Roberto Perez Crespo

Transmutation

2020

As early as eleven, Perez Crespo joined the young artistic sculpture club at his school in Cuba. So Perez Crespo started carving in wood with a self-made set of tools. Knowing his devotion, a friend introduced him to a communitarian sculpture workshop led by Osvaldo J. Llins and José Duverger Aliaga. By 1991 he had abandoned his profession as an automobile specialist to devote himself to sculpture, founding his workshop and joining the Asociación Cubana de Artistas y Artesanos (ACAA by its Spanish name). Perez Crespo was invited to participate in exhibitions, the Havana Biennials, FIART (International Art Fair of Cuban Art Crafts), and FIARTL (Estoril International Art and Craft Fair, Portugal). In November 1994, his piece, El Viejo (The Old Man), won the Havana Galeria Forma award. Toward the end of 2003, he moved to Miami, joined later by his family. The dramatic experience of family separation deepened his religious devotion, which led him to focus his creative forces on expressing these complex feelings. With help from the Catholic Charities, Perez Crespo donated his work to the Miami Archdiocese in an event widely covered by the media. Afterward, he was awarded several commissions to work in local churches. Among the most relevant were St. Dominic, St. Martha, St. Coleman, Ermita de la Caridad, St. Andrews, Immaculate Concepcion, and St. Raymond of Peñafort. Since 2003 Perez Crespo has built strong ties with the local art scene. He has been part of exhibitions such as Made in Latino at the PIAG Museum, Coral Gables (2004); Perspectivas at Conceptos Gallery (2011); International Biennale Artists Exhibition in Miami Iron Side; Summer Splash at Artsight Gallery (2013); Art Inside ICON (2020); and Cuban Art Exhibition at Intercontinental Hotel (2021). The City of Hialeah has honored his work on several occasions: in 2014, with two sculptures for the Milander Center for Arts and Entertainment, and in 2015 as part of the city’s Garden of the Arts Park. In addition, in 2017, the public library acquired a sculpture for the John F. Kennedy building, and in 2019 he created the mascot sculpture for the City of Hialeah Educational Academy (COHEA). In honor of his artistic and cultural contribution to the community, the City of Hialeah declared February 20, 2015, “Roberto Perez Crespo Day.” While living in Portugal in 2001, he started working as an executor for artists including Bruce Beasley (USA) and Jorge Haugen Sorensen (Denmark). During these years, Pérez Crespo experimented with monumental-size sculptures and heavy-duty materials. In 2013 he collaborated with Cuban artists José Toirac and Meira Marrero on the exhibition Vanitas at Pan American Art Projects. Between 2014 and 2015 he worked as an executing sculptor with Carlos Garaicoa on his project, Arquitectura del Desarraigo, at Fundación Saludarte/Ideobox Artspace in Miami, curated by Dr. Roc Laseca.