Existing comment:
La Historia Me Absolverá
1999
color etching, aquatint, spit bite and drypoint on paper
Walton Ford
born Larchmont, NY 1960
Courtesy of the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery
La Historia Me Absolverá features the now-extinct Cuban red macaw as a personification of Communist leader Fidel Castro. The title, which translates as "History will absolve me," references the closing lines of a speech delivered by Castro before being jailed in 1953 for the attack on an army barracks. Castro's subsequent release and rise to power led to numerous attempts on his life. Ford represents these threats as flies and snares surrounding the defiant macaw. He portrays the bird as a dying breed -- like Castro himself
-- gripping tightly to a broken tree branch that might symbolize Cuba's beleaguered state or Castro's legacy |