Arturo Herrera

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. is proud to present an exhibition of new work by Arturo Herrera, on view in the back galleries from November 21, 2020, through January 23, 2021.

Throughout his career, Arturo Herrera has developed a diverse body of work (most prominently collage, felt sculpture, and wall painting) that references the complex legacy of abstraction using modernist strategies of fragmentation, re-composition, and repetition. His pieces often employ found material and incorporate figures and imagery derived from popular culture, prompting a multiplicity of references and readings for viewers to interpret.

Herrera’s work often plays with the generative tension between what is revealed and what is concealed. “By obscuring parts of an image, we are seeing less but expanding our idea of what is missing. The less that the image reveals, the more we can expand it.” This concept is manifested in Herrera’s new mixed media works on paper that straddle the mediums of painting and collage, and is extended via sections of wallpaper installed through the gallery.

The collage works are accompanied by a series of glass “drawings.” These monochromatic glass pieces are inspired by the spatial formations of dance—the delicate tracings evoke the movements and lines of bodily motion and choreography.

Arturo Herrera (b. 1959, Caracas, Venezuela) received a BFA from the University of Tulsa and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Herrera’s most recent site specific installations can be found at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami; Officine Grandi Riparazioni / OGR in Turin; and Bloomberg European Headquarters in London. In 2016, the Tate Modern commissioned Herrera to create a long-term wall painting for the sixth-floor restaurant. A wall installation was also recently acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago for their permanent collection. His work is also in the collection of the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and many others. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, ArtPace San Antonio, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the DAAD, Berlin. Herrera lives and works in Berlin.