MIGUEL WRITTEN Den.

The paint in Mexico, the lure of Havana, has been a challenge in my 43 years of living in exile outside the island of Cuba The sea is a wet sky of stars. "This island is a paradise, Cuba, if I lose, I look in Andalusia or in Cuba. "(Federico García Lorca), fragment of April 5, 1930, in letters to his family. Life is a story ... for me it's nooo! Cuban. My family of immigrants Santander of those that do not come again, almost perfect for me, with a fawning mother, a loving father and upright, a dog, a cow, a rooster, a longtime radio and many secrets of the Grandparents. All this proves to be a tight and alien clan. The house is of course the classic decor and decent nest of all immigrants in America. Of his book fascinating Havana Tres Tristes Tigres de Guillermo Cabrera Infante, I use elements to my paintings, there are places of remembrance, with present and past ways of nostalgia grown from Cuba, Miami and Mexico. Old Havana is the theater of the absurd today, a lost city, the older, newer, inventing past Cubans live.   I'm talking about the old town houses   underpinned colonial city, detained    in time, the old churches, Cubans in the streets hungry, the National Capitol, Asturian Center. American cars pass year 57, are ghosts of the punishment received in a damaged city. My childhood is the novel of all exiles, while contemplating the city in your memories and move within its walls, plus the love and the more shots of her, give back more love. The Spain that left Havana, Cuba was a place to which

migrated, not reverse. And now look what happened to us. I pray to dear God that someday this nightmare will become a thing of the past. "Freedom is the right to live without hypocrisy" José Martí.

Den MIGUEL DE LA ROSA

TO: MIGUEL lair   

  Michael Laird us gave a scare. In a phone call informed us that he was sick. A serious illness had been detected. His friends who are many, we were reluctant to believe it.   Laird Cuban artist currently residing in Mexico for years, had always proved a   enormous vitality. A tireless worker, in his small studio pictures emerged surprising that by going to see them filled us with joy. The wise doctor Jose Luis Ibarrola, launched their knowledge and managed the miracle to save him. Now recovering and caring for his wife, Hope, returns to the impulses that characterize it, to his studio to paint large paintings. These ally of other executed before symptom onset of the disease, will be exhibited in one of the Museum José Luis Cuevas. Reborn Laird and his canvases are populated by characters and natures live with the fruits, especially melons, which throughout his career have made him an artist of tremendous personality. Cuban origin is always present. But his stay in Mexico has been Mexicanize some of their songs. There may be less, because the sensitivity of this operator takes to absorb influences from the art of those countries where they lived. Also, being a son of Spanish, at times of its creation I find elements of Spanish painting. He himself has acknowledged some artistic kinship with Picasso, Saura, Millares. During a visit in company with my wife, Beatriz del Carmen (who called Carmita), we did in the hospital, he showed me some newspaper clippings in which Cuban

blacks appear to bear the name of Picasso, because they are descendants of the great artist from Malaga. Something had already heard that. An immediate relative of Picasso arrived in Cuba and married a black woman with whom he fathered several children. Gave them the name that also inherited the grandchildren and great grandchildren. One of these, which is portrayed in the journal, keeps a remarkable resemblance to the great-grandfather who was his uncle. It's a Picasso painted in dark. I'm going home to visit and see the tables that is locked. I was surprised to find rosy. No sign of illness. "You look very good boy," I say, imitating the Cuban accent. "I feel great, I answer. I was cured, the doctor and the desire I have to paint. The hospital had the hours, and was anxious to go home to resume my painting. Sleep at night   pictures that I do. Believe me, Cuevas, which is better, much better, that everything that   has done before. "Seeing your work in progress I say that is correct. At the museum, all

that work there are happy with this exhibition cubileana ...

  José Luis Cuevas August 2004

MIGUEL Den

Laird Miguel de la Rosa. In Old Havana ~ Mexico City, October 14, 2004.

They say that a musician, poet and crazy, we all have a little. Like most of a small group of teens from attending the Secondary School in our hometown of Morón, in the mid-sixties, and we continue to be friends for life, Michael Laird had his musical interests. As far as a poet, although I do not have written in your life or a sonnet, its original outputs and sense of humor always provided a unique touch to the group. That Michael had some crazy one day when we were convinced, because they aspired to participate in a television program in the capital, was shaving his head leaving only a strip of hair colored at the center, and thus became the first Cuba punk, and perhaps in Latin America. But Michael had his artistic vein. So it was always part of our adventures radio, music and theater.

