Eduardo Ponjuan (b. 1956) & René Francisco (b. 1960)
Eduardo Ponjuan (b. 1956) & René Francisco (b. 1960)
Eduardo Ponjuan (b. 1956) & René Francisco (b. 1960)
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Eduardo Ponjuan (b. 1956) & René Francisco (b. 1960)
7 More
Please note this lot will be moved to Christie’s F… Read more OUTSIDE CUBA INSIDE: PROPERTY FROM THE FARBER COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY CUBAN ART
Eduardo Ponjuan (b. 1956) & René Francisco (b. 1960)

Outside Cuba Inside

Details
Eduardo Ponjuan (b. 1956) & René Francisco (b. 1960)
Outside Cuba Inside
signed, titled and dated 'RENÉ FRANCISCO Y EDUARDO PONJUÁN, OUTSIDE, CUBA, INSIDE, 10 ENERO 1993, MEXICO D.F.' (on the reverse of left panel); signed, titled and dated 'Ponjuan y René Francisco, CUBA INSIDE OUTSIDE, MEXICO, DICIEMBRE 12 1993' (on the reverse of center panel); signed, titled and dated 'RENÉ FRANCISCO Y EDUARDO PONJUÁN, OUTSIDE, CUBA, INSIDE, 16 ENERO 1993, MEXICO D.F.' (on the reverse of right panel)
oil on canvas
47 1/2 x 118 1/8 in. (120.7 x 300 cm.) overall dimensions
47 1/2 x 39 1/4 in. (120.7 x 99.7 cm.) left panel; 47 3/8 x 39 3/8 in. (120.3 x 100 cm.) center panel; 47 1/4 x 39 1/2 in. (120 x 100.3 cm.) right panel
Painted in Mexico in 1993.
Provenance
Galería Nina Menocal, Mexico City.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Exhibited
Mexico City, Galería Nina Menocal, Arte y Confort: Ponjuan y René Francisco, 21 April - 31 May 1993, p. 4 (illustrated, and in color on p. 14).
Havana, L Gallery, Cuando los cuerpos se confiesan, 1998.
Havana, La Casona Gallery, Corpus Fragile, 2022
Gainesville, Florida, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection, 29 May - 9 September 2007, p. 155 (illustrated in color). This exhibition also traveled to Sarasota, Florida, John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 7 October - 31 December 2007; Eugene, Oregon, Jordan Schnitzer Museum, University of Oregon, 3 October - 4 January 2009; Winnipeg, Canada, Winnipeg Art Gallery, 15 October - 10 January 2010; Coral Gables, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, 4 February - 4 April 2010; Katonah, New York, Katonah Museum of Art, 27 June - 19 September 2010.
Special notice
Please note this lot will be moved to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn) at 5pm on the last day of the sale. Lots may not be collected during the day of their move to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services. Please consult the Lot Collection Notice for collection information. This sheet is available from the Bidder Registration staff, Purchaser Payments or the Packing Desk and will be sent with your invoice.

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Kristen France
Kristen France Vice President, Specialist

Lot Essay

Eduardo Ponjuán and René Francisco Rodríguez collaborated from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s and exhibited in Cuba and abroad during that time, notably in Mexico City, where this work was made and first shown. Both graduates of Havana’s Instituto Superior de Arte, they returned to ISA as faculty members in the late 1980s and mentored many of the artists who emerged in the following decade, among them Los Carpinteros and Yoan Capote.

The duo Ponjuán-René Francisco was active during Cuba’s “Special Period” of the early to mid-1990s, a time of economic crisis that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and their works make wry comment on the cultural politics of that time. Outside Cuba Inside imagines two avatars for Cuba’s future. To the right, Rosie the Riveter, here modeled on a Norman Rockwell cover for the Saturday Evening Post (May 29, 1943), sits before a wavy American flag; a rivet gun rests on her lap, and she crushes a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kamph under her foot. Opposing her is sturdy Soviet woman, adapted from (1934), who promotes the collectivization of agriculture, sheaves of wheat gleaming in her hands. In the style of a billboard, the triptych was painted with a mason’s spatula, the heavy impasto positing a connection between artmaking and labor. The title, printed in a classic digital font in the central panel, reads as—and remains—an open question.

Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park

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