Rene believed that when you worship something you tend to not respect what others have decided to worship. Ordinarily it is our parents who decide what we must worship so if, as an adult, you decide
to worship Elvis, you will become
the laughing stalk of those around you.
To make sure that you do not offend those who worship things other than God it is better to worship nothing and respect everything.
SoHo 1976
Rene standing in the middle of Soho
with his first mural behind him. The Center of SoHo, by coincidence, was
a manhole covering the entrance of the sewer system. In 1978 Rene baptized the manhole by pouring white gesso over it and let the cars make an abstract painting.
The performance came to an abrupt ending when a brand new black Jaguar splashed white paint on its side as it ran over the paint. The crowd that had gathered as well as Rene ran to avoid having to answer any questions from
the police.
Undressed Form
Rene found six coat-dress forms and decided to paint naked ladies in oil on them.
He named them Undressed Forms.
They became popular and
he sold them all.
As always, Rene could not see himself buying dress forms and spending the rest of his
life painting them.
He found six and six
was all he painted.
The E-bomb
Rene wanted to paint a violent act without victims. He threw a can of beer against the windshield of a brand new Mercedes that almost ran him over and the combination of the broken windshield and the beer foam gave him the idea.
Years later he used it to illustrate the hypocrisy of the Israeli government. In the middle of the splash he wrote “Peace on You.” The thought behind it is. you throw a bomb at them and at the same time wish them peace. "Rest in Piss" came to mind, but Rene doesn’t like to use obscenities.
Feed Yourself
When Rene decided to volunteer as an art teacher he wanted to illustrate his message. This became his coat of
arms. It represented his simple
teaching, or as he called it,
his general store philosophy.
The brush represents the arts, the brain represents the part of the body
that needs both intellectual and physical nourishment in order to stay alive.
The wooden spoon represents the physical nourishment. These three elements complete life's cycle.
Blue Genes
Once while painting one of his 7 murals in SoHo, a group of women in a Volkswagen stopped in front of him and one of the women got out to make believe that she was photographing the mural.
She was wearing a pair of jeans held together by pins and a few threads. She kept on bending over as if to get a better angle, while her friends giggled inside of the car. Rene rushed home and painted what he had just experienced. He was always appreciative of women who provided such visuals.
If it wasn't for pornography I would have been apervert.
Rene loved to see naked women. He believed that
they are Mother Nature’s most beautiful creation.
Unfortunately this hypocritical, sick society of
ours deems pornographica picture of a naked woman.
A deep studyof society’s behavior revealed that men
have to have a healthy dosage of fantasies that
are triggered by the sight of nude females.
Suppressing this urge to satisfy this fantasy
brings about mental problems that could
easily be avoided.
Religious beliefs create a lot of mental abnormalities
that are very harmful. When you tell a child that
nudity is bad, sex is dirty, obscene, and that thoughts about sex should be avoided at all costs, you are creating a mental conflict. Once that child reaches puberty his/her body will crave sex and the mind will reject it as something perverse.
This situation is necessary for organized religion because they need to keep men from satisfying their sexual fantasies.Their goal is to have as many converts as possible, and the best way to do it is by marrying people who know little or nothing about this normal function of the body.
In combination with prohibiting masturbation, contraceptives, abortion, divorce, promiscuity, prostitution, live nude entertainment and any kind of sexual outlet, they set the stage to transform every marriage into a baby factory with women as nothing more than incubators. Some men who lack the social graces and need to find a suitable mate become frustrated and eventually seek satisfaction that is indeed perverse.
I was lucky to have a father to counter-balance my mother’s religious ideas about sex. I am quite certain that if it was not for my imagination and my ability to draw I would be a pervert. I see nothing wrong with the sight of a nude body but religions call it pornography..
The Beetle
Rene had just lost a lucrative job as an art director. Depressed and frustrated he sought refuge in his art by disassembling an old typewriter. At the end of his stupor Rene had subconsciously created a remarkable beetle out of the many pieces.
