Arturo Herrera

BORCHs Butik is proud to present graphic works by Venezuelan artist Arturo Herrera.

Arturo Herrera’s prints pay tribute to the history of dance by taking as a starting point the publication Danse (Masques, Paris, 1947) of photographs by the Russian-French Serge Lido. Herrera lay found objects from the Niels Borch Jensen print shop such as strings and twisted strips of metal over transparencies of the photographs to create collages made without cutting or glueing, and in doing so pushing the possibilities of collage further through the print medium. As in his earlier works based on dance such as Les Noces (2007), Herrera joins a number of images together, collaging the photogravures into a performance of their own that extends the narrative from one frame to nine, from the ballet pose held in a fleeting instant, to multiple poses strung together to be experienced over the time we linger with them as viewers.

Herrera’s interventions revive Lido’s forgotten portraits of ballet and brings a new resonance and response to the work, an apt impetus considering that ballet, rehearsals and performances are never seen or danced in the same way again, and can only be appreciated and momentarily experienced in the aftermath through photography, film, and in this instance, collage. Herrera re-frames these precious moments in time through his transformative series of photogravure collages.

In his work, Herrera interweaves fragments of found images, undoing the linearity of their pre-existing narratives, into collages of varying mediums. Familiar forms within the collages spark recognition in our memories, enticing us into the artworks only to find that although we connect with the pieces, they are nevertheless enigmatic. Herrera seeks to clarify through ambiguity, opening up possibilities by uprooting references: as the artist says, his work is ‘a bridge, but it is paved with the viewer’s own references and associations.’ The subjective overpowers the objective in the artist’s new constructions of moments in time and experience.