Not so long ago, a Latino artist-or LATINX, to go with the times- in his early 50s began to notice how life was changing dramatically. Humans had started relying on computers for almost everything, even when they were required to verify that they were not robots. Passing this verification was not only a human victory over the machine’s authority but also brought happiness, a new kind of happiness. So, he wanted to make paintings about things like the absurdity of an “internet challenge,” a “vision board,” or a “drop,” and question why everyone constantly looked at a small screen in their hands while doing other things.
When creating these works, the artist also used computers, discovered artificial intelligence, and enjoyed the freedom of not having to make images believable anymore, like glimpsing remote and dream-like places from his beloved Tropics. He also received and replied to messages, sketched his works using software, photographed the process, and emailed it to friends. This technology made everything he wanted to do easier, but at the same time, having so many possibilities distracted him too much from his purpose. His goal was to raise awareness of how much we have given in to the artificial, but no one seemed to care until he realized that he had no choice but tokeep doing what he and everyone else were doing all day long: talking to computers.
About Raúl Cordero
Working with the traditions of figurative and geometrical abstract painting, as well as those of text-based conceptual art, Raúl Cordero (Havana, 1971) has created a unique language in which he incorporates his expansive knowledge of art history in layers of literary, philosophical, and pop culture references. In his work, distortion and blurriness combine with hard-edge figures to, along with his technical proficiency, speak about the human experience in our hastened postmodern context.
Born in Cuba, where he studied art before continuing his education in Europe, Cordero has shaped his artistic outlook in a very distinct way from what is usually known as “Cuban art.” His interests have always been more philosophical and worldwide oriented. Each of Raúl Cordero´s works is a dissection of today´s way of living and thinking, a portrayal of the transition towards an information-based kind of human existence.
His work can be seen in public collections around the world, including the Musée National D’Art Moderne Centre Pompidou in Paris, France; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA), The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) and the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, in the United States of America; El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, in Cuba; The Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK) in Gent, Belgium; El Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) and Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC) in Spain; among many others.
Cordero’s work is represented by Mai 36 Galerie in Zürich, Switzerland, Fredric Snitzer Gallery in Miami, Richard Taittinger Gallery in New York, U.S.A., Wizard Gallery in Milano/London, Galería Fernando Santos in Porto, Portugal and Galería Estéreo in Monterrey, Mexico.
