Arturo Herrera
31 March - 20 May 2007
From Disney to Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism, Arturo Herrera’s work plunders the visual languages of the 20th century – extending its exploration of the unconscious and its representation.
This was one of two debut major exhibitions of Venezuelan artist Arturo Herrera in the UK – happening simultaneously in Cambridge and Birmingham. The exhibition of his recent work at Kettle’s Yard centred on a series of photographs made in 2004, and included large scale collages, prints and sculpture.
In this exhibition, Herrera’s language was one of disconnected fragments, isolated in photographs and combined in collages where Snow White or Jimminey Cricket could be glimpsed through a mesh of abstract marks. Ironically, his black and white photographs, while depicting the visible world, were his simplest, most abstract and enigmatic images. His collages were the most complex – hybrids of sliced and spliced images and memories, cut loose from their moorings, encrypted, and reconfigured as images of – and for – our unconscious minds at play.
A parallel exhibition, which included a new 5-part film installation, was on view at IKON Gallery, Birmingham, from 28 March – 20 May 2007.