Yoan Capote

Venado guerrero, 2010

Bronze sculpture, 127 x 63.5 x 66 cm.


  • This bronze sculpture must be one of the must stunning pieces produced by José Bedia, one of the best Cuban artists working outside Cuba.
  • Sus dibujos, pinturas y complejas instalaciones son constructos simbólicos. Lo animal, lo vegetal, lo humano, lo religioso, todo ello es conjugado por Bedia en híbridas cosmovisiones simbólicas y estéticas.
  • Bedia se distinguió entre los artistas de su generación por elaborar una poética artística de un profundo trasfondo antropológico y etnográfico. Su proceso creativo se transmutaba en una investigación sobre las matrices culturales de los pueblos ancestrales del Continente Americano.
  • José Bedia es un reconocido pintor cubano y uno de los principales exponentes de la “generación los ochenta”.
  • Pero, lejos de aislarse en un arte indigenista, José Bedia rescata estas importantes fuentes culturales para la contemporaneidad, en un proceso que él mismo define como “transcultural a la inversa.” En ello radica, justamente, la clave de su poética.
  • This bronze sculpture entitled Venado Guerrero must be one of the must stunning pieces produced by José Bedia, one of the best contemporary Cuban artists working outside Cuba.
  • La contemporaneidad americana y la universal le adeudan a José Bedia su sostenida y profunda labor de conectar a nuestra época fragmentada y confundida, -a través de la certeza de una espiritualidad única- con la infinita espiral de los humanos ciclos vitales, donde no tienen lugar ni sentido las fútiles discrepancias de credos en las que el presente se parapeta, perpetuando las diferencias y olvidando lo mucho de análogo que nos emparenta.

A sculpture in bronze like Venado guerrero (Warring deer), results impressive, majestic. It is a human figure with zoomorphic features or an animal resembling a man. The deer is a beautiful, potent, fast, astute, stealthy, and those are vital qualities for any hunter or predator. However, the deer is not a predator; on the contrary, it is a delicious delicacy, both for fierce animals and men. But this singular deer has taken a rifle and has assumed a defying pose of a warrior. In this sense, Bedia seems to refer to a possible chance to get even with the animal, which takes the attributes of men and defies them.  

At the same time, the sculpture, in its formal ambivalence, allows the audience to appreciate it as a real man who covers or disguises his body with the skin and head of a deer. The skin and backbones belong to an animal. The hands, the posture, and the hidden face belong to a man. This hybrid appearance generates the vision of a very singular beast, while this effect that lacks definition is the one the artist seems to want to induce. It is about a fusion of the limits between the animal and the human. If today’s man continues to portray himself as a violent being, able to kill and subject his equals, then he is not much different, in essence, from his ancestors.  

This is a piece that causes a great visual suggestion. Well located in the space and with a focal light, it resembles a presence that is alive, shining, intimidating. It attracts all the attention to itself; it allows the audience to enjoy it as good art does, imposing its emphatic and unique presence, creating excitement of senses and thought.