Painting (Painting)

Federico Herrero’s energetic paintings reflect his experiences on the streets of his native San José, Costa Rica, and in the surrounding tropical landscape. Rooted in Central American folklore, politics, and culture, his works often move beyond the canvas onto the wall or into the streets. In Á rbol y Pelicao (Tree and Pelican, 2009), a tree with cartoonlike creatures drawn in pen beside it emerges from a field of bright swaths of color.

Photography (Photography)

This early photographic work by Fre?de?ric Nauczyciel, titled Untitled (Boîte à prière, Istanbul, Novembre 2005) , features a young man in religious attire reading a religious text from inside a glass prayer box. Seemingly truncated by the shadows cast upon his seated position, the man is dramatically illuminated by a white neon light above. The harsh synthetic light reflects off of the man’s white robe and the glass box to create a haunting, artificial glow.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

In 1978, Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville made the TV series: “France / tour / detour / two / children”, in which they aimed to identify the lifestyle of French people in 12 episodes of 26 minutes each. On each episode a little boy and girl are firstly asked about their daily lives. By broadening the scope of the interview, the questions of Godard and Mieville gradually bring the protagonists to think of themselves as subjects in the history of the world, to “live and see themselves on television” with a critical point of view.

Painting (Painting)

Francisco Herrero Peñuela uses old forms to make his elaborate, richly textured surfaces. Practicing a form of marquetry common in 15th century Italy—intarsia—Peñuela pieces together fragments of wood to create abstract images in warm tones of gold, brown, and black. While original Italian intarsia would have been representational, embedding landscapes, objects, and narrative scenes directly into walls, Peñuela’s compositions hedge away from direct representation, with shapes and pattern emerging organically out of his carefully arranged wooden pieces.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Las Bambas by Elena Tejada-Herrera takes the name of a copper mine in the Andean department of Apurímac, Peru. The operations of this mining project were resisted by the local peasant communities, whose protests forced it to paralyze its operations. As of 2023, this is the most serious unresolved social conflict in the country.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

As an artist Francisco Camacho Herrera seeks ways in which his work can exist within, and challenge, official social channels. His practice revolves around the possibility of art to bear practical effects on cultural assumptions and reflects on redefining common concepts that can lead art to change the ways in which we conceive society. Camacho Herrera speculated that Chinese sailors might have reached the Americas by crossing the Pacific Ocean before the arrival of the Spanish in the late 15th century.