Arturo Herrera
Sala TAC. Trasnocho cultural – Caracas, Sikkema Jenkins – New York
After a long wait, Venezuela witnessed the first solo show of Arturo Herrera (Caracas, 1959), an artist trained in the U.S.A. and currently living in Berlin. The exhibition is a collaborative effort between Sala TAC in Caracas and Sikkema Jenkins Gallery, New York. The show, comprised of twenty-four works, featured the recent produc- tion of this artist, who has always shown an interest in the processes of image fragmentation, disintegration of forms, and inquiry into the pos- sibilities of collage.
For this exhibit Herrera created a seven-meter mural constituted by four elements, in which he presented proposals involving the process of object recycling − a consequence of contempt for used objects. His strat- egy is to re-utilize the negative that has been discard- ed to create the positive. Thus, he combined a new vision of the landscape by superimposing planes on the surfaces, manipulating them, and incorporating new spaces to the multiple surfaces created.
In another area of the exhibition, he infused new life into discarded industrial elements, such as brass, or to elements discarded by mechanical processes, such as felt. Herrera fragments, cuts, and then joins together what has previously been eliminated, in an action that revalues that which we had previously disdained. This is part of the voracity of industry, but also of technology advancements that make us cast aside recent objects when newer materials or technical inno- vations appear. It is a cycle that will never end, and that transforms recent objects into archaeological ones, and humans into victims of a technology that will ultimately never make them happy. There are no feelings; only mercantil- ism. Man becomes a slave of each innovation.
