Without the other, the subject is like Oedipus,
incapable of waking up in the face of the Sphinx,
because that sphinx is replacing the other,
his lost companion.
María Zambrano
Solidarity, altruism, philanthropy and passion for the other are words that immediately appear when confronting the purposes of social assistance that motivate Paintings on Commission, free! – a performance extended along many days in a specific territory, whose promoter is ready to satisfy, by painting, the full imagination invoked by the wish of some passer-by provoked by him in the middle of the street or in the reserved doorstep of his home. They are words consolidated by a long history of indifferences and evasive ironies. They wait in silence for their distinctiveness to be recognized by that antagonistic caution – so powerfully mistrustful – named Politics.
The passer-by, having accepted, trying to arouse that minimum of sensitivity that has broken his muteness, will write down with a sociologist’s handwriting some personal characteristics, simple attributes, in cases that allow future memorization. His voluntary correspondence will grant him the luck to paint, with borrowed hands, a landscape, the portrait of his granddaughter or the copy of a masterpiece that for years he has dreamed of possessing. In the form he/she will reveal being a clerk, a teacher, an ex convict, a wife at home, an immigrant, an unemployed. A subject invoked by the gimmick of another subject who, with supreme rationality, pulls him out of his disorientation, hugging him with love, another word that also awaits in its huge, divided historicity.
The painting is like a bird that stops them at that instant, a space of time from the origins, some roses, a book, or some fruits that reduce loneliness and lend them some innocence. He invites him/her to treasure it, leaving a receipt that states date, time and place that will enable him in subsequent days, not just to pick it up and take it down from the wall (surprisingly free!), but also to attend the festive inauguration of an event where he will find his peers, brought there for the same reason.
Oriented as an artistic activity, this act of social assistance took place around December, 1989, when in a university classroom we discussed about the dispersion of the subject, about Nietzsche, Foucault, Beuys; and was put into practice months later when the group reasoning between students and professor perceived that the concept of art on commission could change, from a merely commercial procedure, to an act of discernment, influenced by conceptual art or guided by the autobiographic belief of the artist, who in his actions not only carries the usual instruments, but could add to them a series of elements that would shape his activity and defend him mainly as a maker, a sort of art worker, someone who carries a large tool box containing sociology, anthropology, and the archaeological exploration, sheltered by a cognitive whim.
This artist might be mixing the traditional terms about the value of work; it could seem an act of humiliation, a mortal distraction, an abandonment. However, this usurpation of roles deprives the artist of his demiurgic status, pulls him out of his roots, brings him out in the open, and mixes him with the city, with the horizontal and evasive mass that would always have been his possible receiver, his shadow: the spectator that grants him the necessary acoustic, secures the aura and finally provides his nourishment.
That first move in a needy neighborhood of Havana established the stages that facilitated Paintings on Commission, free!: that presentation to “the other” and the first inducement of the wish, the preliminary registry of data on a subject who will retain the “idea”, a lost innocence, a liking.
Afterwards there will be a necessary pause for the achievement of the painting, with the adequate time margin until the crucial moment at the place of collection: a museum hall? an art gallery? a well-known space of the city? A place still unknown to this passer-by, despite being an old neighbor.
The process has been filmed from the beginning; therefore, at the moment of farewell the subjects thank each other for the exchange; shake hands, a hug that will not only be epistemological. It will install in his psyche. On one hand, the desired painting, that he will hang in an intimate and satisfactory space; and on the other, the film or photographic document that will give faith of its existence; an exemplary revelation of a methodology of the approach for a simple pause of love, “l’amour qui move il sole e le altre stelle.”
René Francisco – Junio 27, 2020
René Francisco Rodríguez is graduate the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in 1987. He has developed a relevant artistic career, which earned him the National Prize in Visual Arts and participation in different international biennials (Havana, São Paolo and Venice). His work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, museums and art centres in various parts of the wordl. Created the program for Cuban artistic education: From a Pragmatic Pedagogy (DUPP by its Spanish acronym), which has obtained notable achievements in the educational field. During the seventh Havana Biennial his Galería DUPP project received the UNESCO Prize for artistic teaching. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Francisco Art Institute (California, EEUU, 2001). Since 1990, he has exercised his curatorial work collective, with his students, in each of the four editions of DUPP.