{"id":24641,"date":"2024-04-07T19:41:13","date_gmt":"2024-04-07T23:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=24641"},"modified":"2024-04-08T07:14:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T11:14:50","slug":"edel-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/04\/07\/edel-rodriguez\/","title":{"rendered":"Illustrator Edel Rodriguez Is Among Trump\u2019s Fiercest Critics, Exhibition Surveys His Career"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Among the fiercest political graphics that appeared during the Trump Administration were Edel Rodriguez\u2019s covers for Time magazine and the weekly German magazine Der Spiegel. In the New Jersey artist\u2019s illustrations, the president becomes a howling menace with caution orange skin and flaming yellow hair. In Rodriguez\u2019s April 2017 cover for Der Spiegel, Trump waves a bloody machete in one hand and holds up the bleeding, decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty with the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe enemies of the people, quotes about the media, encouraging audience members to beat other people up\u2014in the U.S., it was kind of entertainment. It was, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s crazy,\u2019 and I was, like, \u2018No, this is exactly what has happened in Cuba, in Venezuela, at times in Germany during World War II,\u201d Rodriguez told The New York Times in 2023.<\/a> \u201cIt works on you in a very slow way, and it\u2019s appealing to a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition \u201cUndercurrents\u201d on view at de Menil Gallery at Groton School in Groton<\/a>, Massachusetts, from Jan. 14 to April 14, 2024, surveys Rodriguez\u2019s drawings and paintings, 30 book covers, 21 magazine illustrations, and 14 designs for theatrical posters that he\u2019s created since 1995. He criticizes Trump, racism, sexism. He draws family and friends. He experiments to keep from getting in a stylistic rut. His style ranges from lyrical cubism to flat, blunt graphics. Original acrylic paintings on paper for the covers of several books by Chinua Achebe, including \u201cThings Fall Apart,\u201d reveal that Rodriguez often works two or three times bigger than the size at which the book will be printed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez “Undercurrents” exhibition at Groton School’s de Menil Gallery, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez, who was born in Cuba in 1971 and was an art director at Time from 1994 to 2008, often returns to images of skulls, women and chickens in scratched, worn-looking reds, blacks, whites and golds. \u201cEverything is red in Cuba\u201d Rodriguez told Publishers Weekly in 2023<\/a>. \u201c\u2026For a long time, I didn\u2019t use red because it was commie red. Then, I wondered, \u2018Why does a dictatorship have the right to own colors?\u2019 I started using it constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition features five pages from Rodriguez’s 2023 graphic memoir \u201cWorm,\u201d which recounts his childhood in Fidel Castro\u2019s Cuba; his family\u2019s immigration to Miami in 1980 as part of the Mariel boat lift; his life as a designer and illustrator today based in Mount Tabor, New Jersey; and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think most Americans realize what a coup is, or a coup attempt,\u201d Rodriguez told the Guardian in 2023<\/a>, \u201chow dangerous it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2024 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez magazine covers from 1995 to 2021 in “Undercurrents” exhibition at Groton School’s de Menil Gallery, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, cover illustration for Der Speigel, April 4, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez’s cover illustration for Time magazine, Aug. 28, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez’s cover illustration for The Nation, July 2016.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez “Undercurrents” exhibition at Groton School’s de Menil Gallery, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, “Girls At War” (left) and “Hope,” 2017, acrylic on paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez’s cover illustration for Chinua Achebe’s book “Girls at War.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez’s cover illustration for Chinua Achebe’s book “Hopes and Impediments”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez’s cover illustration for Chinua Achebe’s book “A Man of the People.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez’s cover illustration for Fabio Geda’s book “In the Sea There Are Crocodiles.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, “Drawings of Friends and Family in Cuba,” 2019, ink and crayons on watercolor paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, “Sangre y Azucar,” 2018, ink on paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, “Gallina,” 2007, acrylic on canvas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, “Paradiso,” 2023, acrylic on paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, page from “Worm,” 2021-2022, ink on watercolor paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, page from “Worm,” 2021-2022, ink on watercolor paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, “Opera Posters,” 2012-2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez’s poster for “A Raisin in the Sun.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez, “Opera Posters,” 2012-2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez “Undercurrents” exhibition at Groton School’s de Menil Gallery, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Edel
Edel Rodriguez “Undercurrents” exhibition at Groton School’s de Menil Gallery, 2024. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the fiercest political graphics that appeared during the Trump Administration were Edel Rodriguez\u2019s covers for Time magazine and the weekly German magazine Der Spiegel. In the New Jersey artist\u2019s illustrations, the president becomes a howling menace with caution orange skin and flaming yellow hair. In Rodriguez\u2019s April 2017 cover for Der Spiegel, Trump waves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[1241,1240,1242,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24641"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24651,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24641\/revisions\/24651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}