Hernán Salamanco: Producing Meaning
Part Two: At Yerua Taller
The first part of our conversation with Hernán Salamanco took place at Herlitzka & Co. during his solo exhibition Ojo de Agua. During that initial exchange, we discussed his artistic practice, the materiality of painting, and the artist's place within the contemporary cultural landscape. You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel.
Several months later, we met again — this time at Yerua Taller, his studio in the La Paternal neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Between our two encounters, new questions kept emerging: about craft and time, artistic education, the art market, the balance between intuition and control, and how an artist today produces not only images, but meaning.
This second meeting became a natural continuation of our first conversation — more reflective, more personal, and offering a closer look at the space where Hernán's work comes to life.
Several months later, we met again — this time at Yerua Taller, his studio in the La Paternal neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Between our two encounters, new questions kept emerging: about craft and time, artistic education, the art market, the balance between intuition and control, and how an artist today produces not only images, but meaning.
This second meeting became a natural continuation of our first conversation — more reflective, more personal, and offering a closer look at the space where Hernán's work comes to life.
Physicality of the сraft & the “blind” studio process
Because of the fluid nature of synthetic enamel, you paint horizontally on tables, seeing only close-up fragments rather than the full composition from a distance. How do you learn to let go of the need for control and trust your intuition in this ‘blind’ mode — knowing that the complete image only reveals itself when you lift the heavy metal sheet against the wall?
I think learning to manage control, trust, and intuition during this process comes down to experience and repetition — being deeply accustomed to working on the table and waiting until the material dries before lifting the piece to finally view it.
When I started painting over 20 or 30 years ago, I worked in a house with a central courtyard. I would lay the artwork flat on the ground floor, walk up the stairs to the second-floor terrace, and look down at the piece from a distance of about 10 meters. That is how I trained my eye to judge the composition from a distance.
Another key aspect of working "blind" is that while I am leaning over the table focusing on a small fragment, I am constantly ensuring that each fragment functions at close range. If those individual sections work up close, it gives me the confidence that the painting will also hold together when viewed from across the room.
A successful painting must function across three distinct viewing distances and moments:
Preparing metal sheets, grinding, sanding, transporting heavy materials — this is intense physical labor that gallery viewers rarely see. How much of your time goes into this purely technical preparation? And do you ever encounter a piece of metal that “resists” so much that you have to scrap the work entirely?
The physical work on the piece, on the material, on the metal — sanding, grinding, sometimes using chemicals and different methods to remove old paint — is a very important part of the process.
You also have to use a hammer quite a lot to flatten holes or pieces of metal that are dangerous, that could cut you. I perceive this as a kind of energy that is being transferred into the support.
So for me, the moment of hitting, the moment of cutting, the moment of sanding is just as important as the moment of painting. Everything adds layers of my own energy to what I am putting into the work.
It is true that this is a preparatory phase and that you do not see it in the final work. But it is done, above all, so that no piece of metal is sticking out of the finished painting, no piece of old paint is left loose, and nothing is untidy.
That previous work is very important because I build on it over the following days. One day I come in and cut and sand something, and it is properly resolved. The next day I already know that this part is taken care of, and I can move on to another phase.
In general, the metal does not resist me. Very rarely have I had to discard a metal sheet because it simply was not suitable for painting. Generally, I get along very well with the material.
I think learning to manage control, trust, and intuition during this process comes down to experience and repetition — being deeply accustomed to working on the table and waiting until the material dries before lifting the piece to finally view it.
When I started painting over 20 or 30 years ago, I worked in a house with a central courtyard. I would lay the artwork flat on the ground floor, walk up the stairs to the second-floor terrace, and look down at the piece from a distance of about 10 meters. That is how I trained my eye to judge the composition from a distance.
Another key aspect of working "blind" is that while I am leaning over the table focusing on a small fragment, I am constantly ensuring that each fragment functions at close range. If those individual sections work up close, it gives me the confidence that the painting will also hold together when viewed from across the room.
A successful painting must function across three distinct viewing distances and moments:
- Long distance (10+ meters): In a crowded gallery or art fair, the work needs a strong visual hook to catch the viewer's attention from across the room.
- Medium distance (~5 meters): As you approach, new structural elements and relationships within the composition should begin to reveal themselves.
- Close distance (~0.5 meters): Standing right in front of the canvas, you should be drawn into microscopic details, textures, and subtle painterly moments.
