“Penitenciary Republic” is the award-winning project by the Cuban artist, which will be displayed at the idealista stand at SIMA (Madrid Real Estate Fair) from May 26 to 29. Lastida is one of the most influential Cuban artists and most persecuted by the Castro regime. He was banished from the island in 2021 for his fight for civil rights and democratization of the regime.
Madrid, May 23, 2022.- Cuban artist Hamlet Lavastida (Havana, 1983) is the winner of the fourth edition of the idealista Contemporary Art Award 2022 with his project “República Penitenciaria”. The award grants a monetary prize and the artist's participation with his work in idealista spaces at the real estate fairs in which the company participates. Specifically, Lavastida will show the award-winning project by idealista at the stand that this company will exhibit at the next Madrid Real Estate Fair (SIMA) from May 26 to 29.
The artist will present the project “Penitenciary Republic,” a reflection that focuses on certain notions of ideological language within the Cuban context. Issues such as cultural policy, design, public sphere, archaeology and historiography are addressed from different media such as video, collages, performances, public interventions and installations.
For Lavastida, his work “has to do with a fundamental thesis, which is historical memory. It deals with the understanding of Cuban history, but also its connections with the world of socialism, with the Soviet Union and all these ties that the memory of Cuban socialism itself reveals. It also tries to talk about the Cuban government, which has been in place for almost 70 years, and to fight against cultural stereotypes that do not reflect reality. Within the cultural field, repression has been vast and harsh, and someone has to comment on it. I do it from an artistic point of view, I think it is a way of making a visual essay on those other stories that have not yet been told or announced.”
The exhibition, curated by Elisa Hernando and coordinated by Arte Global, consists of 21 illustrations of a selection of architectural structures used by the penitentiary system administered by the Ministry of the Interior MININT to confine the prison population in Cuba, which includes not only common crimes but are the penitentiary centers where the Cuban regime has imprisoned political prisoners, artists, intellectuals and cultural personalities critical of the regime for the last six decades. Lavastida unwittingly developed this project and was eventually imprisoned in 2021 in one of these centers, in retaliation for his public exhibition as an artist demanding the opening of rights and freedoms in Cuba.
The idealista Contemporary Art Award is an initiative of the leading real estate marketplace in Spain, Italy and Portugal with which the company wants to recognize the talent and vision of young creators and tries to promote and support contemporary artistic production. In its first edition, 2018, the award went to the Basque artist Ismael Iglesias (Durango 1974), with the work "Streetfighter"; the second, in 2019, was won by the Huesca artist David Latorre with his project "Arquitectura, Cuerpo e Indumentaria"; in 2020 there was no call for entries due to the pandemic and in 2021 Jorge Yeregui won the award for "Communities". Lavastida is the new artist awarded with the idealista 2022 award.
Why the Idealist Prize
idealista has been supporting national and international artists for years and promoting the artistic production of contemporary art by acquiring works of art that reflect the impact of “urbanism” on people’s lives. Its collection includes pieces by authors such as Panos Kokkinias (Athens, Greece, 1965), Teresa Margolles (Culiacán, Mexico, 1963), Maider López (San Sebastián, Spain, 1975), Olaf Breuning (Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1970) and Massimo Vitali (Como, Italy, 1944). The works are part of an itinerant route between the company’s offices in Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid, Málaga and Milan. For the creation of the “idealista Award” and the coordination of the award in future editions, idealista has selected Elisa Hernando, director of Arte Global, who has curated the intervention that Hamlet Lavastida will carry out at SIMA Madrid.
About Global Art
Arte Global is an international art consultancy dedicated to art collecting and cultural management projects for institutions, companies and individuals. Founded in 2003 by Elisa Hernando, Arte Global has reference clients such as Uría Menéndez Abogados, Fundación Banco Santander, ARCOmadrid, Repsol, idealista, among others.