doble a la izquierda llegue a la base de un arbol. A mi derecha el terreno caia casi como un precipio y el paisaje que se veia era totalmente diferente. Habian varias arboles de color carmelita oscuro en el tronco, con frutas y flores entre las ramas verdes. La luz era como de un verde amrillo.. Toda la vista muy hermosa. Miro hacia la parte antes de desviarse del camino y veo una manada de perros salvajes que van camiando en linea, uno detras del otro sobre el suelo de tierra seca y polvorienta del sendero. El lider de la manada, un perro de color ocre, de cabeza grandey orejas caidas, con la lenguaje sedienta y la boca grande con colmillos asomados de donde resbala saliva, me mira. Al hacer contacto visual conmigo decide cambiar su rumbo y torna hacia la izquieda.

Yo me percato de que viene hacia con toda la manada siguiendole. El perro lider acelera su paso y con el la manada. Yo decido subir al arbol para ponerme a salvo, y en el momento que estoy a punto de alcanzar una rama donde ponerme a salvo el perro salta, casi atrapando el pie derecho con sus fauces.

Es este momento en que el perro salta con sus ojos desenfrenados y su boca desenfrenada que capturo en este NFT y en la consiguiente serie. El perro loco saltando. O the Mad Dog Jump.

In another dream I'm walking down a dirty road in the countryside. Ochre yellowy bushes, the way they look when there has not been rain in a long time, surround me. At one point the road turns left and I follow. A feeling of calm and peace covers the area. Around 54 yards from where the road turns I arrive to the base of a tree. At my right the terrain falls almost cliff like.

The landscape over there is different. There were trees of brown dark trunks that carried fruits and flowers among the leaves and branches. The surrounding light in that part of the landscape is between emerald and turquoise green. It is a beautiful sight. I look towards the road and I see a horde of wild dogs trotting in line, one after another, their paws touching the dusty soil. The leader of the pack, a yellowish dog with a big head and fallen ears, and a thirsty mouth from which fangs protrude, turns his head around. The moment it eye sights me decides to change course.

I realize that its coming towards me. The rest of the horde following him. The leader dog accelerates its pace. I decide to climb the tree to put myself out of imminent danger. At the moment when I'm about to reach a branch high enough to make myself safe the mad dog jumps, almost grabbing my right foot with its fangs.

It is this moment in which the mad dog jumps that I capture in the Mad Dog jumps NFT.

Cabeza NFT

2021-12-20T22:43:00.005-05:00

https://mintable.app/ART/item/Cabeza--Blue--Cabeza-Series/wWbsK4JRkLJyUGl

The Cabeza Series started after I lost my head in the US. In the year 1998 I decided to over stay my 45 days visa to the US. I was invited by a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to participate in a show at a gallery called Plan B. We were part of an art festival reuniting various disciplines such as painting, film and teather. I remember that my two fellow Cuban artists and I where showing our paintings while in the stage that was part of the cultural center Cco Fusco was performing one of her fabolous plays. A month after I went to visit my family in West New York, New Jersey and couch surfed my way for another month during wich i was able to sell some paintings and get to rent an one bedroom apartment. I also found a studio space in Union City that I still keep. 3-4 years later I moved to New York. The Cabeza Series acrylics on canvas are the representation of the feeling of displacement and loss that befalls the immigrant in his first years of his new life in a different country. After more than 20 years living and working in the US I feel like I'm pretty much an American born in Cuba. But my head will never settle completely in this world although I cannot say is still lost. Somehow I have managed to recover my head.

The Tiger Smile NFT

2021-10-25T13:56:00.013-04:00

I had dream of a smiling tiger. All I could see was its teeth and mouth. But I knew that he was smiling at me. I woke up and immediately tried to capture that smile in a series of works.

