Conceived by art collector Leonardo Rodríguez, owner and founder of the former Kendall Art Cultural Center —now the Kendall Museum of Contemporary Arts of the Americas—the Fine Arts Ceramic Center emerged in 2020 with the purpose of creating an artistic project based entirely on the art of ceramics. A workshop equipped with all the necessary resources and tools to produce high-quality artwork on-site was set up in a space adjacent to the Kendall Art Center. Fifty artists were invited to create works on ceramic plates. The result could be seen in the first ceramic plate art exhibition titled "Fine Arts of the Plate," inaugurated on November 27th of the same year.
Since then, the workshop has continued to add new pieces to the collection and has started the production of murals, sculptures, and installations. It has organized workshops, inviting renowned artists, and works to bring ceramics education and practice to the community. The Fine Arts Ceramic Center participated as a guest in the recently concluded NCECA's 57th Annual Conference, Current, in Cincinnati, Ohio from March 15-18, 2023.
Currently, the center is working on the simultaneous creation of nearly 200 pieces of art by a similar number of artists from both Cuba and the rest of the Americas. With the same spirit as the first day, the FACC strives every day to disseminate and promote within its community the history, beauty, and above all, the immense possibilities of ceramics as a support for the most surprising and groundbreaking works of art.
The Rodríguez Ceramics Collection is composed of ceramic works from over 70 artists, beginning with the initial 450 ceramic plates which inaugurated the collection back in 2020, the RCC has expanded to include ceramic murals, sculptures and innovative installations. All designed, developed and fired at the Fine Arts Ceramic Center.
The RCC is mostly composed of over 500 hand painted ceramic plates, each created with by individual artists in Leonardo Rodríguez's permanent collection; invited to translate their signature style from canvas to ceramics. The RCC has expanded to include up to 70 artists to date, with more being invited to produce and contribute to the collection every year.
The integration of ceramic murals into the collection was based on the desire to meld the tradition of a wall-hung work of art, with the innovation and beauty of the ceramic medium. The utilization of hand painted ceramic tiles gave the invited artists the chance to produce and design on a larger scale. The murals constituted the second phase of ceramic production in the FACC.
Sculptures and installations make up a growing part of the ceramics collection. Made entirely of ceramic the FACC's development of large-scale sculptures and installations demonstrates how ceramics is able to be taken to new and daring heights. The sculptures in the collection are the result of the creativity and ingenuity of their artists.
