Afrocubanity and Americanity: visual construction of images and words in the work of José Bedia

Abstract

Facing the dilemma of the one who studies African Art, including its influences on trasatlantic creations, is the confrontation with the image and everything that matters in the constitution of the object or objects. The work of some cuban contemporary artist such as José Bedia is commendable, who in understanding the power of the Word, even locating himself in the African origins of orality, creates an image-word relationship that allows us to discover other possible realities, which are not easy to be caught in the omnipresence of visuality. Bedia is recognized within a space determined by the cross-cultural. It is, according to Orlando Hernández, that being Bedia: “Coming from a culture, the Cuban, accustomed to reverence and mistreatment in her daily relationship with the gods, does not find it difficult […] to continue in art with that same familiarity.” (Hernández 27). The relationship between words and images in José Bedia’s work is not only related to the problems raised on this from the Eurocentric position, but also to the way in which this relationship is understood, both in those trasatlantic practices of African influence and in the native American cultures.