Javaroa-Jose Vazquez: Viva la Redvolution

// May 5th, 2010 // Eyes on the Crowd // b-uncut

Javaroa has participated in many art fairs, solo shows and group shows…He was part owner of an advertising agency in Venezuela that is still running today and is one of the top 15 agencies.

“I am still a part of it…but back in 95 I started painting, by 97 I knew this is what I really loved doing, so I left everything and moved to la Habana to study art and paint. I studied there at La Academia de Arte San Alejandro, the second oldest art school in the Americas! I spent a year there and then moved to NYC. I got a scholarship at the New York Studio School and studied with great artists like Graham Nickson, Mercedes Mater, Wayne Thiebaud, etc… since I got the scholarship that let me to enrol at night at NY academy of art… by 2001 I had decided to study with Jenny Saville in London and moved to the Slade school of painting at the University college of London.

2002 came along and Venezuela was in deep political turmoil so I went there to participate. I and many others over through President Chavez on the 11th April. That event changed me and I started working with the news. Gluing newspaper onto everything…that led me to land a huge political collage, painting at the MOLAA. The Museum of Latin American Art in California…the most important and representative museum for Latin American art in the US.

Since then I have gone back to colour and pop culture but the idea still remains the same…everything is covered by the media, tinted, manipulated…might as well have fun with it and try to get our real information from other more reliable sources….POP culture is as dangerous as a dictator.


Redvolution (above) is a small painting that was shown at a group show called “Retomando el Rojo”, which means something like “taking back the red”. Chavez´s so called revolution has taken the colour red hostage and the show addressed that. My painting; Redvolution is a poignant joke to his “socialist movement”. It is a perfume bottle in the spirit of something like Gautier, that represents the fake ideal of the revolution. The cologne bottle of the Redvolution is fashioned in our real liberator’s classical attire, Simon Bolivar’s. Fundamentally it is more of a capitalist venture for a few than a populist movement but they have been sooo smart at doing it that they have fooled many for more than a decade.  Now millions of Venezuelans and Americans; people like Sean penn, Danny Glover, and even Oliver Stone!!! I lived in Cuba for over a year so I know how bad these repressive regimes are!!! sorry for my rambling! Anyway Redvolution is the new fragrance By Hugo D´Boss… a.k.a Hugo Chavez….”

  • Ximena Ponce
    Magnificent work... I'm a big fan, but this Redvolution is veery important for what it represent itself! Congrats and keep up the excellent work!!!
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