“I was in Cuba in 2004, rented a car and drove around the island for three weeks. As you can easily imagine, I saw thousands of political images constantly, all of them trying to convey the message that the Cuban Revolution was more than a political fight. By using the universal values of igualdad, libertad, fraternidad, esperanza, justicia, educación, respeto y la idea de la posibilidad de construir un mundo mejor, the leader of the revolution is made to appear like the new Messiah. The way the leader and the message are represented sounds quite familiar to me. I am a Spanish artist who grew up in Franco’s time. Spain is deeply Catholic, and religion and politics are extremely united. I am very familiar with the manipulation that has constantly surrounded religion and politics for centuries. We now have new examples that try to replace a spiritual fight with a political revolution. However, show us political leaders like the spiritual ones? Ghandi, Jesús Cristo, Confucio, etc. are now el Che, Fidel, Mao, Stalin, etc…..We can not forget that the first leaders created a non-violent revolution with their ideas and the second created change through war and society. This painting represents in fact, how WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THE SAME VALUES with different tactics and different leaders and hence, different results….A universal hope for a better society, bienestar, libertad, igualdad, justicia, educación, and respeto, are what we have been fighting for since the beginning of our culture more than two thousand years…and still we are doing, como diria el Che, HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE.” - Vicente Lopez as told to Cultureserve.net.
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