CALL/VoCA Talk: Freddy Rodríguez

In October 2020, writer and editor Yasmeen Siddiqui sat down with artist Freddy Rodríguez at his home in New York to discuss his life, work, and artistic legacy. Together Rodríguez and Siddiqui explored the threads between the numerous and seemingly disparate bodies of Rodríguez's work, including his Vestment paintings, early geometric abstractions, Cimarron series, expressive paintings made via an artistic process he calls "creative destruction," and his fascination with the history of gold.

This conversation is part of the sixth season of the CALL/VoCA Talks series, a partnership between VoCA (Voices in Contemporary Art) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation's Creating a Living Legacy (CALL) initiative. The Talks aim to highlight the innovative CALL program while also underscoring the crucial need for dialogue with artists around the production, presentation, and preservation of their work.

There is so much meaning to this painting [Cosas Del Paraíso, 1989]. First of all, 'paraíso'—the ocean, the sea, and the sun. The flowers that I use are what I call the silent witness of all the horrible things that happen in paradise... Here, a soldier with a machine gun—things that happen there in paradise, the reasons why I left.”

Freddy Rodríguez

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