This iconic painting was featured on the cover of José Lerma's 2018 monograph, titled Pintor Interesante. The painting debuted in the exhibition Nunquam Prandium Liberum at Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago.

Nunquam Prandium Liberum is a Latin translation of “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Economist Milton Friedman’s favorite adage and a foundational axiom for 20th century libertarian theory, it implies the impossibility of getting something for nothing, a concept we are often confronted with when forced by circumstance to permit abuses of power.

For Nunquam Prandium Liberum, Jose Lerma transformed the gallery into a version of heaven based on Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s 1757 fresco, Allegory of Merit Accompanied by Nobility and Virtue. This work, commissioned by the Rezzonico family for the Ca’Rezzonico Plazzo in Venice, intertwines the figures of Merit, Nobility, Virtue and Tiepolo’s benefactors as they ascend to heaven, implying a correlation between wealth and virtue. Lerma’s 1980s dot-matrix paper and security envelope patterns provide a powder blue sky, and a low-lying fog alludes to a celestial haze. Paintings of the artist’s parents and a Mercedes hang on slowly rotating mobiles in the space, giving both the status symbol and its beneficiaries the appearance of heavenly ascent. An oversized white Guayabera shirt (traditionally worn by captains of industry in Puerto Rico, Lerma’s childhood home) is moved up and down by a sex machine, turning it into an angel.