René Francisco (1960) - Ignopolis. Serie.

René Francisco. Cuba. 1960
Category: Engravings and Prints Graphical Work
Series: Ignipolis
Editor: Del Campo and others. Taller del Prado. Madrid.
Technique: Lithography
Support: Conqueror Connoiseur 300 g/m² paper
Dimensions: 62 x 82 cm – (50 x 70 cm print)
Edition: 100 copies
The edition number of the individual print may vary but always within the certified edition of 100 original prints, signed and hand-numbered.
P/A: 10
H.C.: 10
P/T: 5
Genre: Abstract, Geometric

Belonging to a generation of artists that emerged at the end of the eighties, René Francisco Rodríguez (Holguín, Cuba, 1960) was awarded the National Prize for Plastic Arts 2010 at the National Museum of Fine Arts. This prize, awarded annually by the Ministry of Culture of Cuba since 1994, is given only once to a visual arts creator, living and resident in the country, for a lifetime of work. This is the first time it has been awarded to an artist born after 1959.

René Francisco is a graduate of the National School of Art (ENA) in 1982 and the Higher Institute of Arts (ISA) in 1987, a center where he has practiced an unconventional teaching. Since the nineties of the 20th century, he became a mandatory reference within Cuban art in his duo with Eduardo Ponjuán and later for his solo career.

His artistic discourse has maintained a constant ascent, combining experimentation, renewal, investigation, critical sense, and social interest; affinities that also appear in his transgressive pedagogy, which forms an indissoluble unity with the entirety of his creation. René Francisco has proven to be a "facilitator or medium" — as he himself recently defined — for more than one generation of emerging artists, some of whom are now recognized figures of the Cuban visual movement.

His work as an educator, now twenty years in, was internationally recognized for the first time at the VII Havana Biennial, when in 2000 he was awarded UNESCO’s Prize for the Promotion of the Arts to Galería DUPP — third edition of his project From a Pragmatic Pedagogy.
Subsequently, the Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in California, United States, in 2001, acknowledged both his work as an artist and his teaching.

His creative energy is evidenced by the twenty-four solo exhibitions he has held to date. Among the most notable of the last five years are: his presentation at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Italy (2007), Crossed Histories at Pan American Art Projects, United States (2008), and in Havana, the shows Interpreter (2009) and Paintings of Yesterday and Tomorrow (2010).

Notable mention should be given to his socially engaged work known as Patio de Nin, in the El Romerillo neighborhood (2004/2005) — to cite just one example — and also his collective project Plaza almada (2009), coupled with residences, studios, and workshops in different places around the world. The multifaceted and dynamic body of work created by René Francisco, tied to social, critical, and irreverent themes, refers not only to existential issues of the country but also to the intricacies of its history.

The procedural character of that work and its performativity have ascended, just as his artistic practice asserts his belief that art meets life, dissolves into it, and can transform it.

He has now joined several of Spain’s most important collections in addition to those he already belongs to, such as the Jorge Pérez collection in Miami, Ella Fontánal de Cisneros, etc. He is preparing for November 2026, as Commissioner of the exhibition at Casa de América on the occasion of the Ibero-American Heads of State Summit.