MANUEL MENDIVE

Cover: Balbuceo (Mumbling), 1989 Pastel on paper laid down on heavy board 25 ¾ x 40 inchesCourtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Published for the exhibition:Things That Cannot Be Seen Any Other Way: The Art of Manuel Mendive

Organized by: Fundación Amistad

For presentation at:The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum Florida International University, Miami, FL

California African American MuseumLos Angeles, CA

Curator: Bárbaro Martínez-RuizCatalog design: D. Gabriella PortelaText editor: Emmett Young Printer: Color Express PrintingAll photos by Gene Ogami unless otherwise noted.

© 2013 The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum & California African American Museum978-0-9859416-3-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent.

The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum:

November 16, 2013 - January 26, 2014

California African American Museum:

April 26, 2013 - October 20, 2013

Things That Cannot Be

Seen Any Other Way:

The Art of

Manuel Mendive

I met Manuel Mendive many years ago. It was a remarkable and memorable experience that stayed with me for a long time, and was renewed watching his performances in Havana. The opportunity to bring the great Maestro to Miami from Cuba, despite the challenges, is to introduce audiences, new and old, to his extraordinary creativity. I am grateful to Maestro Mendive and his team for agreeing to come to Miami to share their talents. The performance and exhibition here at The Frost Art Museum were orga-nized by Fundación Amistad, invaluable in navigating the complexities of his travel, and in collaboration with the California African Art Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles, whose staff also mirrored our enthusi-asm as they installed the exhibition and marveled at his performance. Curator Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz worked diligently over the years to make the magic happen, and it has been a pleasure to be a part of his project and to be his friend. I am grateful to Charmaine Jefferson, Executive Director of CAAM; Mar Hollingsworth, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager at CAAM; Luly Duke and Celene Almagro of Fundación Amistad; Olga Garay-English, Executive Director, Department of Cultural Affairs for the City of Los Angeles; and especially to the collectors, from Miami and beyond, who so generously parted with their precious artworks and supported this exhibition so many could benefit from the experience of seeing the work of Manuel Mendive.

Carol DamianDirector & Chief CuratorThe Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum

Acknowledgements

Funeral Ashanti (Ashanti Funeral), 1982, Tempera on paper, 14 ¾ x 19 inches, Courtesy of the Artist

Things that Cannot Be Seen Any Other Way

Se alimenta mi espiritu (My Soul is Nourished), 2007, Acrylic on canvas, 65 ¾ x 95 inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Centered on the fifty-year career of prominent Afro-Cuban artist Manuel Mendive, this publica-tion and the retrospective exhibition of Manuel Mendive’s work that it accompanies, is the first in the United States to focus on Mendive’s career-long incorporation of the visual and material cul-ture of Afro-Cuban religion, with works held today in Cuba (including from the artist’s personal col-lection), elsewhere in the Caribbean, in the United States and in Europe, that have not otherwise been exhibited together.

Born in 1944, Manuel Mendive was part of the first post-revolution generation of Cuban artists to emerge from Cuba’s national fine arts academy, San Alejandro. Regarded as one of the foremost contemporary artists in Cuba and the Caribbe-an, Mendive began his career in the early 1960s around the time that a dominant period of Cuban Abstract Expressionism was waning. Throughout the twentieth century in Cuba, artistic production, and the art theory that sought to frame its discourse, focused on replicating and negotiating Western artistic trends and generally sought acceptance by, and inclusion in, the global contemporary art scene. Mendive paved new ground during this pe-riod by moving beyond his predecessors’ reliance on mainstream Western art forms such as Cubism and Surrealism, and incorporating visual elements rooted in the Yoruba historical religious and visual traditions of West Africa (referred to as Lucumí1 in Cuba) into his painting. A substantial body of lit-erature has highlighted the religious references in Mendive’s work, yet little has been written of sub-stance on the manner in which Yoruba/Lucumí themes were incorporated in the underlying artistic and religious philosophy; these omissions this exhi-bition and publication seek to remedy. 1. Lucumí is alternatively spelled Lukumí in certain other academic and religious sources.

In doing so, the exhibition traces Mendive’s draw-ing, painting, sculpture and performances from the early 1960s to the present, with special attention paid to certain themes common across his work, including religion, identity and memory, as well as the production styles into which his work can be cat-egorized. Thematically, Mendive’s most significant work includes his 1960s and 1970s series “Yoruba Mythology” and “Middle Passage,” and his perfor-mances in the late 1980s, such as “La Vida.” Each series bears witness to both the time and place of its making, showing the artist’s growth and devel-opment, but also testifying to his deep commitment to Afro-Cuban culture, the art of painting, and his concerns around the nature of religion and its visual language. In chronicling the iconography of Afro-Cuban art in conjunction with an examination of the influence of both Western and African

Things that Cannot Be Seen Any Other Way The Art of Manuel Mendive

Paño sagrado I, Paño sagrado II (Sacred Cloth I, Sacred Cloth II) (detail) 2003, Mixed media on canvas, 56 ½ x 62 inches, Courtesy of Gary Nader Collection

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artistic practices on Cuban art, the exhibition ex-plores issues of creolization, hybridity and syncre-tism through the twentieth century to the present day. It also highlights the role played by politics of identity, race and resistance by African descen-dants in indigenous works of art.

Stylistically, the exhibition first examines Mendive’s “early work,” including pieces produced during the artist’s childhood and during his training in por-traiture and drawing, before turning to Mendive’s adoption of other styles. These include: “chromo-luminarism,” a style characterized by separation of colors into individual dots or patches and also known as divisionism or neo-Impressionism; “dark imagery,” in which Mendive defines space using

a binary graphic of high contrast white drawing on oversaturated black backdrops; “Distortionism,” in which Mendive manipulates the shape of figures, things and background from their original realistic form using notions of space, focal points, angles and other features; “pictorial mapping,” in which cartouche is used as a decorative element to form a structural design capable of layering multiple themes to outline a universal hierarchy informed by Lucumí cultural principles; and “spatial interven-tion,” in which performances are combined with African and Afro-Cuban notions of masquerade, semiotic practices and Caribbean public parades.

Los peces (Fish) (detail), 1965, Mixed media, 56 x 65 ½ inches, Collection of the Artist

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The Role of Afro-Cuban Religion in Contemporary Cuban Art

Prior to delving into the unique contributions of Mendive’s accumulated body of work, it is worth stepping back to briefly acknowledge and explore the historical and cultural context in which he de-veloped as an artist. What distinguishes Cuba as an integral part of the large cultural space that is the Caribbean – a place where the whole world is said to come together – is the formation of a spe-cific consciousness and traditional popular culture during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which ethnic consciousness preceded the develop-ment of national identity. In particular, the widespread and rich influence of expressive and characteristic elements of African cultural traditions on an emerg-ing Cuban identity was more than just an inheri-tance, it was a force of value in itself, which helped the African confront the polyglot history into which he was transplanted, and ultimately to adopt a dif-ferent history and to define a unique individuality within this new context, and had a lasting impact on Cuban cultural and religious practice as well as on the panorama of modern and contemporary visual arts in Cuba. Despite the enormously signifi-cant role of African cultural traditions across Cuban society, little critical attention has been paid to the

influence of such cultures on the formation of Cuban artistic culture and identity.

The structured transmission of African expressive cultural traditions can be thought of as occurring during two general periods. The first, the pre- national epoch (sixteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century), was characterized by the existence of cultural spaces of resistance within the capitalist economic model of production as it was developed in Spain – primarily sugar plantations. The plantation became the area for socialization and cultural interaction among the diverse ethno-cultural groups transplanted from Africa, a consoli-dation of activity that permitted both the defense and preservation of essential values, customs, traditions and legends from Africa, and the reinterpretation of such cultural references in a new context, un-der the conditions of slavery, and as workers after emancipation. The diverse African groups brought forcibly together in Cuba began a process of cul-tural exchange among themselves, and developed ethnic solidarity out of necessity in their marginal-ized condition. This exchange and solidarity led to the foundation of what would become the principal Afro-Cuban religions, Palo Monte, Regla de Ocha, Arará and Abakuá, while the process of functional integration and common economic identity (as

Yemaya, 1970, Tempera on heavy paper, 22 ¾ x 28 inches, Courtesy of

Laura F. Baldwin Oshun, 1970, Tempera on heavy paper, 16 ½ x 21 ¼ inches, Courtesy of

Pan American Art Projects

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either slaves or marginalized freemen) created a shared sense of anguish and promoted socializa-tion. During this period, verbal traditions served as the principal means of communication and cul-tural resistance among the African population in Cuba, and contributed to the various competing and clashing imaginaries that contributed to the formation of Cuban identity.

On the other hand, a process of “deculturation,” a conscious effort by the colonial Spanish power to strip away the culture and identity of a group of hu-man beings in order to better exploit them and use them to exploit the available natural resources, was also practiced on the plantations. Deculturation in-volved taking away important cultural elements of a people’s everyday life, such as original names, sexual patterns, diet, housing styles, and clothing; suppressing their music and religions; and forcing them to adopt a foreign language and modalities of behavior. Failing to achieve what the Spanish authorities sought, deculturation, in fact, strength-ened the covert consolidation and dissemination of African cultural traditions among the oppressed population, while encouraging the application of a thin sheer of Western cultural symbols on the sur-face of complex African practices. It did, however, leave a lasting legacy in respect of the recognition and valuation of national cultural practices through the present day.2

The second period, the post-slavery epoch, began in Cuba with the abolition of slavery in 1886. This period was characterized by the exodus of the new-ly-freed slaves from the countryside to the cities and by their participation within a particular socio-eco-nomic space which, although quite limited, allowed them to sustain themselves and to accumulate cap-ital for the first time.3 This generated a sense of belonging to a physical and geographical place, 2. Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 102-103.Gustavo Perez Firmat. The Cuban Condition: Translation and Identity in Cu-ban Literature, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 1-16. “deculturation.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 13 Jun. 2013.3. Pedro Deschamps Chapeaux, Juan Pérez de la Riva, Contribución a la Histo-ria de la gente sin historia, (La Habana : Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1974).

and of having a secure future within the nation of Cuba. It facilitated the creation of a social-religious consciousness as a means of uniting individuals, and a place where the strength and identity of the group as a whole was prized over the individual. This group consciousness first emerged with the es-tablishment of the principal Afro-Cuban religious systems (Palo Monte, Regla de Ocha, Arará and Abakuá), built upon the foundations created on the plantations prior to emancipation, and organiza-tions like the “cabildos de nación,” African-based fraternities vernacularly known as secret societies. The cabildos – organized along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines – resulted from the sympathetic and historic affiliation among these varied ethnic/cul-tural groups, while also serving as a mechanism by which to advance social, economic and political domination.

Within the Afro-Cuban religious and philosophi-cal systems developed during these two periods, religious practices, characterized by strong perfor-mance and aesthetic aspects that included music, theater, literature and the visual arts, and related mythology, served to provide a framework for the exploration and establishment of concepts explor-ing existence, origin of life and death, social orga-nization, and history. Particularly salient among the traditions developed was the graphic writing known as “signatures” (firmas), or sacred writing, which functioned as a medium for the reproduction and transmission of religious and philosophical knowl-edge. This type of graphic writing incorporated pictographic and figurative representations (moon, sun, serpents, women, skeletons, etc.) along with geometric symbols such as squares, circles, arrows and spirals. Retaining a religious and referential character, the visual language of signatures also incorporated three-dimensional objects, used in a ritual context, to evoke forces of nature and link believers with cosmological representations and manifestations.

