José Rodeiro Communicative Behavior, 18" x 24," watercolor, 2004. (Property of Oscar B. Cintas Foundation) The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, Florida.

This watercolor examines Jurgen Habermas’s Neo-Marxist theory of communicative behavior, which supports and fosters Habermasian “ideal speech situations," which encourage "fair play" in all discourses, without fear, allowing questions. Rodeiro sincerely believes that this type of Frankfort School of Social Research communicative-method and its concomitant political correctness dogma is responsible for America’s mounting lack of knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom. Hence, Rodeiro’s Communicative Behavior watercolor is a hilarious pun on online-dating, the inability to communicate (despite a plethora of communication-devices), and the current lack of High-Romanticism in our daily-life. The work is a 21st Century “Garden-of-Eden,” where Adam and Eve perpetually wear clothing (“the Genesis-mark of awareness”) as they attempt online-sex -- inches away from each other, A print of Picasso’s Harlequin (Commedia dell'arte) hangs on the wall. A subtle, yet enormous head of Ché assumes the role of Eden’s demonic tempter; as forbidden fruit rest on Eve’s night-table.