“... of all the materials used in sculpture, I think wood is the best for my clearly Latin-African expressions. I believe that in the jungles, inhabited by my not-too-distant ancestors, the tree is the origin of everything that surrounds man... The only way I have to identify my art is motivated by my ethnic condition.”

Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas, 1981

“I try to transculturize the most important elements of our daily lives and in my art I try to find a truly Cuban meaning, which I transform into my universe.”

Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas, 1986

 

Cobas’s sculptures, wood assemblages with manufactured metallic pieces such as screws, pistons, and little wheels... go beyond their first mythical-religious meaning and the inherently erotic connotation of their shapes. They become machines without function but which convey a timeless warning: the indissoluble connection between human beings and nature and with their own bodies on the threshold of the era of robotics and digitization.

Pedro de Oraá, 2008

 

In Lino Betancourt’s last interview with Wifredo Lam, Lam stated that in the last few years Cuba had given rise to two great Africanist sculptors: Agustín Cárdenas and Cobas.

Walterio Carbonell, 1988

web design: Los Fieras

proyecto y curaduría:/project concept and curator: Alejandro de la Fuente

Agradecemos a la Fundación Ford por su apoyo para este proyecto /

/ Thanks to Ford Foundation for their support for this project"