[Fragments from the Praise, National Museum of Fine Arts, December 17, 2014]
(…)The satirical boost of Saavedra’s work does not go as far as to darken his capacity to express himself in dramatic tones. His use of sarcasm, at times dumped towards fatuities in the very field of art, turns him into a fundamental artist, when it has to do with understanding a process occurring in our visual arts since the final decades of the last century: the exchange and transfer of ideas, languages and topics, between painting and drawing, on one side, and comic strips and caricature on the other.
Saavedra’s humor settles in a critical capacity not damaged by the years. In drawings, performances, paintings, animations and videos, he reveals himself as an implacable lasher of social evils, double morality and dogmatism. The editorial tone, as a report, deeply documented and assisted by an overwhelming logic, is characteristic of his work. His interest in immediacy, in day by day events, balances with a tempered creativity on research and analysis. (…) In his path of more than three decades, Saavedra has accumulated an enviable patrimony: a work which allows itself the freedom of expressing an opinion on what is immediate with the haste and sharpness attributed to the best critical journalism and which systematically invites to reflection while advancing arguments and doubts having to do with universal, transcendental, significant topics over and above a restricted social, cultural or historical context. His work adds a required element to the diversity of the Cuban and international artistic scene and it does it with ease, with much openness, and without mannerisms. (…)
