Rolando Estevez: 2010 National Book Design Prize

Havana - Cuba’s Book Institute has announced its 2010 National Book Design Prize goes to plastic artist Rolando Estevez Jordan. Mr. Estevez will receive the award on Feb. 13, 2011 within the framework of the 20^th Havana International Book Fair.

The jury was chaired by Roberto Artemio Iglesias (National Book Design Prize recipient) and made up of Ana Maria Muñoz Bachs (National Edition Prize), Jose Alberto Menendez, Sigfredo Ariel and Lourdes Gonzalez Casas. These experts extolled Mr. Estevez’s visual work for Matanzas’ Ediciones Vigia since the publishing house’s foundation back in 1985.

The jury extolled his work for Ediciones Vigia: books, brochures, magazines, plaques and leaflets. Estevez came up with a design line that singles out this publishing house since its foundation back in 1985: the publishing of only two hundred volumes totally handmade and illustrated with original drawings, natural materials and good deal of handcrafted paper and techniques.

Ediciones Vigia is part of the collections culled at the U.S. Library of Congress and the Atlantic Art Museum, as well as of several colleges in the U.S., Canada and other countries in the Americas. In 2002, the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) acquired the first collection of these books and it has adding volumes to it on a regular basis.

Estevez’s work is many-sided as it engulfs drawing, installation and manipulated photography, object-art and book-art; scenic design (mostly with such groups as Miron Cubano, D’Sur, Buendia and Icaron) and his teaching in workshops on scenic design techniques and the Basic Freestyle Design Course.
 

He’s the author of poems like The Late God (Letras Cubanas, 1990); Deep Skin (Ediciones Vigia 1991); Suite for Voice and Heart in Black Suit (Ediciones de La Ciudad 1997); Middle Sea (Ediciones Vigia, 2007) and The Broken Vein (Ediciones Aldabon, 2010).
 

He’s won the Book Design Prize at the National Graphic Exhibit for three years in a row. He’s been twice the recipient of The Art of Book Design Prize, as well as the Fayad Jamis Grand Prize for a book collection designed by him for Vigia.

His plastic work has made the rounds in over two dozen collective and individual exhibitions in Cuba, the U.S., Mexico, France, Venezuela and Martinique. Some of his main pieces are: Pensamiento, dile a Fragancia (1990, drawings); Canto a mí mismo y otras Guayaberas (1992, installations and drawings); Las vitrinas del Llanero Solitario (1995, objects and installations); La Séptima cena (1999, manipulated photos, installations and objects); Dibujos para rascarse la cabeza (2000, drawings); Spotlights primer tiempo (2005, drawings); Spotlights segundo tiempo (2006, drawings and small installations); Los libros del alma (2007, retrospective exhibit of books designed for Vigia); Granos de miedo (2008, small-scale drawings).