Jorge Rodríguez Diez

Jorge Rodríguez Diez (R10) is an art critic, curator and designer based in Cincinnati, born in Havana, Cuba, in 1969. A specialist in visual communication, he is a leading voice in visual culture and the reading of its narratives — a practice he exercises every week as a critic and in the exhibitions he curates.

He is Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Annex Gallery in Cincinnati, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Annex Updated, and Curator-at-large of Gallery Jenseits in Mount Adams, Cincinnati. From 2022 to 2026 he was at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas (MoCAA) in Kendall, Miami — first as Executive Director, then as Chief Curator — where he curated 22 exhibitions. He writes about art, photography and visual culture in Echoes, his bilingual journal, and advises the Coral Gables Museum and private collecting initiatives.

Behind the critic are more than three decades of design. He trained as an illustrator and graphic artist at the Instituto Politécnico de Diseño Informacional (1988) and earned his degree in Visual Communication Design at Havana’s Instituto Superior de Diseño (ISDI) in 1995, where he went on to teach semiotics, typography and editorial design (2005–2007). As senior designer at the National Council for the Visual Arts (CNAP) he created the identity and promotion of the 10th Havana Biennial and the editorial profile of ArteSur magazine.

In 2006 he founded R10 Studio, a creative consultancy and design practice devoted to cultural and corporate communication. The studio has worked extensively with leading Cuban institutions — the Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales, CNAP, ArteCubano Ediciones and the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center — on publications, exhibition identities and complex design systems, as well as with the British Council and the European Union Delegation in Havana. For two decades (2000–2021) he was also creative director and lead designer for the Goethe-Institut in Havana.

As a visual artist

As an artist, R10 has had solo exhibitions in Havana, Madrid, New York, Cincinnati and Baku, Azerbaijan, and has taken part in more than one hundred group exhibitions worldwide. Several of his works have been sold through Christie’s.

His artistic practice deepens his understanding of the image as both message and medium — an understanding he brings to every project, whether academic, editorial, curatorial or commercial.