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/42045403058383821659415510622153901931867528391569952456409418835172901519361/

Notes on Why Cuba's is a Failed Project

2020-09-16T22:14:00.004-04:00

Cuba's is a failed project because "based in part on a misreading of Anthropologists like Lewis Henry Morgan, Marx and Engels argued that an early stage of 'primitive communism' existed prior to the rise of exploitative class relationships, an idealized state that communism sought to recover"(Fukuyama 64-65.) The Cuban Revolution ideology, based on this misconception of property rights, eliminated private property, the base of any economic development. The elimination of property rights, as well as the elimination of the classic doctrine of the separations of the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers was a result of decades of corruption and inequality from the end of the independence wars against Spain to Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship. Looking to solve the problems of a society and a culture, Fidel Castro based his economic and political ideas in 19th century Marxian fantasies, thus leading the country to failure and to a dead end with no solution in sight. Fidel Castro enthroned the Marxian ideology of communism in the fabric of the nation. The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, established in the year 1976, says in artículo 5o.- El Partido Comunista de Cuba, martiano y marxista-leninista, vanguardia organizada de la nación cubana, es la fuerza dirigente superior de la sociedad y del Estado, que organiza y orienta los esfuerzos comunes hacia los altos fines de la construcción del socialismo y el avance hacia la sociedad comunista. Thus establishing the base for economic, political and social anihilation of the Cuban nation. The doctrine of historical materialism posited by Marx and Engels conceives the becoming of humankind as a developmental process in a series of stages from slavery to feudalism to capitalism and to communism. This doctrine is the mental spine of the Cuban political hierarchy, setting the stage for an institutionalized way of thinking that takes economic and political progress as granted, institutionalizing passivity at all levels of society. The religion of communism is the dogma that rigidifies thinking and makes it impossible for new and alternative ideas to solve problems The problems created by an old generation still in power with an obsolete way of thinking, alien to the reality of a different world, and incapable of steering the country into the economic and political dynamics of the 21st century.

Note on the 1990's

2019-09-14T17:11:00.000-04:00

When Picasso was in his 60's or 70's someone asked him a question that carried inside an insinuation into that the ephemeral validity of his art as was something pertaining to the past. Picasso's answer was that his art changed over the decades, becoming a mirror or an expression of the changing times. Thus his art was always of the present and of the current affairs of the world.
Here is the logical consequence of Picasso's attitude. An artist's style has to change several times over a curse of a lifetime if it's going to reflect the technological, scientific and cultural changes in the world over time.
When I started painting in the late 1980s and early 1990's there were no such things as the internet, Google maps, Facebook, etc. I discovered email in 1996 through a Canadian girlfriend that was in Havana thanks to an international exchange student program between the University of Havana and some university in Vancouver. When she went back to Canada she showed me the use of email. I had to go once or twice the week to one of the buildings the University of Havana's campus to have access to a boxy computer screen to write some letters. Then come back a few days after to see her answer.
Predictable, my art of those times was visceral, charged with emotion and intense colors. Each painting a scream into the void of isolation and the frustration of being trapped in an island.
These days communication is only a step away from a terminal. We still don't communicate much but at least the barriers of isolation and in-communication are over. Money, rather than technology is the measuring gauge of communication. As well as the desire of communicating.

Oil on canvas. Collection of ClubMed Varadero, Havana, Cuba. 1990"s

That make sense. Isn't?

2016-02-21T15:24:00.001-05:00

There is so much philosophy written over the course of few centuries that you can pick any thought system to fit your personal inclinations. You may be sympathetic to the claims of the working class and draw from Marxism and lift the banner of populism, after all, they deserve it, even if they are not going to get fair results. If you believe everything is temporary fucked up but marching according to divine plan, but your cool guy status is precluding you for using a theological justification, then you can fish out in Hegel. His system of dialectics and the manifestation of the absolute through human actions will make sense of whatever crap we humans have done, including climate change, animal cruelty and all you can imagine. Sartre and Heidegger will said that your life fits the purpose of realizing your potentialities and the potentialities of being, in a universal sense, according to the later.

Every meta narrative could be of use to more or less making sense of your shitty, miserable life. We are tools, instruments, in the hand of some major purpose or final cause that we don't know anything about. That make sense, isn't?

Children are playing around in the park. Teenagers are discovering their sexuality. Responsibility is knocking at the door.

You feel old and depressed. You try to make sense of things. Why do my previous generation did everything in their power to fuck up things for my generation? Should I, resented human being that I'm, keep things the same way they were passed to me? Or should I try to hand the tools for a better future?

That is the question that every power on earth, every individual in a position of wealth and resources should be asking themselves these days. What can I do for the new generations? Beyond politics and ideologies or philosophies how can I, personally help to achieve the dreams of a better world? If there is any hope left, then hope is in my hands. It's up to me to be the agent of change. Isn't?

Three Weeks in Havana. Part 1: Fidel Va a Vivir Cien Anos.