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The signatures used in ritual proceedings, as well as the underlying cosmogonies, were collected as a written literary tradition in notebooks (libretas) maintained by specialists in the two main Afro-Cuban traditions, Palo Monte and Regla de Ocha. Such written traditions relate directly to religious oral traditions, serving to document cultural mem-ory by recording passages about the origin of king-doms, cities, wars, ethical systems, the relationship between man and his community, and a vision of the world and nature. In everyday speech, cultural influences can be seen in the textual incorporation of African vocabulary (with the pronunciation trans-formed). For example, there are certain rhetorical forms such as:

Oye-oye-oye, ve(n) aca: used to communicate something confidential.

Mira-mira-mira! Que barbaro, tu!: used to com-ment on any subject.

Okondo, tie, tie, tie boco: used to summon the “ireme” (a mythic or spiritual figure in the Abakuá tradition, usually negatively represented as a “diablito,” or little devil).

Despite the long history of African influences on Cuban cultural and artistic traditions, there has been limited public and scholarly recognition of such contributions. Such marginalization is not unique to the Cuban art scene. Indeed, initial con-tact between Africans and Europeans established a pervasive paradigm for Western understanding of African religious, cultural and artistic practices, and judgments about their inferior location in the intellectual universe as compared to European tra-ditions, remnants of which continue to influence contemporary dialogue on African art. The earli-est external depictions of Kongo artistic habits, in the form of illustrated manuscripts, travel literature or cartographic representations dating back as far as Diego Cão’s travels to the Kongo Kingdom in 1482 and 1484, focused on a specific type of art, namely wooden figures, and created an ideologi-cally charged dichotomy, with “modern,” “civilized” Christian ideology and imagery on the one hand, and “primitive,” “savage” witchcraft and fetishiza-tion on the other. Although such explicit juxtaposi-tion is no longer favored, implications regarding value linger, with effects seen across academic disciplines and in Western political, economic and cultural institutions. It remains common for artists seeking to participate in the global system of art to modernize non-Western artistic practices found on the periphery of Western culture using Western ar-tistic techniques. Although the illusion of inclusion is created through the integration of certain exotic elements, the classic dichotomy between the center and periphery is maintained, while the judgments and values of the center are amplified and renewed

El ojo que mira I (Seeing Eye I), 1985, Soft sculpture cloth and canvas 47 ½ x 21 x 3 ½ inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

11

at the periphery, an echo effect that reinforces the original distinctions between cultural players. This is particularly true within multicultural nations such as Cuba, where a Westernized national culture is pitted against African cultural influences and Afri-can cultures jostle for position and influence.

Various interrelated questions emerge from Men-dive’s socio-cultural location in a Caribbean nation shaped by Western economic history and an insis-tent Yoruba heritage: How critical are the contribu-tions of the Yoruba cultural foundation to a mod-ern artistic practice in Cuba? How successfully has Mendive negotiated two apparently irreconcilable models? How should issues relating to his transla-tion of Yoruba religious exegesis through Western artistic language be considered? Does the diver-gence of Mendive’s academic training and artistic practice from the historical traditions associatedwith Yoruba cultural and artistic production detract from or alter the substance of the work?

Perhaps Mendive’s greatest contribution to the his-tory of post-revolution Cuban art is the degree to which he made possible, even demanded, the ex-ploration of the role of Afro-Cuban cultures in the transformation of Cuban art in the postmodern period that began in the early 1980s. Contrary to early critiques of Mendive’s work, which character-ized his art as naïve, vernacular and overeagerly exploitative of a primitive and pseudo-religious sensibility,4 art critics in the 1980s began to rec-ognize the value of Mendive’s approach and the wealth of information it provided about Cuban cultural influences. Mexican-born American art-ist Enrique Chagoya has employed what he terms “reverse anthropology,” exploring the way in which a non-dominant culture incorporates images from Western culture, including in his 2009 Time Can Pass Fast or Slowly. Chagoya also describes the re-verse process, where Western artists co-opt images and concepts from non-dominant cultures, calling the practice “cultural cannibalism,” and describ-ing artists as using African aesthetics “as source of inspiration and direct visual references while ex-pressing disdain for African conceptual and artistic methodological approaches.”5 Such cultural can-nibalism, practiced throughout the twentieth cen-tury by artists including Pablo Picasso, Alfred Stieg-litz, Charles Sheeler, Francis Picabia, Diego Rivera, and Constantin Brancusi, has an ethical dimension insofar as such acts of appropriation echo other substantial subordination and marginalization of cultures seen to be on the periphery of Western civilization.

Like Chagoya, Mendive’s work challenges the par-adoxical use of cultural images in the absence of a true understanding of the culture so appropriated or cannibalized. Having created a space for cultural experimentation and critical inquiry, Mendive’s work demonstrates the importance of cultural context and allows for the development of a new methodological paradigm for the under-4. Gerardo Mosquera. Manuel Mendive y la evolución de su pintura, en Exploraciones en la Plástica Cubana. (La Habana: Ediciones Letras Cuba-nas, 1983), pp. 233-310.5. Personal Conversation with Enrique Chagoya, Stanford University, September 2012.

Ofrendas (Offerings), 1980, Mixed media on heavy paper over board 16 ¾ x 14 ¾ inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

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standing of African culture and its artistic expres-sion in relation to Modern art in Cuba. More im-portantly from a contemporary perspective, Men-dive’s body of work tells a story of survival and of how specific African cultural traits can be negoti-ated within the broader modern and contemporary Cuban art scene.

Like Mendive, a select group of Cuban modern and contemporary artists have sought to engage with and represent African cultures, historically viewed as forming part of the Cuban intercultural substra-tum, using visual language. Their approaches can be generally grouped into four categories: ethno-logical representations; visual poetry; trance and contagion; and chronicles of memory.

�(WKQRORJLFDO�UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ�UHIHUV�WR�WKH�SUHVHQFH�of African cultures as central to the origin of Cu-ban culture and what might be described as the Cuban cultural imaginary. African influences can be seen in the representational language of paint-ing, sculpture, drawing and graphic art, where the content of existing mythology is recreated visually by artists including Victor Manuel, Cundo

Bermúdez, Mario Carreño, Carlos En-rique, Mariano Rodríguez, Rene Por-tocarrero, Agustín Cárdenas, Wifre-do Lam, Roberto Diago and Manuel Mendive.

�9LVXDO� SRHWU\� UHIHUV� WR� WKH� ZD\V� LQ�which the transplanted African cultures were synthesized and became referen-tial texts within the Cuban context. In other words, African cultural elements were used by artists including José Bedia, Ricardo Rodríguez Brey, María Magdalena Campos Pons, Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal, Martha María Pérez Bravo, Luis Gomez, Juan Fran-cisco and Belkis Ayón as expressive factors, whose thematic references al-lowed audiences to recognize the typo-logical elements, philosophic content

and cosmological visions of Afro-Cuban religions.

�7UDQFH�DQG� FRQWDJLRQ� UHIHUV� WR� WKH�ZRUN�RI� DUW-ists, including Ana Mendieta, Omar Pascual, Gey-sel Capetillo, José Angel Vincench, Ernesto Benitez, and Anonymous Society, that challenges the in-strumentalism of the material world by adopting mechanisms and systems that replicate the man-ner in which Afro-Cuban religious objects are used within ritual spaces during a religious experience.

�)LQDOO\��FKURQLFOHV�RI�PHPRU\�UHIHUV�WR�WKH�PDQQHU�in which artists including José Bedia, María Mag-dalena Campos Pons, Belkis Ayón, Andres Mon-talvan and Juan Francisco Elso Padilla have cre-ated works of philosophical reflection that seek to address questions related to the human condition and analyze the world using mythological knowl-edge and notions of reality determined by magic-realistic thinking and the artistic morphology of the Afro-Cuban religious traditions. Such works exem-plify the way in which art can be used as a means through which to seek spiritual improvement and a

Mito de la creacíon, (Myth of Creation), 1985, Mixed media on heavy paper, 20 x 25 ½ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

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magical state of spiritual communion with the world, equal to that facilitated by the ritual prac-tices of Afro-Cuban religions, through the use of materials with a ritual character, such as blood, clay, wood, personal objects, pepper, cloth, volca-nic sand, wax, and mirrors.

It should be noted that Mendive’s exploration and incorporation of Yoruba cultural practices in Cuba, and the discussion of such practices in the twen-tieth and twenty-first centuries in this essay, is not intended to suggest that Yoruba art operates in a timeless, unchanging and clearly definable man-ner. Indeed, underlying much of Mendive’s work is the clear opposition to any assumption regarding a monolithic cultural identity that overlooks the con-tinuous negotiation and historical reconstruction of Yoruba culture throughout the colonial, neocolo-nial and post-colonial periods in West Africa and Cuba. Mendive recognizes that the Yoruba con-cepts and images that form the subject of so much of his work were neither fully formed nor static as a result of both the dynamic transformation of Yo-ruba culture that occurred in response to every-day negotiation with the dominant Cuban cultural identity and the fragmentation of Yoruba cultural expressions caused by the traumatic relocation of Yoruba people during slavery and again following abolition and emancipation.

Tales of the Search for Spiritual Beauty

Any initial survey of Mendive’s work makes clear the important role of visual experience in his im-agery. Underlying the importance of such a role is Mendive’s complex view of beauty and the evolving manner in which he has used it as a creative princi-ple around which to organize his work. On the one hand, Mendive has been influenced by his Western training at the San Alejando Fine Arts Academy, where the notion of beauty is conceptualized as a characteristic, often associated with symmetry, ca-

pable of drawing an audience into an immediate relationship and originating power in a manner akin to the power of natural creation. On the other hand, Mendive was raised with a Yoruba/Lucumí understanding of beauty, which struggles with the visible, tangible and material presentation of true beauty. The Yoruba believe that religious matters cannot be fully, physically formed, so hold that the visual propositions that comprise a work of art, and the manner in which it engages multiple senses, necessarily contain intangible moral philosophy.

In Mendive’s early work, the tension between the artist’s personal idea of beauty influenced by Afro-Cuban visual traditions and the Western ideal of classical beauty is visible and alludes to his own struggles to reconcile his personal (Afro-Cuban) and national (Western) identities. Many of the un-finished drawings Mendive made before and dur-ing his academic schooling highlight his unique location between an Afro-Cuban sensibility not yet elevated to the realm of “art,” but rather registered as a form of popular culture, folklore or popu-lar painting, and an academic training oriented wholly towards Western ideals of art. However, as Mendive’s work evolves, the Yoruba/Lucumí moral philosophy and its artistic sensibility take increas-ing precedence over his academic education and the related hierarchy in which Afro-Cuban cul-tural influences are understood as marginal. As he matures as an artist, Mendive seeks to bring his two, substantially different, understandings of beauty together, re-imagining the central concepts of otherwise marginalized Yoruba artistic expres-sion within the diverse and complex cultural para-digm of Cuba, while simultaneously creating visual propositions that capture the power of subjects in-formed by Yoruba cultural principles and deeply stir audiences, including those who recognize their own Yoruba experiences expressed through a new visual vocabulary designed to be enjoyed and ex-perienced by multiple senses.

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ic foundation is utilized and in the exploration of the intersection between Yoruba artistic practice and modern, Western sensibilities in the diaspora. These are: Áse (or Ashe as it is known in Cuba), spiritual command, the power to make things hap-pen, divine force incarnate, transforms spirit and matter alike; Ori, the mind or conscience; Iwa, a sense of ideal royal character, a force infusing physical beauty with everlastingness, custom; Iwa were coolness and character, demonstrating prop-er etiquette; and Iwa pele, generosity as the high-est form of morality visually and morphologically rendered.7 Within historical Yoruba culture, these characteristics are visually represented in works of art through the selection of particular colors, thedepiction of related gestures or the use of certain materials.

