{"id":36781,"date":"2024-01-10T10:12:18","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T10:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artizar.es\/pr-roberto-diago-%c2%b7-la-oscuridad-fue-el-principio\/"},"modified":"2024-06-04T18:37:27","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T17:37:27","slug":"pr-roberto-diago-la-oscuridad-fue-el-principio","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/artizar.es\/en\/pr-roberto-diago-la-oscuridad-fue-el-principio\/","title":{"rendered":"Pr. Roberto Diago \u00b7 La oscuridad fue el principio"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Exhibition_<\/h5>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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ROBERTO DIAGO<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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LA OSCURIDAD FUE EL PRINCIPIO<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Juan Ismael Art Center<\/strong> \u00b7 Fuerteventura \u00b7 Spain<\/p>\n

6 JUL – 23 SEP. 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Casa de Am\u00e9rica<\/strong> \u00b7 Madrid \u00b7 Spain<\/p>\n

11 OCT – 9 DEC. 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Curator_ OMAR-pascual castillo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Production_ Galer\u00eda Artizar<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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JUAN ISMAEL ART CENTER<\/strong><\/p>\n

FUERTEVENTURA \u00b7 SPAIN<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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DARKNESS WAS THE BEGINNING<\/strong><\/p>\n

Notes on a cosmogony from the work of Roberto Diago<\/p>\n

Omar-Pascual Castillo<\/strong><\/p>\n

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According to If\u00e1:<\/p>\n

There is nothing finer<\/em><\/p>\n

than one day after another<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Yoruba proverb<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/strong><\/p>\n

The work of Cuban artist Roberto Diago (Havana, 1971) has gradually made him one of the most established and outstanding creators of his generation, both on his native island of Cuba and internationally. Over the course of more than three decades, he has progressively constructed an undeniable corpus<\/em> precisely, among other reasons, because it is so forceful, embracing his subject matter head on with irrefutable success.<\/p>\n

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His art always evokes an embrace – in my view \u2013 because there is something in the constitution of his work, often grandiloquent, that appears to be created more by his arms than his hands, tending to stretch out in space like a spillage, bursting open, a slap around the eyes, rather than a caress, and this violence indicates the strength of the arm, rather than the delicacy of the hand. Even when the hand, detailed and precise as it is, when he wishes it to be, points the way to enter his universe.<\/p>\n

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2<\/strong><\/p>\n

That said, let us pause for a moment. I have not worked with Diago for more than twenty-five years, the fundamental reason being that I moved to Spain, and it has not been possible until today. As I have said many times, despite being considered from the outset a Cuban curator in Europe, always expected to offer Latin American art, when I arrived in Spain, our island home had fallen out of fashion. It had become over exposed; that was its fate, there\u2019s no point in harping on about it. Hence, after so many years of not being able to approach his work, I am now obliged to make history. I am obliged to stress that we must observe his work as that of a black man, a native of Havana, descendant of the great painter of the Cuban historical avant-garde, Roberto Diago (his paternal grandfather) and of a family of musicians and music teachers, the Urf\u00e9 family(1), kin to his paternal grandmother. In our native Cuba, he would be referred to as \u201ca black man of some prestige, high born and highly educated\u201d, but never milksop or a spoiled brat. The bearer of a legacy. The Crown Prince <\/em>as he was jokingly nicknamed by his friends. Little did they know how much truth there was in that name.<\/p>\n

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Whether he likes it or not, Diago has an exceptional symbolic dowry. I don\u2019t know of anyone else from my generation who can credibly offer as an autobiographical anecdote that as a child he used to draw with Ren\u00e9 Portocarrero, Ra\u00fal Mili\u00e1n and Mariano Rodr\u00edguez, and that drawing was one of his and his family\u2019s \u201cfavourite forms of entertainment\u201d. They preferred to give him a piece of paper and a crayola<\/em> (the Cuban name for oil pastels) so that he would not go out and get himself killed in the street or play ball in every corner. And not many grew up seeing a sketch by Picasso, several by Lam, by Abela, or by Do\u00f1a Amelia Pel\u00e1ez on the walls of their family home in Pogolotti. This is a fact that I remember, because I also led a privileged life when my mother was an editor at Letras Cubanas,<\/em> and as a child I was lucky enough to meet the likes of Eliseo Diego, Cintio Vitier, Fina Garc\u00eda Marruz and Dulce Mar\u00eda Loynaz, among many others; and I told Diago this little anecdote when we met, and that complicity united us. The complicity of knowing that we are strangely fortunate because we were both born and raised in the outskirts of Havana, he in Marianao\/Pogolotti, I in El Cerro, so we were also united by our humble beginnings. Supposedly cultured, but never precious.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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