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ARTURO HERRERA:
Collage is something

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that you could do very inexpensively.

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When I started I had no space.

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You know uh, money was tight 
and so this allowed me to,

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to move forward without the elements
that are required like canvases, brushes. 


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You need Xacto blade, scissors, 
uh, glue and, and paper.

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It was accessible, it was 
uh, in the studio and um,

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you could actually do it on a 
table with very little resources.

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This pile had been added for many years.

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When one thing was uh,

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at the beginning easily 
recognizable as a foot or as a hat,

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now it’s just become just a shape of color.

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You have the, in the pile of 
fragments there is huge variety,

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handmade and also found.

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This is from one of my 
drawings from a printed book.

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Here is paper from coloring books.

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This is a water color shape, 
acrylic on paper, crayon and ink,

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construction paper, printed paper.

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Finger painting or paint 
directly applied from the tube.

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Uh, crayon also.

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Marbleized paper.

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Paint-by-numbers found in a secondhand shop,

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here you see is very old.

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And I’m interested in how can an 
image that is so well composed

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and it’s so clear and it’s so objective uh,


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it’s made out of this disparate fragments.

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Glued, forced to be together to create uh,

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image that will have a different reading from

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what the fragments you know uh, say.

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Structure is a preoccupation of mine.

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I’m always looking for something 
that will hold the image into place.

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What I want to create is basically an image

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that has you know aesthetic 
and also this conceptual power.

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The world of cartoons and animation 
is now a universal language.

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And I think everybody has specific memories
to specific characters uh, or stories.

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The idea of memory with images 
of childhood or images of uh,

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that are represented in the, you know,
pop culture are as important as any other image.

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So people seem to have very 
strong attachments to those.

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I think being Latin American you’re,

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you’re made up of so many 
fragments from different cultures.

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Being from Venezuela you are a mixture of things.

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I mean you’re both uh, from the region

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and you’re also North American, 
South American, Central American.

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So you’re American.

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And being there you know that you’re 
part of the European tradition

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and the American tradition.

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It was totally uh, natural for 
us to shift from you know uh,

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from going from a European film to uh,

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a samba concert, uh,

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from a Walt Disney cartoon 
festival to uh, to folk…

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folkloristic dancing from Venezuela.

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So it was all very natural.

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It was a, it was never any kind of division about

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what consisted in high culture or low culture.

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So we, I think everybody in 
Latin America takes everything

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because you know that you 
are just a mixture of things.

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Moving to a new country and 
now living in Berlin is, uh,

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allows you to uh, try new things.

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The beginning when I moved here was difficult,

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because I wanted to keep working with the same,

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at the same rhythm as I was working in New York.

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Producing, producing, working, 
producing without thinking too much.

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And here it’s the other, it’s the opposite way.

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There’s more time to think, there’s more 
time to reflect on what you’re doing.

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I trying to use the camera lens as a,

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as a blade that cuts rectangular 
fragments from my own drawings.

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And then once the roll is done,
then I put it into water.

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And that’s what another 
much, much more specific uh,

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way of chance happens.

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And um, the way the water slips into the film

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and if it’s hot water or cold or 
coffee or you know, with ice cubes,

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then that will effect the emulsion on the film.

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It’s interesting to me after I 
did the photographs is that um,

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images that I thought that were already finished

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and that paper form and its collages 
have a complete different life now.

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Life is made of just connecting things.

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We’re not really clear 
about why we connect things.

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Our emotional life is you know 
a very important part of this.

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And I think that memory is also a very 
important part of this and desire.

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So when looking at visual images,

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you could actually be 
informed by association only.

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It’s satisfying to see them for 
the first time up on the wall.

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And the whole tone quality 
is almost like graphite.

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It’s almost like drawing.

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Usually photography is so much about 
perfect blacks and whites and uh,

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these are really about perfect grays.

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So I’m interested in this kind 
of ambiguity about the images.

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And they’re clearly based on fragments

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and they’re being juxtaposed as 
opposed to being forced to be together.

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And yet they’re just abstractions.

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I think there is a potential 
for these images to communicate

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different things to different viewers uh,

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in a very touching way. Uh, but that 
experience is not a public experiences,

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it’s a very, very private

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and it’s very, very personal.

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My interest in wall paintings is that

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it takes the imagery to a larger scale

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and provides a different kind 
of impact for the viewer.

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Well this is the template for the 
painter who executed the wall painting.

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The drawing is to scale.

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Every shape has been identified with a color.

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The numbers correspond to the Pantone colors.

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Any paint stored will be able to reproduce them.

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The wall painter will uh, transfer 
these lines onto the wall directly.

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And then he will just follow the 
template to paint color by color.

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It’s a little bit peculiar 
because the final result,

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you really have no idea 
until you are finished there.

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I tend to take into consideration the 
space where the paintings will be placed.

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The wall painting for the museum 
in Santiago de Compostela,

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it’s a different set of circumstances

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because the architecture is very prominent.

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Never done this before where 
an image has uh, could see the…

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only be seen from the upper galleries

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and then you can actually go 
down and see it from, from below.

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Uh, so it’s an interesting challenge and uh,

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the image is, comes from one of the collages uh,

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and it’s going to be done by a professional, uh,

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sign painter of movie posters uh, from Madrid.

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What I’m working on right now is trying 
to give very simple instructions,

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preliminary instructions to the painter.

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So it actually helps to have this 
file here to be able to think

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and reconsider different aspects,

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to tell the painter what to do exactly

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because I’m not going to be there 
when he executes this piece.

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I have never done a piece that is in a 
space that is actually dissected like this,

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and with two unusual elements in it 
which is a window door on the wall,

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where the wall painting will be executed

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and then a bridge that connects 
the galleries into that window.

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So I don’t know what the effect will be

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and so I’m hoping that all the 
elements and the imagery itself

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will also convey some kind of 
connection with the architecture.

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Santiago is such an important 
place for pilgrimage.

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There is so much history there.

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But the museum is very close to the cathedral.

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So it’s a very charged city.

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The wall painting actually has 
these references to movement,

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upwards or downward,

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which is interesting to me because in Santiago,

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people come with lots of 
hopes and ideas, memories.

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They go there looking for something which,

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in a sense, it’s a very spiritual connection.

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That maybe is what allowed me to take that image
and to bring it into Santiago.

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I think it’s still potential 
for abstraction to become

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a viable language of visual communication.

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The same thing with collage.

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I think we need to explore 
what else they could do.

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Going to continue, see what I could 
say with this, with this language.

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The longer you work a thing the more 
possibilities you have of creating something.

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It just comes through,

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at least with my case it doesn’t come through uh,

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divine touch, it just comes through just work.