Of these concepts, Mendive’s use of Áse provides a particularly useful framework within which to un-derstand and experience development of a new narrative style and to appreciate his use of Yoruba artistic principles freed from limitations imposed by Western sensibilities, the politics of representa-tion, cultural biases, and the historical devaluation and marginalization of Yoruba cultural and visual practices in Cuba. More fully described, Áse is a vital force that is believed to provide and sustain the essence of life itself, animating everything in the universe. The Yoruba believe that Áse is a criti-cal component of all life, including art, and that for forms of visual expression to effectively convey meaning, they must be imbued with and “activat-ed” by Áse. Mendive seeks to bring Áse to his work, experimenting with different forms of visual story-telling and drawing upon Yoruba aesthetic and oral traditions in an effort to achieve artistic vitality. The exhibition traces this experimentation across five decades and explores not only Mendive’s suc-cess in his own work, but its implications for other contemporary Caribbean artists engaging the last-ing influence of African religious, visual and oral traditions in the diaspora.7. Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of Spirit, (New York: Random House, 1983) pp. 4-11. David T. Doris describes the same concepts as follows: Àse: Genera-tive power, Ori: The head as the site of selfhood and Ìwà: Character. David Doris, Vigilent Things (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011).

Let Language Back to You

The Yoruba/Lucumí construct of art differs from its Western counterparts in ways other than the con-ceptualization of beauty. African art historian Henry Drewal points out that Yoruba art is about transcen-dence and, whether verbal, visual, or performed, is built upon a conceptual foundation that fosters the creation of evocative images or forms that “evoca-tive forms move the eye…[or] the mind’s eye.”6 In traditional Yoruba culture, art is understood in a multi-sensorial way in which physical works of art and oral narratives are intertwined, where visual and verbal accounts (known as oríkì, or praise po-etry, in Nigeria) come together in a complementary manner to tell a story. Although the slave trade brought both Yoruba visual and oral traditions to Cuba, their fully-developed, unified conceptual framework did not survive for a variety of historical reasons, including colonialism, slavery and the im-position of Western visual traditions. Instead, Yoruba moral philosophy, conveyed largely through verbal traditions such as patakí (myth, legend, or story), including stories known as odu (oddu) of the Gods and Goddesses of the Yoruba pantheon and their historical, moral and psychological archetypes, continued in Cuba as a rich, robust tradition, par-ticularly among the peasant and working classes. At the same time, their aesthetic counterparts de-veloped independently, evolving through the infu-sion of western artistic techniques and materials. Mendive seeks to reunify the patakí tradition with visual elements of Lucumí, using visual art to ex-plore and convey Yoruba concepts, creating in the process a new style of narrative that does not need to rely on Western visual language to depict Yoruba themes.

African art historians writing on Yoruba aesthet-ics, Robert Farris Thompson in Flash of the Spirit and David Doris in Vigilant Things, outline five Yoruba concepts, the visual representation of which is helpful in understanding how a Yoruba aesthet-6. Henry John Drewal, Yoruba Arts and Life as Journey, (Washington D.C: Smithsonian Press, 1994), p. 194.

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For Yoruba practitioners, the rejection of Western media is perhaps a logical and necessary result of their moral philosophy and the historical margin-alization of Yoruba socio-cultural values in relation to Western influences on Cuban art. What proved challenging in the void it left, however, was finding consensus around the manner in which to repre-sent the substance of Yoruba/Lucumí verbal tradi-tions and the cultural principles underlying them. Having a particular effect on the diffusion and ac-cessibility of Yoruba principles for all religious prac-titioners and for Cuban society as a whole was a quasi-iconoclastic tendency encouraged by Yoruba religious leaders.

The nature of Yoruba art in Cuba, overly icono-clastic and reliant upon devotional images drawn from Western religious tradition, presented an ear-ly challenge to Mendive’s artistic career. In the early decades of his career, Mendive’s work and the log-ic of his imagery were condemned by practitioners of Yoruba religion, who argued that theologically, a “vivid” image of an oricha (divine force or deity) capable of containing the power of God was im-possible, and that Mendive’s attempted depictions were at best misleading, and at worst instances of denigration and religious transgression.8

Fueling such concerns was a dearth of theologi-cal references in Yoruba religious literature in Cuba and the broader failure to acknowledge the so-cial and religious underpinnings of Yoruba visual practice within either the art world or mainstream Cuban identity. Yoruba attitudes toward religious images, as traditionally held in Nigeria and Be-nin, are not known in Cuba and there is no record that describes how the Yoruba conceptualize or respond to the use of religious images. Ironically, the idea that religious images are meant to capture the divine arguably has more to do with Western notions of idolatry and two colonial-era practices that combined to foster widespread rejection of any kind of African religious image and the denuncia-tion of any usage of such imagery as “idolatry”; the

8. Discussions with Yoruba practitioners, Cuba, 1980s.

Spanish zero tolerance toward African religion and related material culture and visual expression; and the rigorous imposition of Catholicism as the sole accepted religion. Mendive’s experience in those early years did not decrease his interest in exploring and using reli-gious images to convey the Yoruba experience and facilitate viewer transcendence and understanding through a multi-sensorial experience like that core to Yoruba religious practice. Mendive was able to draw upon his San Alejandro fine arts training and use image-based artistic propositions such as painting to help bridge the gap between his so-cial-urban and religious experiences. Particularly interested in issues of perception and representa-tion through religious images, Mendive cleverly fused representational traditions from modern art and popular imagery translated from verbal reli-gious accounts in order to solve the general prob-lem of agency with respect to images of devotion. As within Yoruba art, the completeness of multi-sensorial experience cannot be accomplished by merely serving as a witness to artistic production, but by fully understanding and participating in it.9 Mendive looked to artistic forms beyond painting, including dance and other performing arts, to en-gage his audience and offer non-practitioners ac-cess to a form of Yoruba religious experience.

A modern consumer of art looking at Yoruba pop-ular stories may fail to see historical Yoruba atti-tudes toward visual arts due to the degree to which such attitudes have been obscured by the notion of primitivism used to characterize all African vi-sual expressions in Cuba, and the fact that all Afro-Cuban religions were banned in Cuba at the time. Rejecting the notion that Yoruba cultural or aes-thetic principles are primitive or otherwise inferior to their Western counterparts and spurred by the equating of his depiction of Yoruba religious im-ages with idolatry and the view that such depictions were means of transferring value from the divine rather than images of devotion, Mendive opts to vi-

9. Drewal, p. 193.

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sually echo the Patakí stories, and looks to his own religious training to inform the manner in which he engaged with the ethics of representation, the politics of displaying Yoruba religious matters, and the challenges inherent in navigating one’s African heritage and cultural identity in Cuba. As such, Mendive began what would be a decades-long ex-ploration of ways of creating a visual expression that could serve as a possible channel through which to transfer his human understanding to the divine. Following this strand leads to a fascinating intersection between the Yoruba concepts of par-ticipation and perception that characterize modern artistic practices.

Henry Drewal, in his essay Introduction: Yoruba Art and Life as Journey, writes extensively about Yoruba notions of art and the associated critical principles, paying specific attention to the idea of artistry. He defines Yoruba art as an “evocative form,” and writes that the Yoruba view art as “a complex con-cept that includes such ideas of skillful manipula-tion of media in the decoration, design, or embel-lishment of form (ona), innovation/creativity (ara), visual playfulness or improvisation (ere), complete-ness (pite), appropriateness (yiye), insight (oju-inu), design consciousness (oju-ona), aliveness (idahun) and durability (tito).”10 The evocative, generative and transformative principles of Yoruba histori-cal art resonate with many ancient Greco-Roman principles, including “theophany,” a visible mani-festation of God; “revelation,” showing human at-tributes of God, and “logos,” a creative principle in which nature has precedence over art.11 Recog-nizing an intensely sensual experience as a critical foundation of Yoruba art, Drewal believes that the interdependency between visual expression and verbal forms are what attract the Yoruba to “art,” rather than the defined shapes, symmetrical pro-portions and other graphic aids. Drewal also in-troduces the concept of “segmented” symmetry in which harmony is achieved for the Yoruba through a composition that “allows different voices to be

10. Drewal, p. 193.11. Moshe Barasch, Theories of Art, (New York: New York University, 1998), p. 65.

heard, different senses to come into play, different images to come into focus or to fade” instead of bi-lateral conformity and the equivalent distribution of space.12 Such lack of a “unified wholeness” is con-sistent with the Yoruba concept l’eto which means “section by section or step by step,”13 and aids in understanding the distinctive storytelling features of Mendive’s compositions, including his use of no-ticeable segmentation and visual aids such as pro-portion, interrelated figures and geometric shapes to create meaning and permeate a piece with hu-man emotions, activating the piece and reflecting the artist’s use of the fundamental Yoruba concept of Áse as an artistic principle.

Yoruba Exegesis By the end of the 1960s, Mendive’s relationship with Yoruba religion had changed due to a per-sonal tragedy. A serious bus accident led him to a more conscious journey into Yoruba religious prac-tice, a shift from observer to initiated participant. As he became more deeply engaged, Mendive more seriously questioned the manner in which icono-graphic propositions could be informed by popular veneration of “syncretic” images in which Yoruba orichas were concealed in iconographic pictures of Catholic saints. The enhanced understanding of, and access to, his religion that initiation provided strengthened Mendive’s iconodulistic (in support of the use of religious images and their veneration) attitude and facilitated his creative process. For Mendive, this process was therapeutic, one in which an image need not be a magical conception, but could instead serve to highlight human experiences of pain, suffering and then enlightenment through religious initiation. Mendive has stated his belief that the “inevitable Yoruba selfhood cannot exist without a true work of art,”14 and he began to em-ploy a more practical approach to the instruction of Yoruba ideology and its introduction to non-practi-tioners, the expression and teaching of Yoruba cul-

12. Drewal, p. 193.13. Ibid., p. 193.14. Personal conversation with the artist, Havana, Cuba, October 2012.

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Looking in detail at the components of the paint-ing’s central register, of initial note is the depiction of three symbols: the long-haired white figure is Ikú, representing death; the sun represents Olodu-mare (God), and the red childlike figure is Elegba/Eleguá, representing understanding and knowl-edge. Mendive goes on to represent each pair of coupled figures in individual houses, a visual aid that alludes to the critical role of love in domestic life. From left to right, the first pair represents love in this world, the pleasing, beautiful and continu-ous love linked to procreation, as symbolized by a peacock. The second pair represents the two sides of love, the hopeful kind that is universal and tran-scends race, and the stormy, desperate kind sym-bolized by a turkey vulture. The third pair represents a fulfilling and intelligent love, one that is fair and open, permitting release, self-determination and freedom, which is symbolized by a dove and which Mendive associates with love between seniors. The fourth pair represents a sublime and special love, an everlasting commitment symbolized on the left by an elephant and a transcendental love for the generation to come represented on the right by a butterfly.16

In light of the strong links between Yoruba verbal texts and Mendive’s visual imagery, consideration of the relevant organization and textuality of Yoruba exegesis may be key to understanding the formal attributes of Mendive’s art. A reading of Mendive’s visual narrative reveals a strong empha-sis on amorphic, clouded representations, mon-sters, beasts, and hybrid and janus-faced figures. These preoccupations are central to Yoruba/Lucumí verbal accounts, as well as being widespread in the popular imagination. The hybrid iconograph-ic forms used in Mendive’s narratives (including human-fish, human-birds standing or flying west, tree-birds and tree-dogs) also echo prominent Yo-ruba themes such as the metaphorical transforma-tion and regeneration of Yoruba gods, in this case from verbal to visual representation, and draw

16. Personal Conversation with Manuel Mendive, May 1, 2013.

tural values using a visual approach. While unique in contemporary Cuban art, such an approach is not new; Moshe Barasch, in his book Theories of Art, discussed the role of image in spreading reli-gion among illiterate Medieval audiences, pointing out that, in its most simple form, learning “it can mean either the acquiring of knowledge not previ-ously available or the shaping of the overall mental structure of him who learns.”15

Mendive played with iconolude ideas in pieces pro-duced throughout the decade, with Endoco, 1968 being the quintessential example of such work, a piece in which he also continued to explore his be-lief that beauty should be understood as an emo-tional quality, and art and the artist as holders of beauty. The central theme of Endoco is the realm of love, used as a metaphor to depict the world of the living. Mendive organizes the painting into different segments that allow him to represent various kinds of love and different expressions of what Mendive understands to be generosity. Such varied forms of love are clearly depicted in eight scenes of coupling figures in the central portion of the painting, pair-ings intended to be read from the upper-left to the right. Although audiences may initially assume the coupling scenes are intended as erotic represen-tations, they are instead archetypal images most directly associated with two Yoruba gods: Changó, the god of vitality and Ochún, the god of fertility, together representing procreation and reproduc-tion. Practitioners of Lucumí in Cuba believe that every practitioner has a counterpart in the realms of flora or fauna (known as their rural god or god-dess) and that the physical characteristics of such paired animal, bird or tree, align with certain of the practitioner’s features. The depictions of coupling between humans and animals, birds and trees here are clear metaphors for the belief that these counterparts exist and serve to complete the prac-titioner’s spiritual self. They also call to mind the depictions of hybrid human-animal and human-bird figures that are featured so prominently across much of Mendive’s work.

