The Cuban artist Hamlet Lavastida, who was born in Havana and currently lives and works in Berlin, talks in his interview about the central message of his artistic work.
Hamlet, please describe the core theme and the central message of your work.
My work tries to understand cultural and historical omission by the political elites. In a way, my artistic practices intends to reactivate in a critical way a visual essay about political and linguistic memory of the post-soviet behaviour into our daily live.
Ausstellungsansicht “Hamlet Lavastida – Two Two Three Nine“, Crone Berlin,
Courtesy: Galerie Crone, Berlin Wien, Foto: Uwe Walter , Berlin
This is something that is even more present today. We notice how “homo sovieticus” misconducts are reaching and destabilizing Europe. In this respect, the research that I undertook with my artistic works has an unbelievable persistence. I think it is a cultural and political diagnosis of all conditions and ways. It doesn’t matter if I focus on Angola, Germany, Cuba, Poland or Ukraine, the “homo sovieticus” is still there.
Hamlet Lavastida, Courtesy of Galerie Crone, Photo: Mathias Bildstein, Wien
Introduce us to the work that, in your view, exemplifies or best embodies the message of your work. What is the aim of your art, your work, what is it supposed to achieve in the viewer?
I mean in one sentence I think my work is about memory. One word: Memory. And to build that memory you need to create or rediscover this condition that I was called the archive. It´s based in that: research, memory and archive. I think, this it is.
THE DEED | THE WORK is a complementary and separately presented part of THE INTERVIEW IN|DEEDS with Hamlet Lavastida.
This post is also available in: Deutsch