The acquisition of the mixed-media drawings of Michael Rodriguez, an assistant professor of…
The Museum of Modern Art has recently acquired for its permanent contemporary collection four abstract works-on-paper by a LaGuardia Community College professor.
The acquisition of the mixed-media drawings of Michael Rodriguez, an assistant professor of Humanities, was made at the 2003 New Art Dealers Alliance Art Fair — a highly recognized exhibition held at Miami Beach last December — where two contemporary art galleries represented the artist. Purchasing the art for the museum was the Rothschild Foundation, which was involved in a year-long project of collecting contemporary works-on-paper that will be donated to MoMA’s permanent collection.
The Foundation bought three of Rodriguez’s pieces shown by the g-Module Gallery, a French-based gallery located in the Marais neighborhood of Paris, and a solo piece from the Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery in Chelsea. The purchases were estimated at $1,200 each.
For the 39-year-old artist, having his geometric abstractions purchased by one of the world’s premier contemporary museums is a career high.
“To be purchased by MoMA while I am still alive is great,” Rodriguez said with a smile. “Who knows — 50, 100 years from now a curator is looking and pulling things out of the collection and suddenly you are relevant in the year 2060. So, it is good to be in the collection because it puts you in a canon of modern, contemporary art.”
Although Rodriguez is uncertain whether his acquired pieces will be pulled out in the near future or 50 years from now, the purchase indicates that this premier cultural institution views him as a young, promising talent.
“In the art world, 40 is still considered young,” he said. “I hope that my best work is still to come.”
The pieces obtained for the collection are 16-by-20-inch mixed-media drawings where gauche, watercolor, ink, and graphite come together to create organic, geometric drawings that are rooted in abstraction. Dominating the paper’s surface are countless translucent and shaded bubble-like shapes, some of which are conjoined, others overlapping, which create a fluid, kinetic work that some would describe as a high-tech or scientific in nature.
In describing the orbs in these “mesmerizing abstractions,” Tom Moody, an artist and critic based in New York, said, “Numbering in the hundreds and overlaid in rhythmic, organized clusters, these little spinning motors of visual seduction keep the eye moving up, down, left, right along imaginary conveyor belts within the shallow space of the painting, while the interstitial or “negative” spaces between the bubbles, meticulously filled in by hand, provide a constantly shifting color mosaic.”
Rodriguez, who for the past 10 years has been creating these molecular-like objects, explains that they are not meant to represent anything specific. “The bubble or molecule is really neutral mark, similar to how Modrian used geometry,” said the artist who produces them by twirling a painting sponge like a compass. “However, it has a lot of connotations — biotechnology, computer or binary codes that can be read into it.”
He explained that as opposed to a signature style or gesture that is related to his own particular hand, the neutral mark is something that anyone can make. “The only thing I bring into it is this intuitive, decision-making process of where to put what,” he said.
For all of his adult life, Rodriguez, who holds a bachelor’s in fine arts from Florida International University and a master’s in fine arts from Brooklyn College, has been steadily painting. And for the past 10 years the art community has been taking notice. Exhibiting since 1984, he had his first major solo show at Feature, Inc., in New York in 1997. He recently had a solo exhibition at the g-Module Gallery where all his pieces on exhibit — six canvases and eight works on paper — were sold. The Paris gallery will exhibit his work in a group show this summer. And in 2005, two solo shows are scheduled in Paris and New York.
“Things are coming together,” said Rodriguez.
An event that also helped things come together, he said, was the landing three years ago of a teaching position at LaGuardia Community College. He began on a substitute line for one year, advanced to an adjunct position the second year, and this year he is on a tenure-track line.
“Teaching is the only job I really wanted to do, aside from painting,” said Rodriguez, who previously waited on tables and did construction to supplement his income. “I love teaching.”
For the instructor who teaches painting, drawing and color theory, “teaching narrows the gap between what I do as an artist and what I do here,” he said. “Now, I am always engaged in art as opposed to wearing my construction hat in the day and my artist hat at night.”
Rodriguez’s work can be viewed on the following Web sites: www.5begallery.com and www.g-module.com.