Preparing metal sheets, grinding, sanding, transporting heavy materials — this is intense physical labor that gallery viewers rarely see. How much of your time goes into this purely technical preparation? And do you ever encounter a piece of metal that “resists” so much that you have to scrap the work entirely?
The physical work on the piece, on the material, on the metal — sanding, grinding, sometimes using chemicals and different methods to remove old paint — is a very important part of the process.
You also have to use a hammer quite a lot to flatten holes or pieces of metal that are dangerous, that could cut you. I perceive this as a kind of energy that is being transferred into the support.
So for me, the moment of hitting, the moment of cutting, the moment of sanding is just as important as the moment of painting. Everything adds layers of my own energy to what I am putting into the work.
It is true that this is a preparatory phase and that you do not see it in the final work. But it is done, above all, so that no piece of metal is sticking out of the finished painting, no piece of old paint is left loose, and nothing is untidy.
That previous work is very important because I build on it over the following days. One day I come in and cut and sand something, and it is properly resolved. The next day I already know that this part is taken care of, and I can move on to another phase.
In general, the metal does not resist me. Very rarely have I had to discard a metal sheet because it simply was not suitable for painting. Generally, I get along very well with the material.
Economics, “live” art & psychological endurance
You’ve mentioned how crucial it is to keep a “live” energy or “electricity” in a painting, otherwise it becomes dry and purely mechanical. Have you ever faced the temptation to repeat a successful, easy-to-sell formula for financial reasons? How do you set an internal boundary to avoid turning your studio into an assembly line?
I agree that the work has to have that living energy, that electricity. For me, what a good work of art — mine or anyone else’s — needs is to somehow condense something. To capture a certain energy, which can come from the person making it, but can also come from the space in which it is made.
Very often, some works are based on ideas, and sometimes the ideas can be good. But if there is not a good translation of the idea into matter, they remain without that level of condensation that I always hope will happen.
The idea of repeating a formula, or something that is easy to sell, has always seemed very uninteresting to me. It does not motivate me at all to repeat something in search of a particular result. In fact, the times I have tried it, it simply did not work.
Generally, the creation of a work has to do with a need and a sense of purpose. If that purpose is purely commercial or purely superficial, I cannot make the work condense.
Then what happens is that the work may have all the aspects of something that ultimately worked in another painting — it may have the right dimensions, the colors, the brushstrokes, the right drawing — but it does not work. People do not see it, they do not want it, they do not choose it.
There is no formula. It is not something I am looking for.
The handbrake that keeps the studio from becoming a factory is precisely the fact that the amount of internal time it takes to want to paint a work, and for that work to have that level of charge and condensation, is much greater than the time it takes to actually execute it.
I may spend a long time thinking and going around in circles: I am going to paint this painting, it will have this size or these colors, I will paint it this way — and why am I going to paint this?
Well, it has to do with something I like or something I saw. That whole process can take a very long time, while the actual moment of painting it may take much less.
But I needed all that previous time in order to actually want to paint it. Otherwise, painting becomes something empty, without meaning.
One of the greatest fears for artists is working without guarantees — having finished pieces sit unsold in the studio for months or years. How do you build the financial and psychological resilience needed to keep producing without falling into panic during those periods?
Financial and psychological stability is certainly a challenge. I have a strategy that I also try to instill in and teach my students, which has to do with having the mind of a multimillionaire.
And the idea is that if you have no problem with money in your mind, the decisions you make will not be made under that pressure or that crisis around selling, being effective, or achieving commercial success.
To have the mind of a multimillionaire, you have to believe it. You have to believe that you are one. And then you have to know that even if you are going through a difficult period, or a period of low sales or financial instability, it can often be solved creatively, and not only through more sales or by trying harder to sell.
Sometimes an artist can look for other alternatives: prizes, grants, residencies, teaching, and other things that belong to the same artistic universe, so that the financial pressure does not fall entirely on the sale of the work.
Another important thing is to have good allies and good commercial partners — to know that those partners will take care of your capital and your work, and that they will not undersell it or offer it in an inappropriate way.
I agree that the work has to have that living energy, that electricity. For me, what a good work of art — mine or anyone else’s — needs is to somehow condense something. To capture a certain energy, which can come from the person making it, but can also come from the space in which it is made.
