Alex Hernández is in the habit of questioning what we look at and what we see. He is interested in investigating the functioning of our cultural responses and in generating an allegorical object to the web of industries that hides behind the various human identities. In a time marked by the voluptuousness of information, he proposes to reflect on the laxity of our consciousness.

Reflejo Condicionado is a para-scientific essay whose objective is to delve into the cultural manipulation of our perceptions. The artist immerses us in a vivid scenario marked by parallels between the specialized training of a dog, the education of children at a very early age and the didactics of power. Once inside, he poses incisive questions about human psychology and invites us to reflect on one of the most relevant issues of the contemporary world: the implementation of social engineering for the control of the masses. In his inquiries he has based himself on Pavlov's Experiment, considered to date the most complete work ever done on conditioned reflexes. The selection of annotations, images, devices and subtle sensory experiments that he presents revolves around the biopolitics of knowledge and the senses.

Alex dislocates and strains the languages of art, feeds once again on the interdisciplinary, moves to the participatory, even to the performative. His line of work connects with the social alchemy developed by the South Korean artist Anicka Yi or the explorations of the subconscious undertaken by the Americans Matthew Barney and Darren Bader. In his practice, Conceptual Art is nothing more than an instrument that allows him to place on the table, with a neatness worthy of a surgeon, the body of an aesthetic that has been perverted as an object of power and domination. 

One detail calls special attention in this exhibition: as part of his research, the artist reminds us that red has no place in the spectrum of colors visible to dogs. A scientific fact that in his hands is charged with double meaning and becomes a sign of an era marked by a strong ideological skepticism. In this way Alex Hernandez transcends certain traditional practice within Cuban contemporary art, based on cynicism and uncertainty. Without beating around the bush, with an objective and frontal perspective, he invites us to take sides in defense of our perceptions, our individuality and our conscience. 

Luis Sicre