15. Barasch, pp. 36-37.18

of spiritual completion, and drowning and swim-ming, which convey a sense of distress and trans-gression.

The following table lists Yoruba deities represented by selected images (zoomorphic figures and de-pictions of natural elements or phenomenon), as used in Mendive’s work, as well as their principal responsibilities or associations (After Robert Farris Thompson, in Face of the Gods and Anonymous facsimile Orichas: Tratados del Cuarto de Santo) : 18

18. Robert Farris Thompson, Face of the Gods, (Munich: Prestel, 1993), p. 161. Anonymous Facsimile. Orichas: Tratados del Cuarto de Santo. (Habana: Editorial-Universidad de la Habana, 2008), pp. 54-55 and 70-71.

upon expressions, colors, icons, and motions asYoruba archetypes.17 Mendive constructs these narratives dramatically, using visual accents such as distinctive iconography that suggests that his figures are standing, sitting, riding, kneeling, or balancing, and multiple layers that suggest diverse groupings of and interrelationships between the figures. Many of his paintings and ensemble in-stallations convey references to philological states achieved through Yoruba religious experiences, including flying, which signifies the landing of the oricha on a person or a human reaching out to the divine; hovering, which is associated with feelings

17. Nicolás Angarica, El “Lucumí” al alcance de todos. In Lázara Menéndez, Ed. Estudios Afro-Cubanos, Vol. 4. (La Habana: Editorial Universidad de la Habana, 1990), p. 77. See David Brown, Santería Enthroned (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 370.

Representation Associations

Action

Swimming Cleansing

Flying Completion

Hovering Enjoyment

Levitation Ecstasy

Drowning Perplexity, uncertainty

Hybrid form

Tree-human Forest as source of religious matter

Tree-bird Vitality of the forest

Human-bird

Exchange of messages from this world to next

Human-octopus Type of love

Janus-human Human ambiguity, paradox,

Janus-human-birds Human avatars, possibilities

One-leg human Singularity

Three-breasted woman Cross-road, vitality

Siamese; Fused limbs; Cyclopean; other cranial deformations

Human-mind complexity, mystery,

changeability

uncertainty

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The following table shows some of Mendive’s interpretations and depictions associated with Yoruba/Lucumí religious experiences.

The following table shows some of Mendive’s interpretations and depictions associated with Yoruba/Lucumí religious experiences:

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Deity Referenced (Nigeria

-Benin)

Deity Referenced (Yoruba-Lucumí )

Responsibility /Association

Visual Representation

Anyan Aña Deity of the drums Drum

Echu-Elegba Echu, Eleguá, Elegwuá

Commitment, contingency Hen / Chick

Ibeji Ibeyi Twins Two identical figures

Inle Inle Healer, diviner, and hunter Flora leaves

Obaluaiye Babalu Aye, Omo-Olu, Ozowuano

Epidemic, smallpox Spotted figure

Obatala

Obatala

Creativity Peacock

Dove

Ogun Ogun, Oggun War, iron Hills

Olodumare Olodumare Supreme God Rain

Olokun

Olokun

God of the sea Large fish

Fog Orumila Orula Divination Tortoise

Osaiyin Osain, Ozain Healing Tortoise Forest

Oshoosi Ochosi, Oshosi Hunting Flora Oshumare Ochumare Rainbow Rainbow

Oshun Ochún Sweet water, love Peacock River, fresh water

Ósun

Osu Principle of life, the soul of

the living, simple life Bird

Oya Oya (Olla), Yansa Whirlwind Wind

Shango

Changó, Shangó

Thunder, lightning Rooster

Fire, Flame Lightning

Yemaja Yemayá Ocean Fish Ocean

The Physicality of Memories

In the early 1960s, Mendive began working with the medium of needlework known as appliqué. With large fabric arrangements as backdrop, Mendive uses patches of cloth as frames to enclose a series of smaller ornaments, diminishing pieces of cloth, ripped, sewed and patched on a surface for sto-rytelling. While the sewing and embroidery tech-niques serve as the principal means of organizing the story, further meaning is created and conveyed through the use of materials such as cowrie shells which, sewn into the design, can function as deco-rative elements or as an additional framing device in the overall composition. The complex, sequential composition suggests the intention to visually nar-rate an involved verbal account grounded in Yoru-ba literary history. Such technique is similar to that historically used to create Western banner tapes-tries and traditional American quilts, and is also a well-known art form used among the Yoruba in the West African nation of Benin. The examples shown here demonstrate an evolution in Mendive’s tech-nique, from the hand-sewn 1965 appliqué titled Los Peces (The Fish) to the 2013 Jacquard tapestry pro-duced by Magnolia Editions on an automated mill reading a digital photograph of the original 2010 painting titled La Fuga del Crepúsculo (Ephemeral Dusk), and illustrate his experimentation with differ-ent visual forms, compositions, colors, landscapes and figures as he searches for a common pictorial language to represent and convey specific cultural messages and philosophical themes central to Yor-uba-based religion in Cuba.

Lightness and levitation are depicted in the appli-qué titled Paño sagrado I (Sacred Cloth I), 2003. In the image, the sky is covered with cowry shell, depicting stars and drawing upon Yoruba iconog-raphy to symbolize birth, regeneration, life, love and fertility. Their use also alludes to what is known in Cuba as lucero (bright star), which represents the realm of the deities and the physical dimension that they inhabit. Central to the composition are

figures flying or hovering midair, their movement and fluidity juxtaposed with their surroundings. The prominent and repeated inclusion of such imagery in Mendive’s work alludes to the complex beliefs underlying Yoruba traditions of initiation, spiritual cleansing and daily religious practice and to the experiences of practitioners thereof. Such practi-tioners report feeling strong sensations, as if they were flying or hovering, swimming or drowning, as well as more abstract feelings of bodily transmuta-tion and hybridization associated with the sensa-tion of release and of becoming one with another, being protected or completed by an experience. Through his creation of richly layered imagined vi-sions, Mendive draws upon such reported sensa-tions, seeking to acquire and utilize Yoruba vitali-ties and manifest their potency in visual form. Paño sagrado I is clearly divided into three parts: the up-per third formed by the constellation of star shells representing the realm of the chief God Olorun, ruler of the sky; the middle third, the realm of the goddess Olokun, representing the great transition between life and death; and the bottom third, the world of the living, populated by multiple figures. Such composition suggests that the main event tak-ing place is an initiation and indicates a journey between realms that is guided by the Orichas. The name of the piece, Paño sagrado I or Sacred Cloth I, refers to the cloth mantels or banteles given to the initiates to signify a new beginning while also more broadly speaking to the divine nature of the appliqué’s depicted realms.

The piece also contains a visual technique which draws one’s eyes up diagonally from the lower-left corner of the composition where a hybrid figure, half human, half bird, is trying to fly toward the up-per-right corner, from the realm of the living to that of the gods. The depiction suggests a struggle, an unresolved conflict between the bird-like part and the solid physicality of its human counterpart. A re-lated image is depicted in Sacred Cloth II, where a childlike figure (likely referencing Elegba / Eleguá, the deity of contingency and commitment and “the

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force to make all things happen and multiply”)1 is suspended in midair while a human-bird figure hov-ers overhead in the upper-right quadrant. In both compositions, the human birds call to mind Ósun, the deity of healing, which represents the essence of a person’s being and stability as “the triumph of the mind over the annihilating circle of destruction and disease.”2 Ósun is iconographically associ-ated with birds and feathers among the Popo and Fon in what is now Benin and is represented as a single bird often resting upon a conical disk atop a staff among the Yoruba in Nigeria. In Cuba, Ósun is often portrayed as a bird and, when physically displayed in a Yoruba religious space, is typically set on top of a door frame or on a shelf higher than the tallest person in the house. Mendive plays with this iconography and spatiality, integrating the reli-gious with the vernacular by linking the contextual association between flying and religious experience with a hybrid representation of the principle of life for which Ósun is believed to stand. In this more vernacular reading, Ósun represents the soul of the living and alludes to a simple life of unconditional devotion to the Yoruba gods and as a metaphor for the devoted mind. In addition to using iconography that resonates in Cuba and alludes to transcendent religious experience, Mendive references broader, pan-African influences, noting that the bird “could be interpreted as the spirit of the air, known as Ba in ancient Egypt and associated with the soul, hov-ering over dead person before beginning its flight to the afterlife.”3

Mendive’s use of juxtaposition is an example of how he integrates both modern artistic traditions and Yoruba artistic concepts to explore and convey the nature of Yoruba traditions in Cuba. Echoing the use of juxtaposed images frequently seen in works by modern Western artists, Mendive simulta-neously draws upon the Yoruba notion of seriated, segmented composition discussed above, piecing together different shapes, textures and images and“allow[ing] different voices to be heard, different 19. Thompson, Flash of the Spirits, p. 18. 20. Ibid., p. 50.21. Personal Interview with Manuel Mendive, Havana, Cuba, October 2012.

senses to come into play, different images to come into focus or to fade.”4 Specifically, in Paño sagra-do, 2007, Mendive juxtaposes three scenes along its vertical plane, allowing each section to function as an individual register. The lower register is de-marcated by a semi-rectangular enclosure that cre-ates a tension with the narrow verticality of the up-per register, and provokes a zooming sensation by narrowing the space in the lower enclosure. Water is the primary visual theme here: in the lowest reg-ister it is static, deep at the bottom of the ocean where it conjures Olokun (god of the sea); in the second register, creatures are seen swimming near the surface, the water here representing Yemaya (goddess of the ocean and coolness) and a space in which humans and fish coexist; whereas in the third, life finally rises up over the water, coming to earth, to Oricha Oko the realm that represents the whole world. The transition from underwater to above may be associated with the concept of becoming one with the gods and forging a new beginning.

In addition to facilitating discussion of the meaning of the symbols and images contained within each register, Mendive uses the structure of the registers themselves to direct the reading and interpretation of the piece as a whole. For example, in Paño sa-grado, 2010, the banner on top of the appliqué helps to anchor the piece and directs its reading, insisting on a vertical progression from bottom to top that links specific representations into a cohe-sive narrative. The rectangular space in the upper- right corner further emphasizes the bottom-left to upper-right progression of the piece. The divisions between the registers also help to focus attention on the largest scene, which covers the majority of the total composition in an L-shape.

