Carlos Huergo graduated in Mathematics from the University of Havana. In 1990, his mother suddenly passed away while he was in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) pursuing studies as part of exchange programs between Eastern Bloc countries. It was then that he began to exhibit severe behavioral disorders, marked by aggressive attitudes toward his school colleagues. He had to be repatriated to Cuba under sedation and in a straitjacket. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he was admitted to hospital. Shortly after the onset of his illness, he began to draw. He worked mainly on cardboard packaging and sometimes on pieces of wooden tables. His paintings incorporate a multitude of signs, languages, codes, and mathematical—even Kabbalistic—formulas; he claimed to have been initiated into Kabbalah. The history of his country is omnipresent in his work, but it also expresses, more or less covertly, the pain of his existence, exacerbated by a political regime that oppresses him.

12 minutes . produced by abcd & Système B 2020