M’è verde il naufragare in questo mare
«It will be a big green sea, a saturation in green». That is what Abel Herrero told me the first time he described the painting he was working on for Salone delle Pietre. In fact Green motion – the title of the piece – follows the artist’s compositional principle he has experimented at least since 2008 with Black motion, followed in recent years by series like Yellow motion and Magenta motion…
Éter
Éter è il nome della serie di dipinti di grandi dimensioni realizzati appositamente per i suggestivi spazi degli Ipogei Motta di Matera. Con questa serie Herrero si avvicina al sacro attraverso la figura di Pier Paolo Pasolini e l’iconica immagine del Cristo del Vangelo secondo Matteo, film girato dal poeta proprio in questa città nel 1964. Una riflessione sull’attualità e l’implicita conflittualità di questo simbolo dell’iconografia pasoliniana, concentrando il lavoro su specifiche inquadrature del volto di Cristo, fotogrammi in bianco e nero della pellicola, riportati su tela saturati al magenta.
Cristi moltiplicati
Andrea Cortellessa
Installation of 8 synchronized video and soundtrack
Removed
Whit a series of large paintings, on the occasion of the centenary of the Russian revolution, Herrero presents a series of 15 portraits of Russian intellectuals, who were persecuted and killed during the Stalinist era. The theme of incarceration and destruction of art and freedom of thought by the political authority is the theme of brutality against fragility and these subjects are the symbol of the price paid for the simple fact of being free thinkers.
Removed in History
Eugenio Viola en | it
Ideology and exile. Abel Herrero
Demetrio Paparoni en | it
Los fantasmas viven y sobreviven en las imágenes
Rafael Acosta de Arriba
Removed: una aventura de regreso
Victor Fowler
Elettri città
Herrero presents a series of unreleased works, devising a dialogue between two-dimensional and three-dimensional realities. In his recent solo show in Reggio Emilia, curated by Bruno Corà, he chose to show big paintings connected to natural elements as metaphors of the contemporary human condition, creating a site specific installation for the historical complex of St. Peter Cloisters. Now, Herrero is pursuing his work in Rome by introducing the physical and atmospheric phenomena which occurs in a deeply urbanized environment, like the typical Roman suburb where the gallery is located. This time, the artist’s proposal not only provides metaphors of the daily routine, but also intends to honor the recently deceased Walter De Maria.
Despite the use of different media, Abel Herrero’s artistic production has many matching points with Walter De Maria’s procession practices. Above all, they both share the same approach to the physical world, searching for empathy with Nature. The common objective is the revealing of the features that make the individual an architect- viewer, or rather a medium between two aims. Herrero presents two big works on canvas in which the visual effect is an abstract-figurative painting, dedicated to the formal search as well as the creative process dimension. Moreover, the “save up” system in the use of matter and in the painting process is a symbolic act of humility towards the physica; the world and the exuberant nature. In addition to the paintings there will be on display the Vasi Comunicanti through which the artist creates an interaction between physical and metaphysical reality, taking advantage of a geological matter such as marble as a container.
