José Rodeiro “Techumbre,” oil-on-linen 7’ x 8,’ 1988.
This image is a pun on two Spanish words, techo meaning roof; and cumbre: summit or gathering. In the work, three women dance la jota on the roof of Antoní Gaudí’s Casa Mila “La Pedrera,” which in Catalan means 'quarry,' while the Bolivian poet and art theorist, Dr. Nicomedes Suárez-Araúz levitates (or floats by) above the Barcelona scene, in the guise of Marcel Duchamp’s floating cinematic-blossoming, (replete with three draft-pistons). In the background loom Gaudi’s enormous mosaic figures (that inspired Star Wars’ villainous robot soldiers) standing as sentinel malic-molds. Hence, the whole image alludes to Duchamp’s Large Glass: The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (although in reverse): the Duchampian male elements are feminine and the Duchampian female elements are masculine.