René Moncada (also René IATBA or simply René; born 1943) is a South American-born artist living in the United States of America. He is best known for a series of murals undertaken in New York City's SoHo neighborhood between the late-1970s to early-1990s which spelled out the proclamation I AM THE BEST ARTIST René. He is also separately known for controversial artwork such as Sex and Violence, which depicts a cross with a vagina at its center, and as an outspoken opponent of censorship in the arts. His art was known to be sexually suggestive which made René an occasional target of anti-pornographic groups over the years as seen with the Mott's Apple Juice piece.
Biography
Early life René Moncada was born in Colombia. At the age of four he was brought to Caracas, Venezuela, by his father, a newspaper reporter. René speaks openly about his upbringing in a poor family. The dichotomy of being the son of a very religious mother and an atheist father would inform René's views throughout his life. Ultimately, René states, his father's influence would shape his own intellect, instilling an inquisitive nature and inclination to question authority.
Baseball career Although René had artistic aspirations as a child, his father pressed him into a baseball career, and Moncada went on to become a professional pitcher in Venezuelan major league baseball. His rookie year was in 1961, and René claims a record of seven no-hitters at that time. In 1964 he was scouted by the St. Louis Cardinals and brought to the United States. 20-year-old Moncada would begin his life in America as a minor league baseball pitcher. René taught himself English during these early years in America, later claiming his drawing skills aided his progress. Within a few years, however—which included a stint as a pitching instructor—his baseball days would come to an end.
Art career By the end of the 1960s, René Moncada had relocated to New York City. Although lacking formal art schooling, he pursued his wishes of becoming an artist.
Earliest art employment included commercial work as paste-up artist, art director and illustrator. Men's magazines of the era based in New York provided regular work, including Gent, Dude, Nugget and Cheri.
Moncada also became a major contributor to Screw magazine, which provided an outlet for the artist's early erotic illustrations, and a forum for later anti-censorship diatribes.
Rene's Gallery René Moncada, by then married to wife Joanne, moved to SoHo in the mid-1970s. They rented the ground floor at 147 Wooster Street, which included the storefront, between Houston and Prince streets. René renovated the storefront space and opened it as Rene's Gallery in 1977. It would also sometimes be referred to as I Am The Best Artist gallery once René's signature murals had gained notoriety. The gallery was mostly used to showcase René's own work—"a monument to himself", as noted by John Strausbaugh in a 1990s New York Press cover story and interview. The artist was always available and anxious to discuss his work with visitors, and could often be found toiling with new artwork in the gallery. He also used the rear space as his studio. René naively thought opening his own gallery would earn entry into the burgeoning SoHo art set, and went about inviting neighboring gallery owners to come for studio visits or private viewings, but his invitations—and presence in general—went largely ignored. Regardless of art world disregard, René became a SoHo "fixture".
His gallery existed during a time when one could be walking the streets of SoHo aimlessly one minute and, following the sound of music and commotion emanating from any given window, enter and find oneself rubbing shoulders with a who's who of SoHo art luminaries the next minute. René himself may have been present for such festivities, identifiable in a denim jacket painted with his Best Artist "slogan", which he also emblazoned onto T-shirts and caps. He hosted such gatherings in his own gallery as well; it was the site of fashion shows, events by performance artists such as Annie Sprinkle, and exhibitions of artists such as Lennie Mace, whose exhibition publicity listed the gallery indistinctly as 147 Wooster Gallery. René's gallery was also listed internationally in guide books of Manhattan and SoHo during its existence. It was also sometimes rented for private parties, making SoHo ambience available to nonresidents.
René and Joanne Moncada lived in the space to the rear of the gallery. Side-stepping city ordinances prohibiting ground-floor residency, they constructed a second-floor sleeping loft above the gallery space. René kept the gallery open into 1999, when he and Joanne were pressured out of their long-time Wooster Street space. In 2001 the Moncadas relocated to Brooklyn.
I AM THE BEST ARTIST murals
René, who in later interviews described feeling "ignored" by the art community he felt he'd helped pioneer, decided to take matters into his own hands. Beginning in the late-1970s, René began painting a series of impressively sized murals on prominently located walls of SoHo, proclaiming I AM THE BEST ARTIST René to all who walked or drove past. The undertaking, however indirectly, placed René at the forefront of street artists of the era transforming the streets of SoHo's art district into an alternative exhibition venue.
René's ubiquitous declarations, spelled out in large, capital letters punctuated by his signature "René" written in a flowing font, became a topic of conversation and debate at the time, and provided a backdrop to photographs taken by a multitude of tourists, art students, advertising layouts in magazines worldwide and Hollywood films. The murals became icons not only of the neighborhood but of the era in general, when art became a profitable commodity and SoHo became its Wall Street. They were likened to effective advertising slogans and later recognized as an early act of "art provocation".