Initially produced in 2010 as a single panel paint-ing, Ephemeral Dusk offered a unique opportunity for Mendive to continue his experimentation with appliqués and explore the use of new technol-ogy capable of fusing the digital and the physical.

22. Drewal, p. 195.22

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Although woven of wool and cotton, the tapestry evokes the painting technique known as chromo-luminarism or divisionism, which is characterized by its separation of colors into individual dots or patches that Mendive used early in his career (see, for example Yemaya, 1970 and Oshun, 1970). The adapted style conveys a range of tones and a heightened intensity of primary colors that mim-ics the effect of the strong sunlight characteristic of Mendive’s studio, while also creating a different relationship with the viewer by requiring viewing from a distance in order to discern the subject of the piece.

The tapestry’s titular subject, dusk, or twilight, is also richly evocative. Associated on the one hand with uncertainty and ambivalence, the being be-tween one state and another, it alludes to the end-ing of life and the conclusion of one cycle and be-ginning of another. However, in the Yoruba-Lucumí tradition in Cuba, twilight is instead associated with the time of creation of the known world, the pe-riod during which Olorun, the master of the skies and supreme vital power, created the world before leaving the deities of creation, Obatala and Odúa (Odudúwa) to finish the details.

Ephemeral Dusk shares elements of composition with the famous landscapes of Peter Paul Rubens Landscape with a Rainbow (1636) and An Autumn Landscape (1636). Like Rubens’ use of storm clouds and a rainbow to signify new beginnings, Mendive highlights such transition by enlightening the up-per-right corner of the composition with an intense green that draws the eye diagonally upward from the lower-left. Similarly, Mendive plays with the di-chotomy of dark and light and echoes the Rubens’ scene in which the haymakers resume their work in the sunshine by grouping several figures in the shadows, suggesting their movement toward the dissipating light, while contrasting their efforts with the emergence from the light of a large, double-headed bird. The bird is depicted as drinking from a calabash gourd held by a figure that in its child-like form represents Elegba, the deity of commit-

ment, suggesting the delivery of a message from the gods and symbolizing rites of passage impor-tant among the Yoruba, including naming, initia-tion, confirmation, marriage and funerary tradi-tions. The bird’s heads, in addition to echoing the human-bird figures seen in other Mendive pieces, also call to mind William Blake’s illuminated poem Jerusalem (1804-1820) that depicted the muse of fantasy in the form of a hybrid bird-human illumi-nated by the sun of imagination.

Mendive’s anthropomorphic depiction of Elegba as a fully-grown person with one visible wing attached, also calls to mind the angels of Christian iconog-raphy. Mendive’s attachment of another wing to a large human-dog-snake-bird figure also calls to mind Obatala, an oricha often represented by Yoruba practitioners as physically deformed. Also notable are the blue, indigo and green human-like figures depicted in the lower-right corner of the composition. The lower bodies of some of these figures are covered with dots, which represent an iyawó (the ceremony in which novices are initiated into Yoruba religion) while other figures have spots and dots painted on their shaved heads and/or up-per bodies to show that they are already initiated. Ephemeral Dusk also contains other examples of the hybrid iconographies so common across Men-dive’s work, hybrid tree-birds and tree-dogs in this case. Trees are commonly associated with prin-ciples of nourishment, shelter and protection and their hybridized representations could symbolize the cycle of life and the passage from one (human) dimension to another (that of the gods), the tran-scendence of this world.

Beginning in the 1980s, Mendive moves beyond his prior focus on painting and appliqué techniques and explores the use of softer materials to create “stuffed” figures. With these unconventional soft sculpture materials, he continues to explore themes of faith, aestheticism and hybridity and search for a visual language capable of unifying the resulting

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elements. African art historian David Doris, in his seminal book Vigilant Things, introduced the Yoruba concept of ààlè, which can be literally translated from the Nigerian vernacular as “are not pretty things,” and speaks to an anti-aesthet-ic, the primary functions of which “are intended to confront the most ordinary evils.” According to Doris, ààlè requires the consideration of both the culturally specific framework from which a work of art emerges and its utility beyond the aesthetic, compelling both creator and viewer “to consider the relationship between the powers of transitory individual and the greater power of divinity, law, lineage, community and history.” The influence of ààlè on works of art is not dissimilar to the no-

tion of anti-establishment artistic expression, free from the constraints of convention imposed by Western artistic training and consciously opposed to the influential power of institutional and mar-ket structures, and the related movement of arte povera (poor art) that developed in Italy between 1967 and 1972, and was characterized by the use of unconventional material and styles. Mendive embraces these intersecting constructs, incorporat-ing materials drawn from the everyday to highlight the ongoing devaluation of Yoruba culture in Cuba and encourage a rethinking and rebalancing of the role of material culture in the everyday visual expe-riences of Yoruba practitioners in Cuba.

Enclosed in a private corner of the exhibition, the soft sculptures El ojo que mira I & II (Seeing Eye I & II), 1985, and Gallo (Rooster), 2003, are the most pensive, observant and engaged of Men-dive’s standing figures. As positioned, the pieces appear to the viewer as both engaged with one another and members of an audience gazing out over the rest of the gallery and viewing the video of The Heads performance. Representations of roosters, eyes, and amorphous figures are impor-tant motifs for Mendive, depicted in artworks that span his career, including Los peces (Fish), 1965; Oshun, 1970; Ofrendas (Offerings), 1980; Mito de la creacíon (Myth of Creation), 1985; Hombre con pajaro (Man with Bird), 1997; Puerta (Door), 2010; and Las Tinieblas (Gloom), 2010. Seen again in these soft sculptures, these motifs carry powerful symbolic associations. The rooster connotes the act of sacrifice, referencing rituals of initiation and cleansing, while the eye evokes the active role of the initiate or practitioner in the religious experi-ence, simultaneously representing the introspective nature of learning and intuitive vision as well as the limitation of the visible. A single eye like that depicted in Seeing Eye I is symbolic of truthfulness, often believed in the West to be the eye that wit-nessed the moment of creation and thus capable of offering humanity guidance and strength. In ad-dition, in Yoruba art, a figure with one eye is un-derstood to represent Osain, the god of the woods

El ojo que mira II (Seeing Eye II), 1985, Soft sculpture, cloth and canvas 42 x 25 x 3 ¼ inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

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and of medicinal plants, believed to symbolize the richness of nature and potential for healing.5

Between 1996 and 2009, Mendive worked exten-sively with bronze, a significant material for the Yoruba from the fifteenth century through the late twenty-first century, who used it to carefully render realistic human and animal forms. Particularly well known are the castings of Ife and Olokun heads and Obalufon mask[s], but surviving castings en-compass a wide range of subjects, including a woman holding a fan, a hippopotamus, domestic birds, hunters and well-known dignitaries. Unfortu-nately, the traditional practice of bronze casting did not continue among Yoruba descendants in Cuba and was also largely discontinued in West Africa by the twentieth century. Mendive, however, in-spired by his viewing of traditional Yoruba bronzes in museum publications, sought to revive the tradi-tion, experimenting with bronze casting techniques and incorporating the results into his expanding Yoruba-influenced visual toolbox. The bronzes produced by Mendive were constructed in a fashion similar to that of historical Yoruba castings, but with a more poetic-visual bent, as seen in his hybrid-ization of bodies to create whimsical human-birds and human-fish. These hybrid morphologies facili-tate Mendive’s exploration of religious allegories, and his use of the casting technique allows him to paradoxically create a material form for imaginary creatures, a process he describes as the figures be-ing “born again.” By consciously echoing Yoruba casting styles, Mendive explicitly references the in-fluence of Yoruba-based cultural heritage in Cuba.

Mendive associates the sculptures he creates with the collection of religious objects commonly on view in Yoruba religious spaces. In particular, the de-sign of Energías Vitales (Vital Powers) alludes to the Oricha warrior figures known as los tres-guerreros, the three warriors, an ensemble piece that brings together, typically in the form if an ironcauldron, the powers of three Yoruba/Lucumí gods, Elegba,

23. “Osain is often “depicted as a charged doll or a carved figure with one eye, one arm, and one leg.” Brown, p. 370.

Oshosi and Ogún, to protect against witch-craft. In addition to playing upon the construction of a well-known religious design, Mendive’s visual interpretation of the interrelationship between the gods also alludes to the complexities inherent in the adoption and adaptation of Yoruba religious principles in Cuba, where nearly all aspects of the social fabric, including history, economics, politics and more importantly, cultural diversity, differed dramatically from their counterparts in West Africa. Mendive takes this dislocation further, replacing the standard three legs of the cauldron with two human-like legs at the base of the sculpture, thus anthropomorphizing the piece. Details elsewhere in the piece provide clues as to the anthropomor-phic sculpture’s identity - the large accumulation of feathers suggest a monumental bird-like crea-ture, calling to mind Oshosi, the principal deity of hunting in Yoruba mythology, who serves the world by firing a mystical arrow through the heart of a gigantic witch-bird that has blanketed the sky with doom.

As he has done in many of his paintings and appli-qués, Mendive structures this piece in three visual registers, facilitating a register-by-register explora-tion of a broad spectrum of semantic representa-tions in addition to the appreciation of the integrat-ed verticality of the piece. Mendive uses important conceptual signifiers as visual anchors for each of the three registers, each corresponding to one of the three god-warriors housed in the human caul-dron. The dominant use of feathers in the upper-most portion, in addition to referencing Oshosi, as described above, could also correspond to Ósun, perhaps calling upon Ósun’s power to make this sculpture vital, to imbue it with the power of giv-ing and sustaining life. In calling upon this power, Mendive seeks to bring Áse to the process of ar-tistic production, echoing in the title of the piece, Energías Vitales (Vital Powers), the suggestion that it is connected to something indispensable for the continuance of life. The second register, the central portion of the piece, resembles the enclosed, vessel

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like structure of the cauldron and is associated with Ogún, the creator of the world in Yoruba belief. Ogún is symbolized visually by the use of metal and the female figure whose upper body is cov-ered with dots used during initiation rites. The final register represents Elegba, the god of contingency and commitment, and depicts him embodied in a human, but miniature, childlike appearance as is common in the religious vernacular. In addition, the evocative blue coloration and the orderly, verti-cal display of motifs on the surface of the two up-per registers represent waves and the combination of the patterns and color embodies the coolness and command of the water, suggesting a level of peace and tranquility associated with the goddess Yemayá. By asking viewers to engage with and work through the meanings of each register as well as the piece as a whole, Mendive encourages view-ers to imagine themselves as part of the work.

The papier-mâché masks were part of the costumes used in a performance choreographed by Mendive

on the eve of the inauguration of the Eleventh Ha-vana Biennale in 2012. Interested in encouraging the viewer to look, participate and engage with his art in a multi-sensory manner, Mendive often trans-forms pieces from his public events and installs them, in part or in full, as sculptures in a new gal-lery environment. This is a quintessential example of Mendive’s understanding of what Henry John Drewal called “semioptics” used to characterize the conceptual frame work developed in the art f Yoruba artist Moyosore Okediji. Drewal points out that “semioptics … is a multisensorial basic of un-derstanding. I would contend that while language is one of the ways we re-present the world, prior to the use of language we begin by perceiving, reason-ing, theorizing, and understanding through all our senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and motion).”6

The installation of multiple heads on the wall and hanging from the ceiling provides the viewer a sense of motion, lending a processional quality to the piece that alludes to its original incarnation.