2016-01-05T02:00:00.003-05:00

We went into a hospital off the city to see the doctor who is in charge of treating my mother's illness. My mother has cancer. It started as a tumor in one of the kidneys that was removed a year ago. After whats she started the protocol of treatment for this kind of illness, an every two days injection of interferons that supposedly was going to kill the remaining malignant cells in her pelvis.

My mother stood the treatment, for seven months, like the sturdy medieval warrior branding Excalibur sword against the devil. Every day of her life during those seven months were like descending with Virgil into the deepest chambers of hell only to come back alive and breathing crave for the holy grail. But the holy grail didn't come and instead we found ourselves facing that doctor who told us that that my mother illness was a rare strain of cancer resistant to chemo and radio therapy. Even resistant to interferons.

But there was hope. Hope came in the form of another doctor who conducted an essay on a new kind of vaccine that held promise. The promise were in the numbers. The essay has ended roughly three years ago and two thirds of the patients treated were still alive. One third went unresponsive but, two thirds... that was hope. We left the hospital in high spirits and quickly forgot the dirty bathroom.

The doctor asked us to call back to schedule an appointment to start the treatment. That was like a month ago. The vaccines are no were to be seen yet. Although last time I spoke to my mother she told me that they found the vaccines. There is hope again.

But the real hope came from a naturist doctor. A biologist who turned out to be a colleague of my mother during her youth. Children of the Revolution. Reminiscing about the old times building Socialism, of which both of them are so proud, it was revealed to me that the doctor has a high profile figure among his patients. High profile enough to infuse him with enough authority to follow up whatever treatment he recommends.

The biologist doctor first changed my mother's diet. He also recommend it one beer for breakfast, that's it. And three shots of aguardiente-rum of pure sugar cane a day. You heard well. I was startled by his suggestion but he told me that alcohol is only bad when there is no food, because of the liver. So every time you drink alcohol you should also eat something. But that alcohol was not a problem in itself. On the other hand, cigar was (is) a big problem. You should not smoke, but drinking moderately and eating vegetarian food and fish is ok. Other than that you should not eat sugar and nothing chemically processed. Only organic, natural. The doctor also prescribed some pills that he himself concocts from his nature's garden.

Three of four days after the doctors visit my mother seems different. Her color in her face is reddish, she looks alive and not pale like she was before going to see the biologist doctor. She also regained strength and has lots of energy, enough to argue and rattle with her children, as usual.

I remember the biologist telling my mother and me his biggest secret while we were at his consultation: "Fidel is going to live 100 years." I'm glad, that means my mother also will.

P.S. Neither did.

A los Pintores Cubanos.

2014-12-21T10:55:00.027-05:00

1) Un amigo Cubano, pintor el cual conozco desde hace muchos anos estuvo de visita en mi studio en New York el otro dia con dos amigos coleccionistas, mas su esposa. Mi amigo pintor tuvo la osadia (no encuentro mejor palabra) de tocar uno de los cuadros colgados en la pared, el cual ni siquiera era mio. Al parecer el sentido visual no era suficiente y tenia que usar el sentido tactil para convencerse del valor plastico y estetico de la pintura que tocaba.

Yo con pena y avergonzado, envuelto en una situacion social embarazosa en la cual uno tiene reprimir a su amigo y senalarle su mal comportamiento delante de personas desconocidas espere el momento adecuado para decirle de manera general que tocar una pintura u obra de arte en cualquier espacio de New York (o de cualquier parte del mundo) es el equivalente a lanzar una mala palabra en publico, un insulto que al menos amerita negar la entrada al culpable en el lugar.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/struggling-museum-now-allowing-patrons-to-touch-pa,2821/

2) Un amigo pintor de otro pais que no es Cuba tiene ambiciones de abrir su propia galeria. Despues de un tiempo lidiando con el me doy cuenta que el verdadero motivo por el cual mi amigo quiere dedicarse al duro trabajo de vender el arte de otros artistas no es puramente cultural o estetico o que busca avanzar la carrera personal de artistas de su seleccion, sino que el verdadero proposito es crear un espacio donde el se sienta y es percibido como una especie de rey al cual le estan permitidas prebendas relacionadas con su status social tales como favores sexuales. Mi "amigo" ha escrito un contrato con todo lujo de detalles acerca del por ciento de las ganancias, gastos, etc con la finalidad de arrastrarme a un asociacion en la cual yo pasaria a ser mas que un socio un subordinado de sus fantasias y aspiraciones sociales. Siempre que sucede este tipo de cosas yo tomo la precaucion de no firmar ningun papel y de esa manera asegurar de que no estare incurriendo en una violacion de terminos si en el futuro decido separarme. Mientras mi "amigo" se hace todo tipo de ilusiones y ya se siente dueno de mi espacio, yo tomo la decision de terminar la asociacion.

