JOSÉ BEDÍA: HERITAGE AND TRADITION AS AN ACT OF COMMUNICATION

José Bedia’s (Havana, Cuba, 1959) latest project is presented at El Apartamento’s Madrid space as two bodies of work brought together under the title Diálogos en el desierto. The first focuses on traditional textiles from Mali, collected as part of fieldwork involving ethnographic materials. On these supports, the Cuban artist deploys his distinctive iconography as a means of acknowledging and, in a sense, paying tribute to the anonymous communities that have preserved these artisanal traditions. The works also incorporate jute, a material closely associated with Afro-Cuban traditions—in particular, with the veneration of the orisha Babalú Ayé—on which Bedia develops representations of instructive mythological narratives.

The second group consists of paintings on narrow, horizontally oriented canvases that evoke dreamlike and psychological landscapes. Within these works, the distinction between sky and earth dissolves into diffuse settings populated by human figures, animals, and statues that engage with one another and move through scenes in which a preceding event—or something that might complete the image—seems to be missing. Although each work possesses a strong degree of autonomy, when considered as a whole they construct a narrative space centered on relationships between humans, animals, deities, and the surrounding environment.

The exhibition thus proposes a reconsideration of painting as an act of communication and risk emerging from silence. The Diálogos en el desierto constructed by Bedia evoke an uncertain exchange in which the sensory dimension of each interlocutor appears to be suspended in favor of heightened attention. From this perspective, the artist conceives his paintings as vehicles for the transmission of meaning, seeking to establish a form of communication that, despite the challenges posed by a moment in which information saturation increasingly shapes the narrative, might ultimately be heard.

José Bedia: Diálogos en el desierto is on view through November 7, 2026, at El Apartamento, Puebla, 4, Madrid, Spain.