24. Drewal, p. 195.

Reunion nocturna (Night Reunion), 1970, Tempera on wood, 17 ¼ x 30 ½ inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

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gious experience; and those who are initiated and actively participate in Yoruba institutional and re-ligious experiences. Whereas the reaction of the first group to Mendive’s work is informed by aes-thetics, personal taste, and association of values informed by the devaluation in Cuba of art forms such as popular painting, that of the second and third groups is informed to varying degrees by their own direct and indirect knowledge and experience of Yoruba/Lucumí material culture and moral phi-losophy. Over the course of Mendive’s five-decade career, he has opened a dialogue in Cuba about the role, influence and value of Yoruba cultural, religious and aesthetic traditions and has made great strides in dismantling an ingrained hierarchy of values that previously dismissed such contribu-tions. Although work remains to be done in roll-ing back centuries of devaluation and suppression, Mendive’s transformation from a little-understood “popular painter” to a recognized, world-class art-ist is a significant marker of progress made.

As the perception of the substantive contributions and artistic merit of Mendive’s work increased in Cuba, his efforts to establish a visual language to express the tenets of Yoruba/Lucumí religion also created a path for other contemporary Cuban art-ists to follow. For this reason, and for the degree to which Mendive was willing to take risks in both the subject matters he chose and in the visual tech-niques and artistic styles he employed, Mendive is arguably the most important Cuban artist living to-day. More broadly, when viewed as part of a global contemporary art scene, Mendive’s contributions are also substantial, particularly in relation to the focus he has brought to the rich cultural and aes-thetic traditions of the African diaspora.

Bárbaro Martínez-RuizDirector, Orbis Africa Advanced Research CenterDepartment of Art & Art History, Stanford University

The transition of the heads from wall to ceiling echoes the conceptualization of spaces symboli-cally associated with Yoruba cosmogonical beliefs that hold that multiple realms are essential to an understanding of Yoruba concepts of humanity, egun (spirits of the dead) and orichas. Mendive’s heads, however, symbolize these realms in a very ambiguous way; their climb up the wall and spread across the ceiling could represent both humans and gods or the transformation of one into the other. Alternatively, they could be seen as the ancestors performing a vertiginous stunt that illustrates their emergence from the darkness to hover over and protect humanity, echoing the hovering angels de-picted in classic western religious paintings such as Albert Dürer, The Birth of the Virgin, from the series The Life of the Virgin, 1503-1505; Rembrandt van Rijin, The Fight into Egypt: A Night Piece, 1651; and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, A Vision of the Trin-ity appearing to Pope St Clement, c.1735-9.

Conclusion

Throughout his long and successful career, Mendive has utilized multiple media and a range of visual styles to explore the Yoruba heritage that shaped both him personally and Cuban cultural and visual traditions more broadly. In doing so, Mendive de-veloped two primary, related goals: to reunify the oral teachings of the patakí tradition with visual el-ements of Lucumí by developing a visual narrative capable of representing Yoruba concepts without reliance on Western visual language; and to makesuch new visual language a lingua franca that is readily accessible to a broad Cuban public.

In working towards these dual goals, Mendive sought to engage three major constituencies in his Cuban audience: those for whom Afro-Cuban reli-giosity operates in the background of their lives as an abstract imaginary that contributed to Cuban national identity; those who have indirect access toAfro-Cuban religion through third party acquain-tances or who have witnessed an entry level reli-

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The African mentality is born out of a respect for spiritual power, wherever it originates, thus ac-counting for the openness of African religion to simultaneous practice with other traditions, syn-cretism, or parallelism. African culture was, and is, a fundamental ingredient in Cuba, many other Caribbean areas, and Brazil, and the presence of its unique mentality in the work of Manuel Mendive is a reflection of its flexibility, transformation, and perseverance over a long period of time. In Cuba, the synthesis of African religion and Catholicism was a survival tactic of the slaves who were brought from Africa under the harshest of conditions. Their strategies included the appropriation of elements of the new religion into their own. They also inte-grated the creation of new modes of visual expres-sion, which were added to the already fertile array of ritual images, costumes and objects brought by memory from Africa, to introduce Yoruba histori-cal religion, known in Cuba as Lucumí or Yoruba/Lucumí.

For today’s world, Mendive continues to appropri-ate, transform and adapt the visual language of Africa as a means of conveying its rich mythology to a new audience informed less about its ritual than about its aesthetics. He brings a sensibility to each and every work that is at once both genuine and fantastic. He is far more than an artist; he is a man who unaffectedly says, “I live with my an-cestors and my gods.” His devotion to the spirits, called orishas, is the source of his imagery, and he celebrates this devotion in painting, sculpture, and performance.1

Manuel Mendive Hoyo was born in 1944 in what he describes as a “marginal barrio of Havana called Luyanó” to a family of Yoruba practitioners. He studied painting and sculpture at the Escuela de

1. Material for this essay based on personal interview, January 2000.

Bellas Artes San Alejandro, and was initiated as a practitioner of Yoruba religions. Elements of Afro-Cuban culture are his inspiration and the source of his discourse – life, death, good and evil, all that is within life. The orishas are the basis of his im-agery, and his understanding of African and other non-Western cultures informs his artistry. Men-dive’s work, in painting, sculpture objects and in-terdisciplinary performances, involves a process of internalization of Afro-Cuban myths and constant exploration of their meaning as they relate to his life and that of the world around him. With African and Yoruba mythologies and their colorful casts of characters as his inspiration, he creates his own Af-ro-Cuban mythology and a lush environment for its fantastic and mysterious existence. Although other artists, including Wifredo Lam, Roberto Diago and Agustín Cárdenas, had reached the means to an authentic expression of their African origins within the discourse of Modernism, Mendive produced the first direct expression of Afro-Cuban from within its religious-cultural space. He was the first artist to work from the knowledge and vision given through religious initiation into Yoruba religions.

The syncretic environment that he creates acquires a particularly ritualistic and non-Western appear-ance with the addition of beads, stitches, patches of cloth, and cowry shells to surfaces often done on unprimed, unframed canvas, sometimes stretched with iron banding into unusual shapes. Each work is as much an offering as the objects that complete the story within its border and function as the em-bodiments of spiritual power, ashé. Considering the works produced during his long career, it is easy to see stylistic changes in the application of paint and materials, but no change in subject mat-ter or his concentration on creating an imaginary environment for his stories and creatures.

MANUEL MENDIVE HOYO ART AND SPIRIT

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A trip to Bulgaria and Russia in 1981-2 motivat-ed the beginning of his transition from the earlier, darker mythical paintings of his youth that were fantasies imbued with the deep religiosity inspired by his own activities as a Yoruba practitioner. He began to look at global mythology and expand his own vision. The following year he traveled to Africa and his fantastic imagery took on marvelous new dimensions with a greater proliferation of mythical beings and complex compositional constructions. His own sensibilities expanded as did his repertoire of creatures and the “living nature” in which they dwelled.

His paintings of the 1980s reveal his knowledge of Western Art and Art History acquired at the Acad-emy and his world-view acquired with travel, but he makes use of his knowledge of “primitive” methods quite intentionally, along with appropriating from the art of numerous other cultures (Egyptian, Rus-sian Byzantine, Australian Aborigine) to assist in his transmission of mythological content according to a world view. He is not creating religious objects for worship with these images, but paintings in the Western sense, especially designed to communi-cate complex aesthetic symbolic messages.2

In some early works, there is a resemblance in pat-terning designs that are similar to those found in the palaces and temples of the Igbo Ede in Nigeria, and in Yoruba wood reliefs. Numerous works are hybrids of Western techniques and African patterns, with stippled colors that recall African masks, body painting and ground markings adapted to Santería ceremonies. Everything is animated with a dy-namic energy and nature. Man is not the center of the universe. Animals, plants, forces, humans and earth mix in a vital new cosmos, carefully balanced and self-perpetuating, in a fertility ritual that may be seen as the basis of everything he does; a ritual in which everything has its place. The myth is of his own creation, and although inspired by mythology everywhere, it can be interpreted as a metaphor for 2. Gerardo Mosquera, “The Presence of Africa in the Visual Art of Cuba,” Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, Arturo Lindsay, ed. (Washington, D.C.and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), p.240.

the complex symbolic blending found in Cuba and the Caribbean.

By 1989, distinct technical changes appeared in his work. The palette softened and the imagery be-came more abstract and simplified. This imagi-nary world of undulating nature and transforma-tive actions continued into the 1990s and paintings became more multi-dimensional as he explored a variety of media. The incorporation of metals pays tribute to the great metallurgy traditions of Benin and fabulous masks with their brass additions. He often uses dots to indicate a spiritual presence and the transformative powers associated with the gods and their earthly helpers (shamans, possessed, ini-tiates) and to mimic the patterns of body painting, scarification, beadwork, and African cloths, as well as the pelt markings of the great felines of Benin. The addition of hammered metal shapes also re-calls milagros, small Catholic objects given to a special saint in thanksgiving for a miracle. Thus, the two traditions unite.

By the 1990s, translucent and soft colors replaced the denser forms in earlier works that were packed with highly decorative creatures and images. His spirits are presented in a free and boundless space, far more appropriate for their fascinating activities and the peaceful mood that reflects the artist’s own personal countenance.

Mendive’s sculptures, also richly textured with the addition of cowry shells and patinated surfaces that resemble the remarkable bronzes of Africa, bring his spirits into new dimensions of reality and fan-tasy. The materials and additional ornaments em-power the works, much like an African fetish figure is empowered by nails, beads and shells. Cowry shells are especially magical for Santería. Oracles talk through the opening of the caracoles or cowry shells and they are used in divination. In Africa they were also used as currency. Material additions refer to the use of clothing in rituals throughout the world, and as a disguise for spirits to enter and observe. For Mendive, a variety of cloths and orna-

30

ments dress his figures, and complete the “decora-tion” that is significant to the identity of the spirits. Since 1986, Mendive has been occupied with in-terdisciplinary works in which he paints the bodies of dancers and animals. It is a plastic art of move-ment and sound, a mixture of painting, sculpture, dance, music, pantomime, body art, song, ritual, spectacle, performance, carnival, and processions. These works correspond to his paintings, where there are no literal references to specific African lore, but more a universal interpretation and cel-ebration using Yoruba drums and songs in perfor-mances of his own invention.3

Manuel Mendive unites man’s body to the earth that generated him, to the plants and animals, wa-ter and sky, to Mother Nature in which he is a crea-ture among creatures, and in which he finds the reason, time and space of his very existence.4 It is a totalizing concept of art in which the pictorial mixes with that of the body and soul to reach an in-tense emotional height, where art and spirit reflect harmony and peace of mind.

Carol DamianDirector and Chief CuratorThe Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum

3. Mosquera, p. 243.4. Giorgio Segato, “Life is No Dream, but an aquarium,” in Pierre Restany and Giorgio Segato, Mendive, (Padua:Stampa, 1990), XVII.

Paño sagrado (Sacred Cloth), 2007, Acrylic on canvas, 56 ¾ x 65 ¾ inches, On loan from Alin Ryan Lobo

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On April 26, 2013, coinciding with the opening reception for the exhibition Things That Cannot Be Seen Any Other Way: The Art of Manuel Mendive, the renowned Cuban artist of the same name cre-ated Meditaciones (Meditations), a performance piece especially conceived for this occasion. Meditaciones, presented in the California African American Museum’s (CAAM) courtyard, became Mendive’s introduction to the Greater West Coast community and the African American community of Los Angeles specifically.

For nearly twenty minutes, Museum guests enjoyed a multi-sensorial experience that combined watch-ing three dancers perform mesmerizing move-ments on the courtyard’s floor; listening to an excit-ing combination of Bata drums and classical music and watching Mendive create on-the-spot dynamic drawings on paper.