Very often, some works are based on ideas, and sometimes the ideas can be good. But if there is not a good translation of the idea into matter, they remain without that level of condensation that I always hope will happen.
The idea of repeating a formula, or something that is easy to sell, has always seemed very uninteresting to me. It does not motivate me at all to repeat something in search of a particular result. In fact, the times I have tried it, it simply did not work.
Generally, the creation of a work has to do with a need and a sense of purpose. If that purpose is purely commercial or purely superficial, I cannot make the work condense.
Then what happens is that the work may have all the aspects of something that ultimately worked in another painting — it may have the right dimensions, the colors, the brushstrokes, the right drawing — but it does not work. People do not see it, they do not want it, they do not choose it.
There is no formula. It is not something I am looking for.
The handbrake that keeps the studio from becoming a factory is precisely the fact that the amount of internal time it takes to want to paint a work, and for that work to have that level of charge and condensation, is much greater than the time it takes to actually execute it.
I may spend a long time thinking and going around in circles: I am going to paint this painting, it will have this size or these colors, I will paint it this way — and why am I going to paint this?
Well, it has to do with something I like or something I saw. That whole process can take a very long time, while the actual moment of painting it may take much less.
But I needed all that previous time in order to actually want to paint it. Otherwise, painting becomes something empty, without meaning.
One of the greatest fears for artists is working without guarantees — having finished pieces sit unsold in the studio for months or years. How do you build the financial and psychological resilience needed to keep producing without falling into panic during those periods?
Financial and psychological stability is certainly a challenge. I have a strategy that I also try to instill in and teach my students, which has to do with having the mind of a multimillionaire.
And the idea is that if you have no problem with money in your mind, the decisions you make will not be made under that pressure or that crisis around selling, being effective, or achieving commercial success.
To have the mind of a multimillionaire, you have to believe it. You have to believe that you are one. And then you have to know that even if you are going through a difficult period, or a period of low sales or financial instability, it can often be solved creatively, and not only through more sales or by trying harder to sell.
Sometimes an artist can look for other alternatives: prizes, grants, residencies, teaching, and other things that belong to the same artistic universe, so that the financial pressure does not fall entirely on the sale of the work.
Another important thing is to have good allies and good commercial partners — to know that those partners will take care of your capital and your work, and that they will not undersell it or offer it in an inappropriate way.
Over more than 20 years, you’ve observed different waves of buyers. Today, a new generation is entering the market — people from business, tech, and new industries, bringing a completely different tempo and background. Do you notice shifts in how they look at and select art compared to the collectors of the 2000s?
I think that to answer this question properly, and this is something I see all the time with everyone who comes to see my work, whether they are young or older, whether they come from business, technology, or anywhere else, the difference for me is always made by one thing.
First, people usually come to my paintings through an image they have seen on their phone, on Instagram, or in a PDF sent to them by a gallery. Sometimes they have also seen my work in someone else’s home.
When someone has seen my work in an exhibition, in a gallery, in a cultural center, or in someone’s home, and has had access to the experience of seeing the work live and in person — not through an image, but seeing the actual image, the size, the materiality, the details, whether it is scratched, whether it has holes, whether it contains some old material, all of those details — they already have that information when they come to see the work.
For those who have never seen the work live and in person, all of those things become a first-time experience. They see the holes, the scratches, the marks, the folds, the shine, the size, and ultimately the energy that the work gives off.
That energy may be interesting to you or it may not. You may like it or not. It may resonate with your own energy or it may not.
So the difference is: “I saw these three images, and I want to go to your studio to see these three paintings.” Fine. They come and see the three paintings. But of course, there is an enormous difference between the image and the painting itself. And then there is something else that happens: you have to imagine having that painting in your own home for a long time, where it gradually releases that energy in small doses.
When someone has a work in their home, the wonderful thing is that the work is there for everyone who comes into that house — from the children to the owners, to the cleaning staff, to anyone who visits. The work is available to everyone.
When you go to a gallery or a museum, you have a certain amount of time to capture that energy. At home, you do not sit down specifically to look at the painting. The painting becomes part of your everyday life, and every now and then new elements enter your field of vision and attract your attention.
New things keep drawing your attention, almost like a book that you are reading, and as you go deeper into it, you begin to understand it.
So, in terms of the difference between young and older collectors, I think the same thing is always happening. It does not change that much. What makes a major difference is seeing the work live and in person — and the size, above all.
