Lázaro Saavedra has created a style in which rationality and analytical rigor come together with a dose of passion, a ludic tone and a material and morphological eclecticism.
Thus, this style approaches the postmodern liking for mixtures. Lázaro is, above all, a satyr, an implacable censor of social evils, a champion of ethics; and, at the same time, a “conceptualist” of peculiar lineage: he systematically subordinates means to ideas; he exerts rigorous control over the final appearance of each part and the whole of his work; he is not unwilling to find support in didactic resources (texts, diagrams, press cuttings) if that will grant him more conviction force.
His work is the result of a very sharp and logical thought that enables him to give almost immediate answers (having previously accumulated data) to the most hazardous daily events.
That immediacy is a simple language, of absurd and at times disconcerting solutions; it offers poor solutions, which (together with the constant humoristic game) contribute to lighten the density of his discourse.
The fact that such an artist, to whom art is not in the least separated from the vital experience, dedicates a work to consecrate Joseph Beuys should not surprise us.
Beuys’ profound influence on the art of our times is equally valid for several of the most active Cuban artists today.
Particularly for those who, like Lázaro, see in the German artist the sculptor interested in modeling his society positively.
That Beuys (a bit of reality and another bit of legend), tormented by all the wounds of the world and by how to find the way to soothe them; concerned with ecology and peace; polemist; passionate and challenging… That Beuys, who sustained (with his life, which in the end was his work) the idea that “everything is in a state of change”, is precisely the man (the artist) in front of whom our small mean actions, our need of faith and all our ambitions are also revealed this time. Of course, deep down it is another joke of Saavedra’s…
Antonio Eligio Fernández (Tonel)1 Fernández, Antonio Eligio: “Lázaro Saavedra”, in the catalog to the exhibition Kuba OK, April 4 – May 13, 1990, p.108.