To further enhance this cultural exchange, Mendive brought with him from Cuba a large head mask made of decorated, hanging fabric. To make the experience more compelling, Mendive requested three additional oversized screens to provide the guests a chance to view his creative process through a presentation of photographs of previously paint-ed bodies, as well as additional drawings and paintings on paper and on canvas. A fourth screen magnified the action taking place live, capturing the performers’ movements and Mendive’s and the audience’s expressions and reactions to the event.

Mendive’s drawings became the catharsis of the thinking process (meditation) that brought to life the characters, themes and colors characteristic of his most recent work. The performers included Cu-ban dancer Rogelio Lorda, and American dancers Kia Smith and James Dixon, professionally associ-ated with the Lula Washington Dance Theatre, one

of the most prestigious dance schools in the region. Rogelio Lorda initiated his artistic training in 1978 in the Escuela Vocacional de Arte in Santa Clara, with a specialty of Modern Dance and Afro-Cuban Folklore. In 1988, Lorda joined Manuel Mendive in his performances and traveled with him interna-tionally, performing in Europe (London, Paris, Ven-ice, Madrid), Asia, Africa and North, Central and South America. Lorda currently lives and works in Barcelona, Spain, and visited Los Angeles exclu-sively to collaborate with his former mentor for this special event at the Museum.

Two days earlier, on April 24th, Mendive and Lor-da had met Smith and Dixon at CAAM for the first time. Despite language barriers, Mendive and Lor-da managed to convey the idea behind the perfor-mance to the dancers with the help of the artwork in the gallery (the mask Meditaciones and paint-ings such as Las Cabezas, and the Gloom series were especially helpful) and by playing the music selected by the artist. While the concept and cer-tain gestures and attitudes were to be shared by all, Mendive insisted that the young dancers express their own artistic persona while moving and inter-acting with each other. Hence, while Lorda acted somewhat as a conductor, most of the performance was based upon improvisation.

Smith and Dixon returned to the Museum at noon the day of the performance, and for approximately six hours, along with Lorda, they stood half-nude in one of the museum’s back offices. Their contained emotion and pride, quietly manifested as they ex-perienced the awe-inspiring process of becoming Mendive’s living canvases. Using make-up paints of primary colors, he masterfully mixed them and began his work by matching the dancers’ under-garments to their skin color. Then, he applied paint to the body and to a few additional clothing ele-

MEDITACIONES— A CONVERSATION WITH MANUEL MENDIVE

32

ments he had secured beforehand, among them, a stuffed brassiere with three hanging breasts. The body paint and the small costumes deeply trans-formed the dancers. Within minutes after the com-pletion of the body painting session, they began to move harmoniously, full of grace, expressing a perfect blend of Mendive’s ideas with their own personalities and artistic impulses.

Mar Hollingsworth: When did you start to create performances and why?Manuel Mendive: I began to create performances in the early 80s. Body painting was very inspiring to me. I felt much moved by what I saw in books, by what ancient cultures used to do. But I wanted to do something different, similar to what I do in my paintings … but using the human body as a canvas. Also, I was very interested in movement, in the muscles, in making the painting move and become alive … in the transformation process. In my paintings, arms turn into fish, birds surge from bellies, legs fuse with trees… I wanted to do that

again, but directly on the human body, to convey the idea that from a limb can flow another, that everything is connected, coherent, part of the same idea, the same feeling. All elements in the universe are integrated.

When I look for materials for my paintings I like to touch the fabric… that gives new possibilities. Similarly, the human skin has different colors--from porcelain white to the dark hues of a tree bark, and different tactile experiences associated with it. The human body is something blessed, sacred. I use the human body to tell stories, and I do that with a lot of respect, with a lot of love.

MH: When did you hold your first body-painting performance and what was your focus?MM: My first large body painting event in Cuba was held in conjunction with an exhibition at the Fondo de Bienes Culturales, just upon my re-turn from Africa, where I had visited Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, and Benin. I looked for

Meditaciones Performance, 2013. Photograph by Marty Cotwright.

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MH: At the beginning of the performance, you began to make some drawings. Can you explain this?MM: Yes, I began to draw and continued to do it as the dancers moved on the floor. All those images of the performers that the guests were looking at, all of that was part of my own thought, that I rendered with my drawings. I began to paint, with shapes, with very simple drawings, almost unfinished, but those were an extension of what was happening at that moment, and of what was about to happen later.

MH: Can you comment on the mask Meditaciones that you created especially for this performance?MM: I created a huge mask for the performance, with a large blue face that looks up to the sky filled with hope, filled with faith. The fabric around the mask is supposed to wrap the body, and I decorated it with drawings expressing several ideas about hu-man beings… positive thoughts, surreal thoughts, celebrating the beauty of life and the many pos-sibilities of the human being. At the beginning of the performance, Rogelio sat behind the mask, still. At that moment, Lorda was the meditation. There was no reference to specific orishas here, simply, to the human being, with an emphasis on the human head, that is what controls the body. The chair be-came an extension of this idea of meditation.

MH: What was the role of the three dancers within the performance?MM: For this performance I could only paint three bodies. The body of Rogelio Lorda was the central component; he was “the conductor,” transmitting the same thought from one dancer to the next. But for me, what was really interesting was to mix the movements of the different cultures, to mix the dif-ferent languages. The female body (represented by Kia Smith), “the mother,” often appears in my work, not only in body painting, but in drawing on paper and painting on canvas. The female body is sacred, since she gives life, nourishment; hence the three breasts to feed the new being.

models, and I worked with some very beautiful fe-males who performed contemporary dance. From there, I continued to paint more and more, until I reached up to 50 or 60. The focus of my per-formances was to emphasize body painting, to in-clude music, movement…. The movement is often dance-like, but it can also be just a discourse, a body action of certain images. I also liked to paint the bodies of the audience… even if just a hand, an arm, the face, to turn them into participants of the performance.

It is very important for me to paint the skin, to per-form, to have a dancer or a model, and to de-velop a specific theme—water, fire, love, the world, the forest. The dancers also invest themselves in the experience through their corporal expressions, without previous rehearsals. Ideally, the audience can participate, and use masks that I have created beforehand. The performance is like a painting that comes to life, and in which the audience par-ticipates.

MH: Tell us more about your body painting experi-ence in Africa.MM: While in Africa, I was invited to an event in Benin with a group of dancers, and I painted in a temple dedicated to Shango. I took with me mod-els from Cuba, and I also painted African ones. I painted on them symbolic elements such as the turtle, the rooster, the sheep… also, phallic symbols about love… I transformed bodies into fire, divine fire, which brings life and hope.

MH: Why did you choose the title Meditaciones for this performance at CAAM?MM: Everybody likes to meditate. I am always med-itating, thinking about divine, absolute things… things filled with beauty, and with logic, with love and hope… because for me, anything is possible. The human mind is growing, expanding, and one day we will all feel as a whole, in Paradise.

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The other young, tall male (James Dixon) represent-ed “the action,” the turning of the first thought into something real. Different elements reminiscent of the human body were reiterated on his body paint, including eyes, and a mouth, all as references to life itself.

MH: What can you tell me about the music you chose for the performance?MM: The performance’s music mixed Cuban drums with Cesar Franck’s Prelude, Choral & Fugue. I had that music in my mind… I like to paint with music, to look at things with the music I have inside, and blend it with the sounds of our drums of African

origin—bongos, tumbadores, congo bantu, bata… sounds of Yoruba origin, that a local percussionist can control to perfection. It is like I was playing the drum and thinking about the forest, the land-scape, while the breeze caresses me, and Franck’s melody comes and go.

MH: Can you explain to me the end of the performance?MM: At the end of the performance, the dancers washed themselves, removing the body paint with water and rubbing it off with towels. They slipped out of the dream, since they needed to wake up to turn it into something real. There is no choreogra-phy in my work; I am not a choreographer. I paint on dancers, but also on normal people, who then participate in my own thoughts. What I think, any-body can think, but everybody is going to express a different personality.

MH: What is Mendive going to do next in the field of performance?MM: Evolution is necessary; reiteration is boring. We need to do new things. I don’t like to stay sitting on the same place… that reminds me of old age. My performances are evolving. As my paintings on canvas change, my body painting will change as well. In time, I think that my “gesture” will become simpler and with a more straightforward narrative.

Mar Hollingsworth Program Manager, Visual ArtsCalifornia African Art Museum

Rogelio Lorda (with body painting by Manuel Mendive) in front of body

mask. Meditaciones Performance, 2013. Photograph by Marty Cotwright.

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Serie: Cuento de la edad de oro (Series: Tale of the Golden Age), c. 1970s, Tempera on paper, 13 ½ x 16 ½ inches, Courtesy of the Artist

37

Dibujo Infantil (Child Drawing), n.d, Drawing on paper, 7 x 10 ½ inches, Courtesy of the Artist

Flores (Flowers), 1950, Tempera on paper, 7 ½ x 11 inches, Courtesy of the Artist 38

Retrato de Matilde- mi mama (Portrait of Matilde - My Mother), 1962, Pencil drawing on paper, 9 x 6 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato a Rosita Leal (Portrait to Rosita Leal), c. 1960s Pencil drawing on paper, 17 ½ x 11 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

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Endoco, c.1970s, Oil on hardboard, 84 x 37 inchesCourtesy of the Artist

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Oggun, 1965, Oil on wood, 39 ½ x 45 ¼ inches, Courtesy of the Artist 41

Paño sagrado (Sacred Cloth), 2007, Acrylic on canvas, 56 ¾ x 65 ¾ inches, On loan from Alin Ryan Lobo42

La Guabina, 2001, Acrylic on canvas and iron sculpture frame, 79 ½ x 97 ½ inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

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Funeral Ashanti, (Ashanti Funeral) 1982, Tempera on paper, 14 ¾ x 19 inches, Courtesy of the Artist

Oshun, 1970, Tempera on heavy paper, 16 ½ x 21 ¼ inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

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Serie: Cuento de la edad de oro (Series: Tale of the Golden Age), c. 1970s, Tempera on paper, 13 ½ x 16 ½ inches, Courtesy of the Artist

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Sin título (Untitled), 1986, Mixed media, 28 x 32 inches, Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

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Las tres de la madrugada (Three in the Morning), 1987, Oil on canvas, 46 ½ x 74 ¼ inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Balbuceo (Mumbling), 1989, Pastel on paper laid down on heavy board, 25 ¾ x 40 inches, Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

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Agua (Water), 1986, Terracotta 11 ¾ x 13 ½ x 13 ½ inches, Courtesy of the Artist

Hombre con cabeza de pájaro (Man with Head of Bird), 1998 Oil on fabric stitched on sack Courtesy of the Artist

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Hombre con cabeza de pájaro (Man with Head of Bird), 1998 Oil on fabric stitched on sack Courtesy of the Artist

Compartir (Share), 2010, Oil on canvas and metal, 76 ¾ x 61 ¼ inches, Collection of Niels Moleiro

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Retrato de una hija de Oshún (Portrait of a Daughter of Oshún), 1992, Oil on canvas, 78 x 56 inches, Courtesy of the Kadre Family 50

Serie Las Tinieblas (Series: Gloom) 2010, Watercolor on canvas, 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches, Courtesy of the Artist

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Serie Las Tinieblas (Series: Gloom) 2010, Watercolor on canvas, 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches, Courtesy of the Artist