I think that to answer this question properly, and this is something I see all the time with everyone who comes to see my work, whether they are young or older, whether they come from business, technology, or anywhere else, the difference for me is always made by one thing.
First, people usually come to my paintings through an image they have seen on their phone, on Instagram, or in a PDF sent to them by a gallery. Sometimes they have also seen my work in someone else’s home.
When someone has seen my work in an exhibition, in a gallery, in a cultural center, or in someone’s home, and has had access to the experience of seeing the work live and in person — not through an image, but seeing the actual image, the size, the materiality, the details, whether it is scratched, whether it has holes, whether it contains some old material, all of those details — they already have that information when they come to see the work.
For those who have never seen the work live and in person, all of those things become a first-time experience. They see the holes, the scratches, the marks, the folds, the shine, the size, and ultimately the energy that the work gives off.
That energy may be interesting to you or it may not. You may like it or not. It may resonate with your own energy or it may not.
So the difference is: “I saw these three images, and I want to go to your studio to see these three paintings.” Fine. They come and see the three paintings. But of course, there is an enormous difference between the image and the painting itself. And then there is something else that happens: you have to imagine having that painting in your own home for a long time, where it gradually releases that energy in small doses.
When someone has a work in their home, the wonderful thing is that the work is there for everyone who comes into that house — from the children to the owners, to the cleaning staff, to anyone who visits. The work is available to everyone.
When you go to a gallery or a museum, you have a certain amount of time to capture that energy. At home, you do not sit down specifically to look at the painting. The painting becomes part of your everyday life, and every now and then new elements enter your field of vision and attract your attention.
New things keep drawing your attention, almost like a book that you are reading, and as you go deeper into it, you begin to understand it.
So, in terms of the difference between young and older collectors, I think the same thing is always happening. It does not change that much. What makes a major difference is seeing the work live and in person — and the size, above all.
Scene context, galleries, social media & the “wind of change”
How do you see the relationship between artists and galleries evolving today? Where do you spot the main vulnerability or flaw in the traditional gallery system, and where do you feel this dynamic is drifting?
The relationship between the artist and the gallery is a very old process, and it constantly has to find new ways of establishing a connection so that the relationship continues to make sense.
I understand that social media platforms have given many more artists much greater visibility and the possibility of showing themselves to the entire world.
Sometimes the gallery used to have a certain power through the exclusivity of the image. They had the image on their website or in their catalogue. Now the image is available to everyone.
That has meant that collectors, buyers, and people interested in art can access the artist directly, without necessarily needing that intermediary.
Now, I think it depends very much on what kind of artist each person is, what stage of their artistic life they are at, and what kind of relationship they establish with a gallery.
What do you have a gallery for? Why are you part of a gallery’s roster of artists?
I think the gallery clearly has a place of validation in the market. The gallery has a history, a trajectory, a certain seriousness or longevity that tells the buyer: “You are going to buy the work of this artist, who has this résumé, but you are going to buy it through me, and I have this other résumé.”
So it is a kind of double check, a double validation. And that builds both economic and symbolic value within the structure of the art world, in the way each work, artist, and gallery is perceived.
So I think it is changing, and I think galleries are constantly looking at how to capture new clients and create more dynamic ways of reaching people, allowing for greater fluidity while not losing sales volume.
The relationship between the artist and the gallery is a very old process, and it constantly has to find new ways of establishing a connection so that the relationship continues to make sense.
I understand that social media platforms have given many more artists much greater visibility and the possibility of showing themselves to the entire world.
Sometimes the gallery used to have a certain power through the exclusivity of the image. They had the image on their website or in their catalogue. Now the image is available to everyone.
That has meant that collectors, buyers, and people interested in art can access the artist directly, without necessarily needing that intermediary.
Now, I think it depends very much on what kind of artist each person is, what stage of their artistic life they are at, and what kind of relationship they establish with a gallery.
What do you have a gallery for? Why are you part of a gallery’s roster of artists?
I think the gallery clearly has a place of validation in the market. The gallery has a history, a trajectory, a certain seriousness or longevity that tells the buyer: “You are going to buy the work of this artist, who has this résumé, but you are going to buy it through me, and I have this other résumé.”
So it is a kind of double check, a double validation. And that builds both economic and symbolic value within the structure of the art world, in the way each work, artist, and gallery is perceived.
