An interview of Ruben Torres-Llorca conducted 1998 January 31, by Juan A. Martínez, in Torres Llora's home/studio, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Torres Llora discusses his early interest in art; his father, whom he never met, who was a talented commercial artist; studying art at San Alejandro Academy of Art, Havana and fellow students Jose Bedia and Ricardo Rodriguez Brey; graduate studies at Havana's Instituto Superior del Arte; participating in the "Volumen I" exhibition in 1981; travels to Mexico, where he began sculpture and installations; returning to Cuba and curating exhibitions of younger artists; moving to Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and since 1993, Miami; artistic influences, including literature, anthropology, sociololgy, film, and other disciplines on him; his mixed media figurative objects of the 1990s which tell a narrative, are socially oriented, and at best, provide a shared experience for the viewer.
Biographical / Historical:
Ruben Torres-Llorca (1957-) is a Cuban born painter and sculptor in Miami, Florida.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 6 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics, and administrators. Funding for this interview provided by Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Cuban born painter José Bedia conducted 1998 February 13, by Juan A. Martínez, in Bedia's studio/home, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Bedia discusses his early inclination toward drawing and interest in cartooning; receiving rigorous academic training at San Alejandro Art Academy in Havana and being introduced also to non-western art; attending graduate school at the Instituto Superior del Arte, 1976-1981; participating upon graduation in the Volumen I exhibition which was a turning point for Cuban artists; travel outside of Cuba to Budapest via Berlin, to New York, to an Indian reservation in the Southwest where he became acquainted with North American native art and artists, and to Angola with the Cuban military, where he came into contact with African roots of Cuban culture; moving to Mexico City and then to Miami; his art and inspirations; religion; his collection of African and American Indian art; and exhibitions in which he has participated.
Biographical / Historical:
José Bedia (1959-) is a Cuban born painter from Miami, Florida.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 15 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. Funding for this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
The papers of Miami art critic Helen Kohen date from 1978 through 1996 and contain letters, postcards, exhibition announcements and invitations, and seventy-four untranscribed interviews of artists, dealers, and collectors in the Miami area.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian and critic Helen L. Kohen measure one linear foot and date from 1976 through 1996. They consist primarily of letters, postcards, exhibition announcements and invitations from artists in the Miami area. Also found are eighty-two mini cassette tapes of seventy-four interviews Kohen conducted with art dealers, collectors, contemporary artists, and others in the Miami area as research and background for her newspaper column and other articles
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into five series:
Series 1: Correspondence, 1954, 1984-1993, undated (Box 1, 10 folders)
Series 2: Printed Material, 1979-1996, undated (Box 1, 3 folders)
Series 3: Photographs, 1969, 1974, 1980-1994 (Box 1, 1 folder)
Series 4: Miscellany, 1983-1992, undated (Box 1 , 1 folder)
Series 5: Taped Interviews, 1986-1996, undated (Box 1, 1 folder and 82 micro-cassettes)
Biographical Note:
Art historian and critic Helen L. Kohen has authored numerous articles on contemporary art focusing on the formation of the art culture in Miami since the early 1980s. Helen L. Kohen is art critic emeritus for the The Miami Herald newspaper in Miami, Florida.
Provenance:
Helen L. Kohen donated her papers to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution in 1997.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Annina Nosei Gallery, New York, 1998-2003 : Jose Bedia, Tsibi Geva, Graciela Hasper, Kocheisen + Hullmann, Myriam Laplante, Heidi McFall, Ieva Mediodia, Marta Maria Perez Bravo, Liliana Porter, Paolo W. Tamburella, Federico Uribe, Jenny Watson
Contemporary art from Havana : José Bedia ... [et al.] : Riverside Studios, London, 18 October - 26 November 1989 : Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Sevilla, Spain, June - July 1990
