Por un mundo mejor / For a Better World is the name that Cuba’s wonderful self-taught artist Luis “El estudiante” Rodríguez has given to this show, his third exhibit so-named. His passion for preserving the environment is what fuels much of his art these days, as does his passion for making the world a better place socially, politically, economically.

Luis was born in 1966 and grew up in the village of Mella, about an hour outside of Cuba’s second city, Santiago de Cuba. His father, whose paintings also form part of this exhibit, started El Grupo Bayate, a collective of self-taught artists living in Mella, in 1994. Many of the artists have become well-known in the world of folk art, especially Luis, who continues to sign his paintings “El Estudiante” in deference to his father, whom he considers his teacher, “El Maestro.” Today, Luis Jr. is the only member of the collective who lives outside of Mella. When he married Luisa Maria Ramirez, an art critic and El Grupo Bayate’s chronicler and promoter, he moved into her family home in Santiago, where they live with Luisa’s parents, Mercedes and Ignacio, and their four-year-old son, Luisito.

Luis has exhibited widely, and in 1997 he and Luisa came to the United States for two shows of El Grupo Bayate’s work, one at the Southside Gallery in Oxford, Mississippi, the other at an exhibit sponsored by the Center for Cuban Studies at the Metropolitan Arts Center. Luis’ work was featured in a June 2002 article by Annette Grant in The New York Times (“Ebullient Cubans Make a Lot Out of a Little”) in which she noted, “the Grupo paints in a naive, narrative style and takes rural life as its subject. The work of the Rodriguezes is riotously colorful and stacked like a rush-hour train.”

The current exhibit includes works that are unusually large for Luis and the group: most of their works do not exceed 20" x 24"; in “Por el mundo mejor,” Luis has three oversize paintings. One, “Santiago,” is 51" x 59" and is a loving homage to his city: the central image shows the bay of Santiago, the boats and buildings, the four corner panels are Santiago’s most important historic buildings – but the other 14 panels, each an individual painting, depict Santiago’s poorest – and liveliest -- neighborhoods, each with its own special set of popular characteristics. (When the painting was unrolled in Miami prior to shipping to New York, the Santiago-born shipper pointed to a panel and laughed, “Es mi barrio!”) The other two large paintings, “Las Guásimas” (40" x 68") and “Las Hortalizas de Hondrio” (14" x 77") are both homages to the environment, to preserving a world of lush green and virgin forestry and mountains, the places Luis remembers as a child.

Luis did not want this one-man exhibit to be shown without his father’s work, so he invited his father to exhibit works with him. Six of the paintings and one poster in the show are by Luis, Sr., the baker (depicted at work in El Estudiante’s lovely painting “La panaderia de Paso Estancia”).

In addition, the Cuban Art Space “rincón” (corner) is showing works by a few of the other painters in El Grupo Bayate and other self-taught artists from around Cuba.

Summer Gallery hours are 11-7, Monday through Friday, at 124 West 23rd Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues, between the F/V trains and the 7th Avenue lines.

For further information:
212.242.0559 or slevinson@cubanartspace.net