"Rastros (traces)" Sept. 18 - Oct. 18, 2004 by Michael Weinstein
September 30, 2004. New City

"Ingenio," the Spanish word for the sensibility that combines wisdom and wit, describes precisely the photo-collages of Cuban artist Jose Gonzalez. Gonzalez has produced his "SOM" series to reflect on the improbable stew of emotions and ideas that bubble up in the cauldron of post-revolutionary Cuban culture. In Gonzalez's eyes, Cuba is a tragicomic mix of modernism, traditionalism and socialism. In "Duchamp en 26" we see an appropriated portrait of the master of modernism's dissolution of meaning surrounded by a red and black painted background on which is scrawled 26, the date in July of Castro's first act of armed revolution.