Nuez and his Havana landscapes

Mireya Castañeda

THROUGH his cartoons, René de la Nuez has undertaken, and his work in its entirety confirms that he has succeeded in its aim, to leave behind the historical memory of his time. In recent years, through his precise strokes, his acuity and capacity for observation, he has regaled us with his vision of Havana, and he has done so, as always, with a high esthetic and technical quality.

He has just had an exhibition opened in the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Majadahonda Room, which he has titled Almendrones de Nuez, the last of a series which included La Bicicleta (Bicycles, the sine qua non transport of the 90s); Humor habano where the drawings have bands, labels, all kinds of references to cigars and the city; and La pícara Habana.

In that last exhibition, mounted after he won the 2007 National Visual Arts Prize, he shows people in the so-called "shopping" (hard-currency stores). The artist uses as a myth these stores which, as he explains, "are definitely full of bad taste, of kitsch. There is a Cuban kitsch and those stores have helped it to expand a lot. It is what these drawings have, they don’t have a joke, I don’t make jokes, I take reality, which is sometimes nicer than one might imagine."

In a brief interview in his home-studio, Nuez talks about his almendrones, as he has named in popular slang U.S. automobiles of the 30-40s and 50s of the last century, and which are still running on Havana’s streets.

My intention has always been to set about leaving behind a graphic memory of Havana. Not the Havana of Lezama, or Carpentier or Portocarrero. It is another reality, where the architecture is human, it is the soul of the city, constantly being transformed. I have tried to capture that movement, the motivations that make the people of my city how they are. I say my city, because although San Antonio de los Baños is my native town, Havana adopted me when I was very young. First the bicycles, then the tobacco labels, to La pícara Habana. It is for me the image of the city, the human and not architectural. My drawings are of the people. When I paint the people it is understood that they are on the Malecón, but you don’t see the wall, you imagine it.

When I received the National Visual Arts Prize, I had to do an exhibition in the Museum of Fine Art and so I did one that was already maturing in paintings on canvas, La pícara Habana. So I have been working on the subject, which brought me to the almendrones, a part of the landscape of Havana. They are old cars. They say that Cuba is a rolling museum of those cars. But my almendrones are visual images, it isn’t about copying an old car. I wanted to give them the characteristics of they themselves being a grand museum. It isn’t just a car, but it is, with its people inside, their destinations, the Capitolio, the city neighborhoods, I include legends on their fenders. They are created by me as a testimony of what is rolling in Havana and also as a testimony of that daily life which we have and invent in order to survive. That is the genesis of this exhibition. Havana with its almendrones enchants me as a visual image, they give free rein to the imagination.

I would like the series that I have done on Havana to constitute a historical memory of what this city is, what it was in this epoch. My drawings have the customs, the clothes, this fashion that has been imposed to walk around in flip-flops, almost naked in the street, the gesticulations of the Havana people of today, the bicitaxis. That’s how this epoch is and I want it to remain for ever. When you want to paint a coachman, a lady of 19, you have to go to the drawings of Landaluze. I would like people to go to my drawings when they want to paint the Havana of these times.

Close to 30 drawings of different sizes, with acrylic and ink on Bristow board, and sometimes crayon for certain colors, because almost all of them are in black and white. The humor is in the lines, in what the drawing expresses, there is no humoristic situation. The drawings are in function of transmitting an idea with humor, via its contrasts, but not a professed joke.

I’m going to change to other subjects. I am closing the picaresque aspect of Havana with the almendron. Time is moving on. I have two big ideas. One subject would be a collection of comics. They are chaos-comics, without characters, just movement. All the language of comic books without characters. You have to be the character when you come to the comic. A great game. They are expressionist through force, now I’m doing them in black and white. I’m also writing a book about my life, not my memoirs, a bit more like a novel; I would say, like everyone, of lies and certain truths and let people go in search of them.

I have enjoyed working very much. I enjoy it, it gives me pleasure. I enjoy what I do, I enjoy my drawings. These almendrones, the bicycles, and a book that I hope will come out soon, which is called Habana auto de fe, are a constant of the city, its people, the way of confronting daily life, fighting for a better life, with an extraordinary desire to belong to this city and in defense of this city and resistance in this city. That is what I wanted to give expression to in these almendrones. Resistance by living, by triumphing. I will always try to draw the historical memory of my country, of my city. Children draw before they can talk and I am a child, I don’t talk well but I keep on drawing.

Following the characters of René de la Nuez, from that icon which is El loquito, or the bearded one, is to appreciate a gallery of figures who are already part of Cuban popular culture and which we owe to his hands, his essentially Cuban spirit, and intelligence.

In Almendrones also, Nuez delves into the roots, into the keys of the Havana way of being, with an analytical attitude. Here is the enjoyment and the petition of the artist to meditate on what he hands to us in his strokes.