3) En estos tiempos en que el acercamiento entre los US y Cuba se esta tornado un hecho varias preocupaciones tengo en la mente. La primera: Como el comportamiento de los amigo pintores (y de todo el mundo en general) puede determinar el exito en el sofisticado y complejo mundo empresarial de los US y del resto del mundo? Un simple gesto como tocar una pintura puede cerrar muchas puertas, no solo a la persona que toca el cuadro sino a la persona que va con el.

El otro dia salio la noticia de un altercado en un avion Chino en el cual una trifulca se armo alrededor de un nino llorando y su madre. El altercado recorrio las noticias del mundo y debio haber sido tan embarazoso para los Chinos que el mismisimo presidente tuvo que hacer una llamado a sus ciudadanos a mantener el buen comportamiento en sus viajes al exterior. En otras palabras, tener dinero no es sinonimo de educacion formal y lo que es aceptado como normal en una pais de salvajes se considera comportamiento inaceptable en paises civilizados. Incluso mas, cuando el comportamiento de varias personas pone en peligro la vida de muchos, como es el caso del avion que casi se vio obligado a regresar y aterrizar, medidas extremas de llamado al orden son requeridas.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fight+Chinese+plain

Desde casi siempre me he cuestionado la relacion que existe entre cultura social y democracia en la forma de pregunta: Hay paises y culturas que son alergicas a la democracia como sistema politico y que solo pueden vivir en dictaduras? El caso del avion y el de la pintura tocada me hacen pensar si los Cubanos (o los Chinos) seriamos capaces de vivir y prosperar en un sistema democratico. Desde el presidente Estrada Palma hasta Batista, Fidel, Canel y mas alla, las historias de corrupcion y arbitrariedades son innumerables y por tanto la respuesta a la pregunta "los Cubanos sabrian vivir en Democracia", la respuesta es ...

Por ello sera que Cuba necesita un dictadura Comunista? Pues sin ella es imposible vivir con cierta nocion de armonia y order y sin ella el pais caeria como el caso del avion Chino? Tambien, es la dictadura Comunista impuesta por los Castros una medida extrema para evitar que supuestos amigos con planes macabros envuelvan al pueblo Cubano en contratos ambiguos para quitarle sus espacios personales y usarlos como subordinados?

Cuando llegara la hora en que los Cubanos, pintores o no, seamos capaces de discernir lo que es buen comportamiento de mal comportamiento y por tanto abrir nuestras posibilidades de exito personal y empresarial? Cuando llegara la hora de que no necesitemos un papa con el nombre de PCC o Castro que nos indique cuales son nuestros verdaderos amigos y cuales no. Quienes nos quieren verdaderame ayudar y quienes nos quieren coger de tontos para aduenarse de lo poco que tenemos para llevarnos a la servidumbre? :El gobierno Cubano y la crapula Castrocomunista

Sera que el acercamiento diplomatico entre Cuba y los US Obama ers) es la primera senal de que estamos progresando en el nivel mental como nacion y que ya casi estamos listos para abandonar el sistema de gobierno dictatorial para empezar a vivir en democracia?

I hope so.

(En varias decadas de vida y trabajo como artista visual me he encontrado con todo tipo de comportamientos por parte de pintores Cubanos, algunos de buena civilidad, otros de chabacaneria y vulgaridad inombrables. Yo mismo me he esforzado mucho por deshacerme de la piel de vulgaridad que me envolvio en Cuba. Nosotros tenemos que dar el ejemplo. El resto nos seguira.

Artefuse Review

2014-06-20T15:10:00.003-04:00

We are the first Artist Studio in New York City accepting Bitcoin.

http://artefuse.com/2014/06/19/magical-thinking-at-gallery-rene-mele-1234/

The Golden Prairie

2014-01-08T16:51:00.003-05:00

In order to explain "The Golden Prairie" I have to go back few years and talk about the series "DaVinci and The New Man", started in 2008. I also have to touch upon the subject matters of social paradigm, identity and landscape representation.