Twelve years later he found a National Geographic magazine with an uncanny picture of a beetle that resembled his exactly.
Wood carving of the Gade
Rene called this part of the female fuselage the Gade. In his mind this is the purest image, it represents Mother Nature and it silently exists to bring forth a new life. It is complete because life goes into it and comes out through it. Its sight renders every man incapable of lying and turns him into babbling idiots. Religions envy its power. Men loose control over themselves and other men. It is the beginning and the end of that longitudinal line that divides the human body into two equal parts. Rene-Gades are those who accept this image as something worthy of respect and not as a source of disgust.
The Suitor
Machinery part with plastic flowers.
Rene sees a man hiding a gift at his back while offering flowers to his girlfriend.
Mental Flaws Floss
Covered with striped
Xerox photocopies.
Would Not.
Wood knot missing in the center of this piece of wood. Rene carved it and polished it with a dowel at the end of a drill.
Coaxial Cable
Aluminum cable used by cable TV.
Hard to bend without creating kinks.
Mental Flaws Floss
Painted Styro-foam and paper pulp.
Ghost Ship
Wooden sticks woven together without any other form of bonding.
Mental Flaws Floss
Aluminum wire with
coaxial cable tubing.
Miss Construed
Second sculpture made of wooden sticks woven together. This form of art inspired Rene to create his fashions with the weaving that he named Nudismo.
Just about everything that he did after that can be linked to this discovery.
His philosophical theory is based on the need of learning how to weave in order to sustain and protect ourselves
Gas pump nozzle
in holster
Used in Rene’s extensive environmental protests in Venezuela against the abuses of the oil industry. Oil and guns or oil as guns is the symbol that he chose to identify the corruption of those in power.
Back in 1982 Rene said that sooner than expected, the United States would deem necessary to invade Venezuela in order to control their production of oil. Members of the Venezuelan secret police told him that he was embarrassing the government and that it would be wise if he
stopped his artistic campaign.
Members of the press told him that parts of the explanations that he granted them in their interview were censored. Rene stopped educating the Venezuelan people in this respect and now the United States is preparing the grounds to do to Venezuela what they did to Iraq.
The US war on drugs in Colombia is just a smoke screen to force the drug dealers into Venezuelan territory and use it as an excuse to start a fight. Right now Colombian refugees are fleeing into Venezuelan territory robbing ranchers and squatting in their land in order to feed themselves. It won’t be long before the Colombian government backed by the US Army will come into another
"Shock and Awe" massacre called
Venezuelan Freedom.
The Beetle
Rene had just lost a lucrative job as an art director. Depressed and frustrated he sought refuge in his art by disassembling an old typewriter. At the end of his stupor Rene had subconsciously created a remarkable beetle out of the many pieces.
Twelve years later he found a National Geographic magazine with an uncanny picture of a beetle that resembled his exactly.
The Beetle
Rene had just lost a lucrative job as an art director. Depressed and frustrated he sought refuge in his art by disassembling an old typewriter. At the end of his stupor Rene had subconsciously created a remarkable beetle out of the many pieces.
Twelve years later he found a National Geographic magazine with an uncanny picture of a beetle that resembled his exactly.
The Beetle
Rene had just lost a lucrative job as an art director. Depressed and frustrated he sought refuge in his art by disassembling an old typewriter. At the end of his stupor Rene had subconsciously created a remarkable beetle out of the many pieces.
Twelve years later he found a National Geographic magazine with an uncanny picture of a beetle that resembled his exactly.
The Beetle
Rene had just lost a lucrative job as an art director. Depressed and frustrated he sought refuge in his art by disassembling an old typewriter. At the end of his stupor Rene had subconsciously created a remarkable beetle out of the many pieces.
Twelve years later he found a National Geographic magazine with an uncanny picture of a beetle that resembled his exactly.
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Intergalactic Station. Pieces from an old broken piano, a Minolta photocopy machine, odd pieces of wood and the cover for a barrel enameled in Earth green, are transformed into an intergalactic station through Rene’s skewed way of looking at the world.
