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Fabelo à la carte and a snack
17December
News

Fabelo à la carte and a snack

The Fabelo en papel exhibition, containing one hundred works by the National Prize for Fine Arts Roberto Fabelo and belonging to the Spanish collector Luciano Méndez, was inaugurated at the Orígenes Gallery of the Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso, with the presence of the artist, guest of luxury: the historian of the city Eusebio Leal Spengler, and of Alpidio Alonso, Minister of Culture; Norma Rodríguez Derivet, president of the National Council of Plastic Arts, and Arturo Valdés Curbeira, director of the Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets.

The exhibition, which can be seen until next January, has curatorship and museography by Miriam P. Casanellas and Luciano Méndez, photography by Ricardo G. Elías, design by Laura Llópiz and Pepe Menéndez, assembly by Carlos Montané and A3 + printing.

Born on January 28, 1950, Fabelo is one of the most outstanding Cuban painters. His works are part of the nation's cultural legacy, and many of them illustrate important volumes of island literature. Each exhibition that he inaugurates is a cultural event in his native country, and many important collections of the world boast of having drawings like those exhibited on this occasion, with a perfection of strokes rarely seen. For this reason, the same has been received with enthusiasm by the public and critics in countries as different as Spain, Switzerland, the United States, Norway, Mexico, Denmark and Sweden.

His collection of awards is almost as vast as his work. The aforementioned National Prize for Plastic Arts, which was awarded to him in 2004, could be added the Acquisition Prize of the Third Triennial of Contemporary Art of New Delhi, India (1978), the National Prize of Drawing Aristides Fernandez (1980) ), the First Prize in the National Salon of Plastic Arts of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (1980), the Armando Reverón International Drawing Prize of the First Biennial of Havana (1984), the Intergrafik Drawing Award, Germany (1984) and the First Prize of the Eleventh International Drawing Biennial of Cleveland, Great Britain (1993).

About him are the words of Donald Kuspit contained in the printed postcard for Fabelo en papel: « Fabelo can be meticulous, with a scrupulous attention to details, and also intensely intuitive, passionately expressionist».

And also on the sample, Norma Rodríguez Derivet said in the opening words: «I welcome the initiative of the Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets and the Spanish collector Luciano Méndez to organize this exhibition, which brings together one hundred works on paper in charcoal, pastel and watercolor by Maestro Roberto Fabelo Since 2015, when we made that exhibition in Artis 718 at the Havana Biennial, we had not had another show of Fabelo in Havana. For us today it is an important celebration. Some say that he was born with the pencil in his hand, for the perfection of his drawing. But it is not only that perfect draftsman, but that man who knows how to approach human nature in all its complexity, and the complexities of society too. Tonight we will see a large sample of his work that begins in 1972 and ends right now in 2018, an exhibition that accompanies so many years of the Cuban Revolution ».

After climbing the wide stairs that lead to the upper halls of the Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso and beyond the windows that frame the Orígenes gallery, Arte por Excelencias could hear a comment from the artist: « When I turn 70 I will try to make an exhibition where I will show everything what I have been keeping with love and that my wife has helped me to conserve. This is an appetizer of what I will do by then ».

On the cover: Culture Minister Alpidio Alonso talks with the artist before the press