With the passage of years almost everyone in the group we were moving to Havana and, as adults, although in different walks of life, we continue our friendship. In a Cuba dramatically transformed by a political event that originally excited us all, and then disappointed us most, Miguel moved to Miami in 1961-where even lifeguards worked without knowing how to swim. Years later, perhaps to kill the boredom that paradoxically lulled most of whom live in economically developed countries, Laird found a creative solution: instead of trying to fight with countless electronic gadgets, Sunday became a painter.

After having established and achieved a stable economic situation, he met a Mexican, Esperanza Romero, who also today's painter and married her. Shortly after he committed the greatest act of folly of his life: in 1980 it launched all away, moved to Mexico with his wife, and devoted himself to what had become his greatest passion: painting. Thanks to this act of sublime madness, we can contemplate the result of that passion.

Soon after settling in Mexico, the creation of Laird goes through a stage that he was called "the trail of man", which builds a visual chronicle of the times in which they live. Appear in these highly textured paintings, which might well be described as reliefs, solitary men, of faces sad, withdrawn, unable to communicate with each other, slaves to the consumer society. The textures of the walls, facades and walls of Mexico City Cubiles they cause a strong impression, and incorporates their sand acrylic, marble dust, bricks, pieces of copper, paper and canvas as well as small tombstone industrial civilization is at random in their travels around the city.

Constantin Brancusi once said that when we stop being children are dead, and Laird had always maintained in his life that everyday things marvel own children. 30years and works

Cuban

later, the image of a smiling child who looks curious bright eyes and the world around

is gradually replacing the sad men, and soon became a recurring theme in his painting. Children sometimes appear holding a rooster, which I always associate with our

A hometown, also known as the "city of the rooster."

In his thirty years of artistic, Laird has cultivated a variety of genres besides

paintings, including ceramics, collage, art object, and mail art. This is coupled with an extensive

graphic work. Despite residing in Mexico for nearly a quarter century, her work reflects a particular color is very Cuban. For many years, Laird has been working issues such as the slice of melon, stool, and the city of Havana with its arches. However, without losing its Cuban gently tropical, Mexico has also begun to emerge, particularly in some relatively recent works in ceramics.

His early love of Cuban popular music has accompanied him everywhere. Laird has a broad musical culture, not only speaks with knowledge about genres and performers, but tells many anecdotes about the lives of these musicians. That's why greats "of Cuban popular music such as Celia Cruz and Paquito D'Rivera, appearing in their collages.

Laird is also an important production of sculpture, ranging from figurative to abstract, and that includes the surreal and the humorous. On its website, which I had the honor and pleasure to see a design-abstract sculpture in metal, Reunion, a bronze which could be described as surreal, Vaca with watermelon, a realistic chair, made in Talavera from Puebla and the cutest broom decorated with acrylic.

In this exhibition a new theme emerges: they appear shown here publicly for the first time paintings are like a version of some characters cubileana Picasso. Apparently a Spanish painter's grandfather had lived in Cuba, and left some descendants scattered around the island mixcigenada Laird, who is also a restless researcher always looking for fun facts, discovered the fact and this inspired him to create a series of paintings that he, with his sense of humor, is titled "Picasso's black past."

This exhibition of the work of Laird, whose main theme is Old Havana, is a throbbing ~ lime green colors, EI tomato red, bright blue-and shapes and textures, a veritable feast for the senses. With his work   Laird confirmed the veracity of his own dictum: Art but I do not eat feed.

Servando González.

Historian, semiotician, writer.

California resident

font-size: x-small "> Michael Laird

Is a born artist,  

is in your world

then,

arranging and disarray,

is not more than his intuition,

that and more colorful texture

that is not committed to anything or anyone on this planet   living his beloved Cuba libre,   striving to improve and beautify the existing,   she captures her joy   casting light on his canvas, which has the daily task   in passionate pursuit of surprise   curiosity and obsession   perfection in any Tiliche pileup and transforming it into a real    artwork.

