Freddy Rodríguez was born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, and his painting practice cycled through different styles such as geometric abstraction and expressive figuration, addressing his personal identity and a history of migration and displacement. The painting Mulato de tal (1974) takes its title after the 1963 novel Mulata de tal by Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias, which tells the story of a poor Guatemalan farmer who makes a pact with the devil. Mulato de tal, like many other paintings belonging to this series, was initially sketched with pen and coloured pencil on graph paper. The work references a mulato, a mixed-race man, through geometric forms that suggest a body in movement. The warm colour palette suggests a relationship between land and body, but also the racial taxonomies that rule Dominican life. Through its dynamic lines and gestural strokes, the painting alludes to the rhythms of Latin music that became popular in New York during the 1970s. A twin painting titled Mulata de tal (1974) was lost during Rodríguez’s displacements between the Caribbean and New York.
This is the first time the work of Freddy Rodriguez is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Carla Acevedo Yates
