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The Free Man
(El Hombre Libre)
Author: Juan Roberto Diago
Year: 2022
Medium: bronze sculpture, one-of-a-kind
Size: 75 3/4 x 50 x 27 inches
Inventory No: 06967
Price: $
SOLD
Provenance:
Acquired directly from the artist.
Exhibited in Art Miami Fair,
Miami,
Florida, December, 2023.
Illustrated in IMPORTANT CUBAN ARTWORKS, Volume Twenty,
Cernuda Arte, Coral Gables, Florida, page 148 and 149.
This artwork is accompanied by a Photo-Certificate
of Authenticity, signed by the artist.
Acquired by a Private Collector in Dresher, Pennsylvania.
Juan Roberto Diago’s The Free Man (2022) is the first
monumental bronze sculpture ever produced by the artist
throughout his three-decade career, and an impressive
encapsulation of his themes and processes.
Juan Roberto Diago was born in Havana in 1971 and graduated
from San Alejandro Academy in 1990, where he studied sculpture.
In the decades that followed, the artist explored a wide variety of
techniques and mediums ranging from assemblages to installations
to paintings, with virtually no focus on formal sculpture.
In 2021, Juan Roberto Diago revisited the art of bronze sculpture
with an ambitious series of unique busts, collectively known as
The Free Man Series. Throughout The Free Man Series, the artist
rejects the en vogue mass production model of bronze casting,
in favor of a labor intensive and artisanal process that results
in distinctive works. This successful return to form culminated
in the titular, one-of-a-kind masterpiece, The Free Man (2022).
The Free Man (2022) is a recognition of autonomy and
authority, as well as a declaration of ancestral pride.
The artist employs his most iconic image – the African Mask
– symbolizing identity, strength, and ritual. Here, the mask
is divided down the center, a commentary on the fracturing
of identity that has been caused and perpetuated by displacement,
conflict, and inequity among the diasporic African communities.
While at once recognizing historical trauma, the imposing figure
of The Free Man wears a necklace – another powerful icon used
by the artist – signifying independence. The Free Man’s elegant,
exaggerated neck is unbowed by these hardships, and the figure
remains defiant.
NICO HOUGH
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