Jorge Rodríguez Gerada

Contemporary Cuban-American Artist.

Born in Cuba and raised in the United States. He carries out his work predominantly in large-scale urban spaces.

He was a founding member of the Culture Jamming movement in New York in the early 90s that first worked with the group "Artfux" and later with the "Cicada Artists Corps", during this period he launched interventions on billboards and public advertising.

In 1997 he began working solo. In 2002, Rodríguez-Gerada moved to Barcelona, ​​where he focused on large-scale ephemeral charcoal drawings from his Identity series. He then developed the Terrestrial Series; ephemeral earth movements so expansive as to be visible from space. Other ongoing projects include the Identity Composite series and smaller artworks that he calls Fragment Series, Urban Analogies and Memorylythics.

Since 2009 he has been curator of the annual AvantGuard Urbano festival; A small Urban Art Festival with big names, held in Tudela, Navarra, in northern Spain. He also participates in numerous shows and exhibitions.

Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada emigrated with his family from Cuba to the U.S. in 1970, settling in North Plainfield, New Jersey.
He was one of the first Hispanic immigrants to enroll in the local school system. There he had difficulties with his peers because of his Cuban origin. In the United States school system he saw children of different backgrounds suffer from discrimination and for this reason he placed special emphasis on learning the language. There was nothing special about his assimilation into American culture. For immigrant Americans, regardless of their origin, the environment in which they develop causes a clash between Cuban and United States culture.

As a child who was interested in creating things; he always felt a love for drawing and became very involved in art while he was in high school. From the age of sixteen he began spending time in Manhattan. When speaking about his influences, he said:

'I was surrounded by theater, music and art which was breaking down barriers and it seemed natural that I would want to do the same'

He studied at Jersey City State College (now New Jersey City University) where he met the future members of 'Artfux'. The media were very interested in their activity, and so they decided to join together as 'Artfux' and continue producing controversial artwork together.

Artfux began illegally altering billboards and staging performances and street spectacles. They focused on criticizing harmful products (fast food drinks, menthol cigarette brands, etc.) that were advertised in areas where the poor reside.

Rodríguez-Gerada along with Artfux, sought more creative ways to undermine the consumption messages on billboards: by converting them into their own political messages with 'clever/nice' interventions.

In this way they could borrow the legitimacy of advertising itself and reach the audience of the ads. For example, Rodríguez-Gerada transformed the faces of cigarette models into sickly-looking people. He then replaced the Surgeon General propaganda series with his own messages: 'General's warning fight: Black and Latinos are the main scapegoats for illegal drugs, and the main target for legal ones'.

With a skillful distortion (an image message or artifact taken out of its context to create a new meaning) and thus speak about the negative effects of these products.

Every time a newspaper, magazine or news broadcast gave them the platform to address these social issues Artfux considered it a victory.

Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada creates his work primarily in large-scale urban spaces. He typically works with urban art, street art and Land Art.

In 2002 he moved to Barcelona and focused on large-scale ephemeral charcoal drawings from his Identity series. He then developed the Terrestrial Series; ephemeral earth movements so expansive as to be visible from space. Other ongoing projects include the Identity Composite series, and smaller artworks that he calls Urban Analogies and Memorylythics.

He also participates in numerous shows and exhibitions, as well as urban art festivals.