Michael Laird wins, by the simplicity of its lines, for daring to mix   accommodate and tones for their elements, veces.caras, other, roosters, trains,  

lights, chairs, watermelons and pure, always daily understandable and simple   but very own.

Through an easy language, beautiful ~ and happy, Laird communicates with all

regardless of sex, age, culture or stratum   social, its apparent white and naive  

presentation is applauded by all, especially by art critics.

x-small ">   José Sacal 2004

  Mexican sculptor

MIGUEL Den

If style is the man, it is not unusual or incongruous that the visual style, pictorial, visual, Michael Laird is the exuberance, extravagance, as born in Cuba and is formed in Spain and Mexico, where the baroque da natural: in Cuba and Mexico because the tropics are generous and Spain because the Arabic influence is evident in the exuberance.

But Michael is also lavish, warm, generous, friendship, affection, honey hand in dispensing to all his acquaintances, he immediately because a sister, as makes them cousins to the land you came ... "Paint what you see, savor what you eat "like looking color.

  Cuban tropical whereas, where his primal Laird can not deny that, takes the nuances (and even Matisses) color and heat, which Gauguin wanted for a Sunday, after the ancient Spain, making speech and language and artistic tradition ranging from the caves of Altamira to the wonders of Miró, and finally a tropical hurricane than is Mexico, lair of the beast that brings color into Laird, take the pre-Columbian sculpture, recreating -art three-dimensional sound and fire walls colorful long twentieth century architecture, to do his work, yet kaleidoscopic kaleidoscopic work, which all combine to achieve that Michael Laird drive it can construct, with contributions from the past, enriching the present and combinations of materials and contents, which he sees the trail of the man, but we can all guess the man's face.

What does Michael Laird, above all else? The gift of friendship, friendship-one knows that beautiful word for dead almost all the benefit of friends and not only humans but also the fruits and plants, animals and souls, with textures and colors, with matter and spirit, with the past and present, with locals and visitors.

The stranger was before him, and now it's yours: the hearts of others, the feelings of others, to Mexican patriotism watermelon has assumed tricolor as his own and has also laugh Tablada, José Juan:

Summer, red and cold

Laugh,

slice of watermelon.

  Hector Anaya

  Writer / journalist

  MIGUEL Den

  Laird: The trace of man

Not enough known artistic expressions of this artist that exudes creative energy   rapids, to bring out his genius. Nor is it enough time it takes one day to bring the world the product of his imaginative machinery. Nor is it easy to keep track of your hard work, his maddening maelstrom. It is equally difficult to find a way to transmit the productivity of Miguel Laird, a painter born in Caibarien, Las Villas, Cuba, resident in Mexico City. "For me, painting is all a priesthood that demands a lot of dedication."

Painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphics, collage, art-mail ... are part of the work of an artist who gives his soul through candid and colorful figures. His favorite subject man, that is, the human figure. "I consider myself a maker of beautiful things, the light entered my eyes, sharpening

a message. Actually, my paintings, prints, sculptures and ceramics, are somewhat metaphors. "

Laird imagine that painted on a wall in the streets of a city such as Havana, Barcelona, Mexico. "The wall is my canvas and he is asking what you want: color, shape, etc. In him I see many characters petrified." He explains how it meets a fate that is marked "I carry in my heart and in my eyes, the spaces I have inhabited at different times of my life and I find the color motifs and themes that make me create. Painting for me is like walking, breathing ... "Use acrylic, marble dust, oil and everything that make you rich texture and color. Laird says:" Like everyone is saying, then it must be said again '~

If fun is the work of Laird is easy to deduce that there is only a reflection of a character superalegre. "Not that my paintings are as crazy as me. In fact, as I am Scorpio, a sign very creative, my personality is concerned. My work is loose," Iocochona "is gross like Dubuffet, well thought out, but it takes the compensation of our disorders and shows noble appearance, when it brings something new. In the background is a simple operation, deep, expressive organized and everyday life that transcends my palette out of their natural insignificance, becoming pure and beautiful message. "Laird loves to see the empty studio." All tables are to take what I call permanent space somewhere. When no longer in this beautiful planet, my works are in fact "the trail of the man."

  Lidia Sanchez Amores

  Executive Editor

x-small ">