José Bedía

JOSE BEDIA (Havana, Cuba, 1959).
"Manyanga", 2009.
Mixed media on paper.
Attached certificate of authenticity issued by the author and catalog.
It presents a slight lack in the upper corner of the frame.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 127 x 97 cm; 141 x 111 cm (frame).
Work of narrative character in which the silhouetted forms recall an aesthetic of primitive character, in realization to the presentations of tribal civilizations, in some of which a style similar to the one presented here by the artist is presented. José Bedia's work is inscribed in the context of Cuban avant-garde aesthetics, which seeks to synthesize local and global influences to create a unique visual language. Since the first half of the 20th century, Cuban avant-garde art has excelled in reinterpreting Afro-Caribbean, indigenous and European tradition and cultural roots, while exploring themes of identity, spirituality and resistance. Artists like Bedia reaffirm this quest by incorporating references to Afro-Cuban religions, such as Palo Monte or Espiritismo, and African traditions, enriching the Cuban visual discourse with an anthropological approach.
In this work, the importance of spirituality and Afro-descendant cultural ties are essential to understand how the Cuban avant-garde transcends the aesthetic and becomes a means of identity exploration. The interaction between the contemporary and the ancestral in Bedia's work highlights the struggles and affirmations of Cuban identity in a globalized context, consolidating the relevance of this artistic current in the international panorama.
As the artist's website points out, from an early age Jose Bedia excelled in drawing, comics and illustration, and as a teenager he began his academic training at the famous San Alejandro Academy. As a student he developed the formal skills he has been using throughout his artistic career. After San Alejandro, he graduated with honors from ISA, Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. He was a pioneer of the radical transformation of Cuban art that inaugurated the Volume 1 Exhibition, of which Bedia was an integral part. His passion for the primary Amerindians led him to complement his anthropological studies on Afro-Transatlantic cultures, studying in depth the faith, beliefs and religion of "La Regla Kongo" (in which he was initiated in 1983), the "Regla de Ocha", and the Leopard Society of Abakuas, among many others. He traveled to Angola as part of the International Cultural Brigades that supported the war struggle between Angola and Cuba against Namibia and South Africa. This contact with the mother continent and the war increased his interest in the African roots of American culture. This interest led him to visit countries such as Peru, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Zambia, Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania. After residing in Mexico this vast knowledge has marked his work and shows how this cultural heritage has influenced our real daily life. Thanks to this solid work, characterized by the mixture of "narration" that he calls informative lessons on the cosmogonic Universes of ancestral cultures and the influence on popular cultures, his work has been exhibited in the Biennials of Havana, Sao Paulo, Venice and Beijing. He has received awards and acclaim that position him as one of the most notorious and prestigious art creators from the second half of the twentieth century to the present. Today his works are in very important private and public collections such as the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Havana), MoMA, Metropolitan Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), Guggenheim, Tate Modern, Smithsonian Museum (Washington), Daros Collection (Zurich), MEIAC, DA2, IVAM, CAAM (Spain), MOCA, MAM and PAMM in Miami.