HAMLET LAVASTIDA AND JUAN MIGUEL POZO CRUZ IN COLLABORATION

Addressing critical issues such as cultural policy, design, public sphere, archaeology, and historiography, Sociograms, the exhibition featuring works by Hamlet Lavastida and Juan Miguel Pozo at Dot Fiftyone gallery, invites viewers to explore the intricate layers of societal narratives.

Sociograms are structures and graphic representations that, from a presumed scientific perspective, seek to diagnose and provide statistics on various specific social groups of interest. The use of these structures is widely prevalent in societies with a political and policing character, such as the case of the defunct German Democratic Republic or Cuban society itself, from 1959 to the present. Security and intelligence apparatuses have employed this methodology to graph and establish disciplinary, administrative, and containment strategies for those groups perceived as dissenting or apathetic to their management.

The striking aspect of these methodologies is their complete inaccuracy and hypothetical nature in their scientific approach to social realities. In any case, they turn out to be perceptual representations of estimates of what political bureaucracy instructs or desires, rather than reflecting actual realities. Frequently, sociograms are tools of appreciation that sustain distorted criteria. In summary, they are eminently abstract representations situated outside any scientific tangibility; a political geometry game based on previously oriented statistics that ultimately influences as a form of social falsification.

Sociograms, as an exhibition of visual arts, aims to establish a conversation between two artistic practices that have been influenced by these pseudo-scientific mechanisms of representing society. It is an exercise in representations of that which has been repealed in past societies but still exists in present-day societies.

Hamlet Lavastida, born in Havana, Cuba in 1983, stands as a prominent figure among the influential Latin American artists of the younger generation. A catalyst for change and a fervent advocate for free expression, Lavastida played a pivotal role in spearheading the 27-N democracy movement, a collective of independent artists and writers in Cuba. In 2021, this movement ignited the largest mass protests in Cuban cultural history, challenging the rhetoric and propaganda employed by the government.

Juan Miguel Pozo Cruz was born in 1967 in Holguin, Cuba. While studying art at the University of Havana, his talent caught the eye of a German journalist in 1994, drawing the support of artists such as Konrad Klapheck. Advocating for Pozo's scholarship at the Art Academy Düsseldorf in Germany, these artists facilitated his emigration to Germany, where he has resided since 2003.

Sociograms. Exhibition by Hamlet Lavestida and Juan Miguel Pozo Cruz.

Until January 30, 2024.

Doy Fiftyone Gallery. 7275 NE 4th Ave. #101, Miami, United States.