Mural locations were centered along the stretch of West Broadway between Houston Street and Canal Street. The most prominent mural, near the corner of Broome Street and West Broadway (pictured here), measured 10 feet by 50. The largest of the murals was located on a wall along the southwest corner of West Broadway where Grand Street intersects. This location appears in a montage sequence of the 1987 movie The Secret of My Success, among other iconic images of 1980s New York City in general, and SoHo in particular.
Conflict and criticism Although the murals became renowned, René himself remained an enigmatic figure to average passersby. Conflicts related to the murals attracted media attention, and lawsuits related to the murals raised legal discussion about intellectual property, artist's rights, and the First Amendment. René claims the art critic Robert Hughes once assured him directly that he was not, in fact, the best artist. An Artforum writer used an unrelated art review to shine a negative light on The Best Artist, calling René "untalented" and "unchic". Loss of long-time artist friends was another unfortunate consequence.
René always insisted permission was obtained from landlords to paint the murals, but requests were also sometimes refused, with some SoHo residents commenting that though a mural would be welcome, an I AM THE BEST ARTIST René mural would not be welcome. In the case of one refusal, Moncada painted the attendants' stand of the parking lot facing the declined property, getting permission from its owner instead. Vandals often defaced these walls with sarcastic embellishment such as "I Am The Best Fartist" or added simplistic commentary such as "I hate you". IATBA murals which may have been defaced would be faithfully repainted by René.
As the neighborhood went upscale and the value of blank wall space rose with property values, I AM THE BEST ARTIST René murals were one-by-one covered by billboards or otherwise destroyed. One was removed after the landlord demanded $500.00 per month to allow Moncada's mural to remain. René later adapted its abbreviation (IATBA) into a surname of sorts.
Mott's apple juice controversy During the 1970s, Moncada would become well known in New York art and sex scenes for his artistic representations of female genitalia, making the artist a some-time target of anti-pornographic groups over the years. An ability to pick out subliminally depicted labia from advertisements and elsewhere, whether actual or imagined, was exploited in a recurring magazine article in which René, dubbing himself "Nature's Ambassador", would point out occurrences of "the sacred image" peeking out from, as per one entry, sculptural elements found decorating New York's Central Park.
In the early 1980s, René noticed what seemed to him a subliminal image embedded within the label design of Mott's apple juice cans. The label, showing a detailed rendering of a halved apple, contained what René insisted was an obvious representation of a vagina. René created a painted replica of the can, similar to Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup artwork. With the full painting standing at 5-feet high, the small detail—otherwise unaltered by the artist—stood out that much more. Screw magazine featured a version of it on the cover of issue #725 and also reported related events which ensued.
René held an exhibition at his own gallery in 1983 showcasing his Mott's painting, among other related works. The artist invited Mott's representatives, fully aware of possible retribution, and welcoming it. René's "Big Apple Show" also displayed the letters sent to Mott's, and their replies. Everyone who attended the opening reception received a poster of René's painted rendition.
A 1981 Village Voice article titled "Apple of Temptation" covered René's Mott's artwork, and Playboy magazine included René in their annual "Year in Sex" review. Mott's redesigned the label soon thereafter, removing any hint of that to which René had drawn attention (pictured), and avoiding any presupposed corporate embarrassment.
René subsequently created many versions of apples with female genitalia as their core, including drawings, paintings, carvings and other 3-dimensional objects. One version of the apple titled Original Sin, hand-carved into 2-inch-thick wood, was included in the book Forbidden Art, an anthology of similarly themed artworks. René continued to feature vaginas prominently in his artwork—aware it may negatively affect sales and, therefore, gallery interest—even as other artists have achieved broader acceptability by painting euphemistic representations.
As for his use of vaginas in his artwork, René considers it "the purest image". "The shape is a basic structure, a universal image. It's in nature, you can find it everywhere," he explained to The Village Voice. To comments inferring its usage might be considered "monotonous" or "mono thematic", René points out that while others have come and gone, gaining attention by exploiting the image, his interest remains intact, claiming he is "not interested in being shocking and outrageous". In response to criticism contending René shouldn't expose images of a vagina to children, he explains that in this context children wouldn't even know what it is, and, if they did know, it's because someone else has already shown them what it is. "If the kid recognizes it as something bad—obscene, disgusting—it's because somebody put this idea into his head already."
Sex and Violence René Moncada's predilection for rendering female genitalia culminated in the creation of one of the artist's most infamous images. Created, in René's words, "to liberate art from the dictatorship of religion," Sex and Violence very simply depicted a Christian cross with a vagina at its center. The artist himself conceded to the controversial nature of his own creation, while separately joking about it as a "piece" symbol.
A manifesto printed as a full page in SCREW magazine outlined Rene's ambitions for Sex and Violence.