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Rolando Peña (born October 27, 1942) is a Venezuelan Conceptual, Multimedia, and Performance artist. In the Barsa Encyclopedia Britannica book of the year 1968, the art critic Stasys Goštautas wrote: “Rolando Peña (Venezuelan Artist), Founder and Director of The Foundation for The Totality (Group of Latin American art, based in NYC), is the pioneer in Multimedia- Psychedelics, Happenings, Performance shows in Latin America.”^[1]

Early Life

Rolando Peña

Foundation for the Totality

In 1966, in East Village of New York City, Rolando Peña (Venezuela, 1942) founded and directed Foundation for the Totality along with Juan Downey (Chile, 1940), Manuel Vicente Peña (Colombia, 1949) alias Manuel V, Waldo Balart (Cuba, 1931), and Jaime Barrios (Chile, 1945). They compiled their points of actions in a manifesto published in the underground newspaper East Village Other (EVO) on August 1, 1967:

(...) is working in all media “to invade with LOVE and LIBERTY, the puritanical fields of the world (Mid-West, cruel steppes of Siberia, the White House ... of the Wallaces, the stereotypes of Madison Avenue, all military dictatorships, the dynamite belicose expansion, the hate between Arabs and Jews, the pious Moral Rearmament, the latrines of West Point, the commercial ambitions of the Vatican; to make the CIA and all the spies of the world take off their masks) and to make Mao copulate with the Statue of Liberty so they may engender a hippie son.” (...)

Foundation for the Totality brought together a group of Latin American artists to embrace the totality. The vitality of the context of the sixties, allowed them to develop a path of creative experimentation as well as particular aesthetics and sensibilities; in which everyone contributed to the dynamic whole from its sensitive traditions, knowledge, and experiences. The American artist Andy Warhol, who named Rolando Peña The Black PrinceItalic text, collaborated with Foundation for the Totality. Peña performed with Warhol in several happenings and actions for the films ****Four Stars (1967), The Loves of Ondine (1968), and The Nude Restaurant (1968).

With Rolando Peña as a catalyst, Foundation for the Totality and its members raised arguments and actions against the Vietnam War. They mixed Buddhism with mixed media, McLuhanism with religion, the hippie movement with the Beat. In any circumstance, they protested against established powers. They cultivated an irreverent sensibility which not only proposed to renew the forms of expression through experimentation, but it represented a singular and heterodox network of networks, dialogues, and testimonies that served as a contribution to the study and historiography of the cultural scene of New York and the presence and participation of Latin American artists.

Members of Foundation for the Totality

Art, Science and Technology

Films

Year	Title (English)	Title (Spanish)	Role	Director	Notes
1963	Tales for Seniors	Cuentos para mayores		Román Chalbaud	Film debut
1963	The Red Disk (film)	El Disco Rojo	Protagonist	Amador del Villar	Film
1966	Full-Morning-Kissing-Invasion (film)	Invasión-Total-Matinal-De-Besos	Protagonist	Rolando Peña and Jaime Caro	Film, 8mm, B&W, sound, 35 mins
1967	****Four Stars	****Cuatro Estrellas	Actor	Andy Warhol	aka 24-Hour Movie. Underground Film. 16mm, color, sound, 24+ hrs. Showcased at New Cinema Playhouse, N.Y.C.
1967	The Nude Restaurant	El Restaurante Desnudo	Actor	Andy Warhol	Underground Film. Starring Viva, Louis Waldon, Taylor Mead, Billy Name, Allen Midgette, and Rolando Peña. N.Y.C.
1968	Loves of Ondine	Amores de Ondine	Actor	Andy Warhol	Underground Film. N.Y.C.
1968	Che is Alive/AKA Dialogues with Che	Diálogo con el Che	Protagonist, Co-Author	José Rodriguez Soltero	Starring Rolando Peña, Taylor Mead, Ana María Fuenzalida, Carlos Anduze. Underground Film. 16mm, B&W, sound, 53 min. N.Y.C.
1968	Parra + Nemesio + Peña + Kitty = A Nightmare on Celluloid, aka Hommage to Nicanor Parra	Parra + Nemesio + Peña + Kitty = Una Pesadilla en Celuloide, AKA Homenaje a Nicanor Parra	Interviewer	Jaime Barrios	Starring Nicanor Parra, Rolando Peña. Underground Film. 16mm, B&W, sound, 44 min. N.Y.C.
1970	The Discovery of America	El Descubrimiento de América	Protagonist	Jaime Barrios	Starring Rolando Peña, Carmen Beauchat, Ana Maria Fuenzalida, Zezzar Vallejo. Underground Film. 16mm, color, sound, 85 min. N.Y.C.
1975	The Black Prince	El Príncipe Negro	Protagonist	Joseph Noel Levert	Starring Rolando Peña. Underground Film. Super-8. N.Y.C.
1976	The Babbling	La Cotorra	Director, Producer, Protagonist	Rolando Peña	Starring Iván Loscher and Rolando Peña. Underground Film. Super-8. Caracas.
1979	The Babbling No. 2	La Cotorra No. 2	Director, Producer, Protagonist	Rolando Peña	Starring Iván Loscher and Rolando Peña. Underground Film. Super-8. Caracas.

Awards

Guggenheim Fellowship, 2009 ^[2]

Books

The Standard Model of Matter: A Tribute to the 20th Century, artist Rolando Peña; authors Rolando Peña, Claudio Mendoza, (1993) ISBN 980-07-6068-7
Mene Digital, artist Rolando Peña; authors Rolando Peña, Claudio Mendoza; sponsored by IBM Venezuela; computer graphic Thomas Fromherz; texts Alfredo Boulton, Pierre Restany, Claudio Mendoza, Thomas Fromherz; graphic design Victor Lucena; photography Nelson Garrido (1993) ISBN 980-07-1159-7

References

External links

Rolando Peña at IMDb

^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Rolando Peña". Retrieved 2020-08-29.
^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Rolando Peña". Retrieved 2020-08-29.

[1] "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Rolando Peña". Retrieved 2020-08-29.

[2] "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Rolando Peña". Retrieved 2020-08-29.

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