Entering Galiano Gallery and facing Lázaro Saavedra’s work involves questioning the confrontation of before and after, because it is pleasant and curious to confirm this artist have kept same concerns and issues for over 20 years. But this does not mean that certain tautology is present in Saavedra’s work; far from it, his first pieces set a visual way that makes all of his work qualitatively grow and they would indicate early maturity.
His recent exhibition Añejo 27, included within the activities to mark the Sixth Salon of Contemporary Cuban Art, offers a variety of drawings and caricatures that Lázaro Saavedra did from 1987 to 1988 for his graduation thesis at ISA. The presented pieces are distinguished by their fragmented sense, so that engages with each other, without precise beginning or end; ultimately all pieces become the work that gives this exhibition a single meaning.
Common concerns of artists in the 80´s are evoked con Saavedra’s peculiars ways, who builds a metanarrative of surround environment. The artist is also situated within his own context and evokes the paradoxes of the academy where he trained.
So he satirizes his own briefings from didacticism in his reference to the manufacture of his pieces, the history of art or the split between form and content. But his way of representing translates a much textual aesthetic than a visual one; hence his characters explicit thoughts and like problematizing, cracking the order in their dialogues-and monologues. Undoubtedly Saavedra turns conflict into a caricature of his generation, a kind of visual diversionism (a very serious way to take them into account).
Moreover, Saavedra’s irreverent desire tries to cover all social and aesthetic orders. His allusion to restrictions, censorship and political institutions dynamics manages to evade bans to dissect the logic of those estates; fact that makes his pieces reflects the latest 80s certainties. This creator, perhaps unwittingly anticipates always from the ideologemas fragility that broke over the next decade.
Lázaro Saavedra’s strong artistic personality overflows into the game with his own identity and self mockery of deep existential depth, but his interest lies in demolishing the iconic when disposing fixed formulas and get rid of the illusion of art, of everything that can be taken as serious. He seems to say that there is no safe place that everything we know can be put on a trial.
If we approach Saavedra’s amusement and understand the concept declining in each piece, then we validate the questions of an artist who 27 years ago found his own voice.