The "DaVinci series started in 2008. It' has to do with Western culture's obsession with physical and mental perfection. I was doing some copies of Leonardo DaVinci’s anatomical studies while reading Jurgen Habermas’ “The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity”. The idea of instrumental reason lying at the base of Western technological advances, social relations and alienation echoes on the ideological program of Marxist-Leninist revolutions and the place it bestows on science and technology over the creation of a new emancipated world and the liberation of man from nature and the environment. While searching for freedom, Western modernity has paradoxically degenerated into a system of fear and terror, alienating and oppressing the individual. Instrumental reason and revolution, having as a point of departure the liberation of man, has ended up oppressing him even more.

The Golden Prairie represents the opposite of the ideas conveyed by the Da Vinci series. In the Golden Prairie, man still lives in the state of nature, linked to it and as one with it.

The issue of identity* arises as a personal dilemma for the artist, who, being born in Western society tries to find a place in it, but knowing that it doesn't have one looks at the Other of Western culture for a place to belong. The landscape of the Golden Prairie and its subjects become the symbols of home and belonging to which the artist strives for.

The duality that is Us and the Other determines the structure of the painting. Therefore the emphatic separation of foreground and background, together with the two symmetrical portraits and the use of genre landscape and portrait painting in the same picture plane.

While doing some research I discovered that the Constitution of the US bears the influence of the Iroqui Law of Peace constitution. There comes the idea for the sequel to The Golden Prairie, The Great Law of Peace. I also discovered that the US has, in the past, printed currency bearing faces and symbols of the Native American. I found fit to make the portraits of Seating Bull and Geronimo in the form of golden coins since the idea of money is tied to the idea of social paradigm sketched in the DaVinci portrait series. Money is the American version of paradigmatic perfection. Thus a bridge between the concerns of the DaVinci series and the concerns of the Golden Prairie was established.

* In his essay "Hybridity and Ambivalence: Places and Flow in Contemporary Art and Culture", Nikos Papastergiadis says that "the concept of hybridity was used to redefine the presence of diasporic or indigineous artists. They were no longer defines in terms of an exotic alternative or as a belated supplement whose incorporation could serve to both expand or reaffirm the parameters of mainstream. The story of indigenous survival and migrant diasporas has become a crucial perspective in the critique of globalization and the re-writing of the history of modernism. The concept of hybridity was also understood as offering a critical perspective on the cultural practices or symbolic meanings that were generated by artists. Hybridity serves as a counterpoint to the idealist categories that confined creativity to either closed forms of tradition or universal forms of abstraction. Unlike essentialist theories that claim that cultural identity is rooted in a particular landscape and locked into atavistic values, the concept of hybridity was used to shift attention towards the acknowledgement of the process of mixture and the effects of mobility on contemporary culture" (Papastergiadis 4).

Work Cited:

Papastergiadis, Nikos. "Hybridity and Ambivalence: Places and Flow in Contemporary Art and Culture". Theory, Culture and Society, 2005.(SAGE, London, Touthand Oaks and New Delhi).

The Golden Prairie. Acrylic on canvas. 72 x 92 inches (private collection.)

Che DaVinci. Acrylic on canvas. 30 x 48 inches (private collection.)

J.F.K. DaVinci. Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 inches.

Romanticism

2013-11-10T17:31:00.004-05:00

Night of the Albatross

We have come lifted toward freedom from a spirit of hope and optimism full run down to disappointment, no hope and

despair echoing the fatalistic whirls of the French, Soviet and other Revolutions. They have killed the Albatros and the answer, as Blake, Wordsworth and Colleridge would do has to be a redemption of words and paintings of a new caliber, opening up another dimension to human liberty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xu3mhKc6jg&noredirect=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xu3mhKc6jg&noredirect=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6PXklQY0pQ

William Wordsworth. The Prelude

London

By William Blake

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,

The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldiers sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse

Blasts the new-born Infants tear

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

Richard N. Foster's Creative Destruccion

2013-11-05T23:34:00.002-05:00

According to El Pais, this guy is updating Joseph Shcumpeter:

http://www.innosight.com/innovation-resources/strategy-innovation/upload/creative-destruction-whips-through-corporate-america_final2012.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Destruction-Underperform-Market---Successfully/dp/038550134X/ref=la_B004LPU03C_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383712167&sr=1-1

http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2013/11/04/actualidad/1383595996_231144.html

Identity and the Accumulation of Memory Show

2013-10-13T15:25:00.002-04:00