Sin título (Untitled), 1963 Tempera on paper 14 ¼ x 9 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Los peces (Fish), 1965 Mixed media 22 x 32 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Oggun, 1965 Oil on wood 39 ½ x 45 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Sin Título (Untitled), 1968 Oil on wood, 30 ¼ x 24 ¾ inchesCourtesy of Gary Nader Collection Casablanca, Dibujo hecho en la calle (White house, Drawing Made in the Street)c. 1960s Pencil drawing on paper 12 ¾ x 8 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato a Rosita Leal (Portrait to Rosita Leal) c. 1960s Pencil drawing on paper 17 ½ x 11 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Tortuga (Turtle), c. 1960sOil on wood, 20 x 21 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Cielo (Sky), 1970Tempera on heavy paper 10 ¾ x 13 inches Swiss Private Collection

Mar (Sea), 1970 Tempera on heavy paper 10 ¾ x 13 inches Swiss Private Collection

Oshún, 1970 Tempera on heavy paper 16 ½ x 21 ¼ inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Autoretrato (Self-portrait), 1963 Pencil drawing on paper 11 ¾ x 8 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Casablanca (White house), 1963Tempera on paper9 ½ x 12 ¼ Courtesy of the Artist

Dibujo de un niño en Regla (Sketch of a child in Regla), 1963 Tempera on paper 12 ¼ x 8 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

El borracho (The Drunk), 1963Pencil drawing on paper 11 ¼ x 8 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Empleado del hospital siquiátrico- Juan (Employee of Psychiatric Hospital -Juan) 1963 Pencil drawing on paper 17 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

La colina Lenin (Lenin Hill), 1963 Tempera on paper, 12 ½ x 8 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato de Aguedita (Portrait of Aguedita),1963 Tempera on paper 18 ¼ x 12 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato de Arturo Roda (Portrait of Arturo Roda), 1963Pencil drawing on paper11 ¾ x 9 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato de la Empleada del hospital siquiátrico de la Ha-bana (Portrait of an employ-ee at the Havana Psychiatric Hospital), 1963 Pencil drawing on paper 17 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Flores (Flowers), 1950 Tempera on paper7 ½ x 11 inches Courtesy of the Artist Flores (Flowers), 1950 Tempera on paper7 ½ x 11 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato a mi tío Juan (Portrait of my Uncle Juan), 1958Pencil drawing on paper 11 ¾ x 8 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato Cristo (Portrait of Christ), 1958 Graphite drawing on paper13 ¼ x 12 ½ inchesCourtesy of the Artist

Naci Morejón (Nancy), 1960Pencil drawing on paper13 x 8 ¼ inchesCourtesy of the Artist

Paisaje (Landscape), 1960 Pencil drawing on paper 13 x 8 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato (Portrait), 1960Pencil drawing on paper 17 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato de Matilde- mi mama (Portrait of Matilde - my Mother), 1962Pencil drawing on paper 9 x 6 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Retrato de Sara (Portrait of Sara), 1962 Pencil drawing on paper 11 ½ x 8 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Apunte de estudiante Andresito García (Sketch of Student Andresito García), 1963 Pencil drawing on paper 17 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Pavoreal (Peacock), 1970Tempera on heavy paper10 ¾ x 13 inches Swiss Private Collection

Reunion Nocturna(Night Reunion), 1970 Tempera on wood 17 ¼ x 30 ½ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Sin Título (Untitled), 1970 Tempera on paper 22 ¼ x 19 ¾ inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Yemaya, 1970 Tempera on heavy paper 22 ¾ x 28 inches Courtesy of Laura F. Baldwin

El Malecon de la Habana (Havana Seawall), 1975 Oil on wood 23 ¼ x 39 ¾ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Guía Espiritual (Spiritual Guide), 1979 Pencil drawing on paper 8 ¾ x 6 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Elegua, c. 1970s Tempera on wood 14 x 23 inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Endoco, c.1970s Oil on hardboard 84 x 37 inchesCourtesy of the Artist

Serie: Cuento de la edad de oro (Series: Tale of the Golden Age), c. 1970s Tempera on paper 13 ½ x 16 ½ inchesCourtesy of the Artist

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Credits:

Serie: Cuento de la edad de oro (Series: Tale of the Golden Age), c. 1970s Tempera on paper 13 ½ x 16 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Los Espíritus (The Spirits), 1980 Mixed media on heavy paper 15 x 16 ¼ inches,Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Ofrendas (Offerings), 1980Mixed media on heavy paper over board 16 ¾ x 14 ¾ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Elegua y los hombres comiendo platanos (Elegua and the Men Eating Plantains), 1982 Tempera on heavy paper 22 ¼ x 25 inchesCourtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Funeral Ashanti (Ashanti Funeral), 1982 Tempera on paper 14 ¾ x 19 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Afefe, 1984 Tempera on heavy paper 19 x 24 inchesCourtesy of Pan American Art Projects

El ojo que mira I (Seeing Eye I), 1985 Soft sculpture cloth and canvas 47 ½ x 21x 3 ½ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

El ojo que mira II (Seeing Eye II), 1985 Soft sculpture, cloth and canvas 42 x 25 x 3 ¼ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Mito de la Creacíon (Myth of Creation)1985 Mixed media on heavy paper 20 x 25 ½ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Sin título (Untitled), 1986 Mixed media 28 x 32 inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Agua (Water), 1986 Terracotta 11 ¾ x 13 ½ x 13 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Madre agua (Mother Water), 1986Terracotta 15 ¾ x 9 ¾ x 9 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Vital (Vital), 1986 Tempera on paper, 14 ¼ x 19 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Para el ojo que mira (Series: For the Seeing Eye), 1987 Tempera on heavy paper 17 ¼ x 21 inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Las tres de la madrugada (Three in the Morning) 1987Oil on canvas 46 ½ x 74 ¼ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Serie: Para el ojo que mira (Series: For the Seeing Eye),1988Acrylic on canvas 30 x 23 inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Serie: Para el ojo que mira (Series: For the Seeing Eye) 1988Acrylic on canvas 29 ½ x 39 ½ inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Balbuceo (Mumbling), 1989 Pastel on paper laid down heavy board 25 ¾ x 40 inchesCourtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Sin título (Untitled), 1991Oil on canvas 59 ½ x 98 ¼ inchesCourtesy of Gary Nader Collection

Cuecuelle, 1992Oil on paper 22 x 30 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Oggun guerrero (Oggun the Warrior), 1992 Oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Okun, 1992 Oil on canvas 31 x 40 ½ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Oshún, 1992 Oil on canvas81 x 104 inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Retrato de una hija deOshún (Portrait of a daugh-ter of Oshún), 1992Oil on canvas78 x 56 inchesCourtesy of the Kadre Family

Retrato de una hija de Oshún con un niño llorando (Portrait of a Daughter of Oshún with a Crying Child) 1992Oil on canvas 76 ¾ x 51 ¼ inchesCourtesy of the Artist

Sin título (Untitled), 1992 Oil on canvas and collage 41 x 33 ½ inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Sin título (Untitled), 1992 Mixed media 10 x 13 inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Sin título (Untitled), 1992Oil on canvas 9 ¼ x 8 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Sin título (Untitled), 1992 Oil and collage on canvas80 x 62 inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Sin título (Untitled), 1992 Oil on canvas 30 x 42 inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Energía del agua (Water Power), 1993 Pastel on paper 14 x 21 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist Hombre con pájaro (Man with Bird), 1997Bronze sculpture21 x 13 x 5 ½ inchesCourtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Hombre con pájaro (Man with Bird), 1997 Bronze21 ¼ x 11 ¾ x 5 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

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Paño sagrado (Sacred Cloth), 2010 Mixed Media on canvas57 x 66 inches Courtesy of Donna Brown

Las cabezas (The Heads), 2012Acrylic, paper mache, and cloth Various sizes Courtesy of the Artist

El arbol de mango II (The Mango Tree II), 2013Jacquard tapestry 75 ½ x 75 ½ inchesCourtesy of the artist and Magnolia EditionsOakland, CA

La fuga de crepusculo (Fugue at Dusk), 2013Jacquard tapestry 95 x 74 inchesCourtesy of the artist and Magnolia EditionsOakland, CA

Dibujo infantil (Child Drawing), n.dDrawing on paper 7 x 10 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist Sin título (Untitled), n.d Oil on fabric stitched on sack12 ¼ x 12 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Sin título (Untitled), n. d Oil on fabric stitched on sack 8 ½ x 6 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Sin título (Untitled), n. d Ink on paper9 ½ x 8 ½ inches Courtesy of Pan American Art Projects

Hombre con cabeza de pez (Man with Head of Fish)1998 Oil on fabric stitched on sack Courtesy of the Artist

Hombre con cabeza de pájaro (Man with head of Bird), 1998 Oil on fabric stitched on sack Courtesy of the Artist

Sin título (Untitled), 2000 Bronze 26 ¼ x 11 x 6 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Mujer y paloma (Woman and Dove), 2001 Bronze sculpture 17 x 9 ½ x 4 ½ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

La Guabina, 2001 Acrylic on canvas and iron sculpture frame 79 ½ x 97 ½ inchesCourtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Shango y la vida (Shango and Life), 2001Acrylic on canvas 39 ½ x 90 ½ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Ake Funfun, 2002 Acrylic on canvas and iron sculpture frame80 x 60 inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Gallo (Rooster), 2003 Bronze 12 ¾ x 8 x 14 ¼ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Paño sagrado I, Paño sagrado II (Sacred Cloth I, Sacred Cloth II), 2003 Mixed media on canvas 56 ½ x 62 inches Courtesy of Gary Nader Art Collection

Siempre me apoyo en Elegua (Always Relying on Elegua) 2006 Acrylic on canvas 47 x 72 ¼ inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Se alimenta mi espiritu (My Soul is Nourished), 2007 Acrylic on canvas 65 ¾ x 95 inches Courtesy of Ramon and Nercys Cernuda Collection

Paño sagrado (Sacred Cloth), 2007 Acrylic on canvas 56 ¾ x 65 ¾ inches On loan from Alin Ryan Lobo

El asombro (Amazement) 2009 Bronze 22 x 13 ¾ x 13 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Aguas del río (River Waters), 2009 Bronze 32 x 12 ½ x 9 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Las cabezas (The Heads), 2009Oil on canvas and metal 119 x 111 inchesCourtesy of the Artist

Compartir (Share), 2010 Oil on canvas and metal 76 ¾ x 61 ¼ inches Collection of Niels Moleiro

Serie: Las tinieblas(Series: Gloom), 2010 Watercolor on canvas 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Las tinieblas (Series: Gloom), 2010 Watercolor on canvas 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Las tinieblas (Series: Gloom), 2010 Watercolor on canvas 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Las tinieblas (Series: Gloom), 2010 Watercolor on canvas 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Las tinieblas (Series: Gloom), 2010 Watercolor on canvas 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Las tinieblas (Series: Gloom), 2010 Watercolor on canvas 43 ¾ x 56 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Energías vitales(Series: Vital Powers), 2010 Mixed media 92 x 36 x 18 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Energías vitales(Series: Vital Powers), 2010 Oil on canvas and metal87 x 44 x 22 inches Courtesy of the Artist

Energía del mar (Sea Power), 2010 Mixed media 66 ½ x 77 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist

Serie: Acha de doble filo (Series: Double-edged Ax) 2010 Mixed media86 ¼ x 82 ¼ inches Courtesy of the Artist

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1. Partial funding for the exhibition and programs has been provided by Fundación Amistad; Cernuda Arte; Manny Kadre; Pan American Art Projects; the Farber Foundation; and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

This exhibition is part of the Frost Art Museum’s 2013 series: Commemorating 500 Years: Spain-Florida-Caribbean

A T D O R A L M I A M I

1. The public programming presented by the Frost Art Museum is in conjunction with the Cuban Research Institute and the African & African Diaspora Studies Program at FIU.

1. This exhibition is a project originally conceived by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs in association with The California African American Museum, the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, and Fundación Amistad. Organized by Fundacíon Amistad.

Cernuda Arte