EL ROSTRO DE LA HISTORIA

Azzinari e Fidel Castro
Franco Azzinari e Fidel Castro
Azzinari - El rostro de la Historia
Catalogo pagine 75 presentato durante la mostra “El Rostro de la Historia” Casa del Alba Cultural de la Habana – Cuba
Dedica Fidel Castro a Franco Azzinari

Dedica Fidel Castro a Franco Azzinari

Franco Azzinari meets Fidel Castro Ruz for the first time on November 6, 2000, in Avenida de los Presidentes in Havana, during the erection of a statue dedicated to the Mexican President Benito Juárez (1806-1872). The artist goes at the event together with Miguel Barnet who, as a Member of the Cuban Government, allows him to overcome all the police checks. “The excitement was great – Azzinari says -. The Commander greeted me very cordially, and I told him I was in love with his country and explained him the work I was making about Cuba. He made me realize that it was already informed of everything”.

In May 2001, the Cuban Minister of Culture Avel Prieto called Azzinari to tell him that Fidel Castro wanted to invite him for dinner: “That evening -Azzinari remembers- we were seven, including Miguel Barnet, Avel Prieto and Charles Lager. Dinner started at 10:00 pm and ended at 4:00 am. I remember that after two hours Fidel, always dressed in army fatigues, has been absent for about fifteen minutes to get some stretch and, on his return, I noticed that he had put on his sneakers. While eating fish, the Leader Maximo spoke a lot about the revolution. To tell the truth, I was more focused on analyzing his face, as he spoke, and the gestured with his hands, which had tapered and well-groomed fingernails. Fidel was happy to be portrayed and I took the opportunity to ask him to pose for me for some sketches. That evening I had a great privilege in being in the company of a true legend, a living legend. After dinner, I greeted him with a ‘VIVA FIDEL, VIVA CUBA!’ And he responded me by saying ‘VIVA FRANCO, VIVA ITALY!’ The next day, on my way to the airport, I could not stop thinking of the Commander and how to immortalize him. I analyzed a lot Fidel’s figure and on my return to Italy I have devoted to him, with great pleasure, an oil painting on canvas of the size of cm. 50×70”.

After about ten years, Azzinari matured the idea of dedicating to Fidel Castro twenty paintings, almost always showing his hands moving in synchronism with the movement of his lips, as if also the hands were able to talk. On July 5, 2012, at the Casa del Alba Cultural de La Habana, has been inaugurated El Rostro de la Historia, an exhibition which includes twenty paintings by Azzinari in black and white (oil on canvas, cm. 100×100), plus twenty blow-ups taken by photographer Alex Castro, son of the Leader Maximo.

Franco Azzinari e Fidel Castro

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Miguel Barnet

Mostra Franco Azzinari - El rostro de la Historia

It is certain that the poets
capture moments of life
and fix them in history.
Generally the past
vague and nostalgic.
Or the immediate present
with its subtle fires
and its reverberations.
But how hard is to grasp the future
and place it forever
in the lives of all poets,
of all men.

Two men, two artists, dare to pick up the most eloquent gestures, the wise and thoughtful look and the most complete profile of a man who lit up his time, the future time that was always his: Fidel Castro. In this exhibition, Franco Azzinari, with devotion and skill, and Alex Castro with affection and acute objective, show us a man in his full maturity, a man who changed the destiny of a continent and gave his country all the dignity lost in the past. Here it is a different Fidel, intimate and familiar.

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Eternamente Fidel – Yuliat Danay Acosta

The English writer Raymond Drake said: “Myth is not imagination and not even a vague fiction of the past, but an oral tradition, memories deeply fixed in the collective consciousness”. If we establish analogous links, it’s possible to find similarities between the classical Greek myths and those of other populations, between the ancient and the contemporary people, between the invisible and the visible, between the heroes of yesterday and today’s men. This is the relationship that the painter Franco Azzinari wants to establish in the exhibition entitled “El Rostro de la Historia. – The Face of History”. Twenty canvases are meant to capture the image of one of the most important men of all time: Fidel Castro. Born in a land rich of mythology, Azzinari saw in Fidel a figure in which the myths converge: “Fidel is a guerrilla. I was born in the same place where the great Greek guerrillas were born. I represent Fidel as a Greek god. Had he been born a thousand years ago it would have been certainly a god, because myths are created by deeds, and thanks to his works, Fidel will be eternal”.

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El Rostro de la Historia – 20 Ritratti del Lider Maximo Fidel Castro

Olio su tela cm 100×100 in bianco e nero

Foto mostra – El Rostro de la Historia – Casa del Alba Cultural, La Havana – Cuba