So I think it is changing, and I think galleries are constantly looking at how to capture new clients and create more dynamic ways of reaching people, allowing for greater fluidity while not losing sales volume.
Social media has fundamentally reconfigured the art scene. An artist’s, gallery’s, or biennale’s page has become the script for a mini-documentary or film, where everyone directs their own narrative. What advantages and dangers do you see in this reliance on social media, and how has this tool transformed how people perceive art?
The issue of social media, the Instagram phenomenon, is partly what I was just talking about, so I think I have already answered some of it.
I think it is positive to have the ability to do this. But not everyone knows how to do it.
Like anything else, it is a tool that you have to learn how to use, and nobody really teaches you how to use it.
Something similar happened with photographers and mobile phones. Suddenly, mobile phones could take photographs that were better than those taken by cameras, and everyone thought they could become a photographer.
But it does not work that way. You need to have a real understanding of the craft of photography and the artistic practice of photography. There is an enormous difference between an amateur and a professional.
What I think happened with the arrival of Instagram and social media is that it also created a period of greater confusion: anyone can be a photographer, anyone can be an artist, because if I take a very good photograph and upload it to social media, suddenly I am an artist.
That, to me, can be negative. Because there is a reason why people train, study, encounter different kinds of things during their formative years, and gradually unlock and build their relationship with matter and materials.
That takes time. And you need guides, teachers, people who can guide you properly. Doing it entirely on your own is really difficult.
So the tools of social media can be more democratic, but they can also create confusion about how to distinguish a true artist from someone who is not.
I would say that social media is not a good factor for determining whether someone is a good artist or not.
You always have to see the work live and in person, and at least have some guidance or education in how to look, in order to determine whether what you are seeing has value, whether it has validity, and whether it resonates with you or feels important.
Argentine art encompasses two distinct poles: on one hand, large-scale commercial success from figures like Helmut Ditsch with multi-million dollar sales; on the other, a resilient independent scene creating outside the market. How do you evaluate these two paths, and to what extent does market price reflect an artist’s true value today?
In general, market value is not a particularly clear factor when it comes to perceiving reality.
If I tell you that my painting is worth ten thousand dollars, or one hundred thousand dollars, or one million dollars, and that someone paid that amount for it, well, it is difficult to know.
The only truly reliable way to know is through public auctions, where the numbers become visible. All the other figures may be real or they may not be. But for me, market value has to be constructed above all through the artist’s trajectory and through the validation of certain aspects and factors that contribute to that value.
It can be the institutions that have shown the work, the collections that own it, who sells the work, how long that work has been sold, and how that trajectory has been built.
All of that creates a certain level of prestige and solidity around those prices. The rest — if it appears in the newspaper that a certain artist sold a work for a certain amount — well, that could be a publicity operation. I don't know.
And honestly, it is not even that important, because ultimately what creates value and establishes artists within the structure of the art world are the artists themselves.
If your fellow artists do not consider you to be a good artist — ethically, artistically, at every level — and you fall outside that consideration, it is very difficult to have a reliable market value.
So, in general, for me it comes down to those things: who sells the work, how long they have been selling it, how long that person has been selling that kind of work, and how they have built that path.
Looking at the broader picture — both locally and across the international circuit: what “wind” do you feel is currently blowing through contemporary art, what shifts do you observe around you, and where do you sense things are heading?
I think that both locally and internationally, if you look at what is happening, the truth is that I am very concentrated on my work and my everyday life. It is not as if I have a very broad overview of everything happening around the world.
But what I do see is that, if there is such a thing as a commercial bubble around contemporary art, and if many people are saying that it is beginning to burst, with many galleries closing and many artists losing access to credit or funding programs around the world — in places like Berlin, the United States, or Europe — I think it is a good moment to find out whether what you do can cross the boundaries of the commercial.
Whether it can cross the boundaries of what is merely circumstantial, what belongs to the particular moment we are living through.
And whether you have to make the kind of art you have to make out of necessity, because if you do not make it, your life depends on it.
So it is a good moment to decide and define what kind of artist you are, what kind of art you make, what you are connected to, and what kind of response the environment gives to that connection.
In general, I think that good expressions — artistic expressions, as well as other kinds of expressions — are sustained by the solidity of the person who proposes and makes them.
The issue of social media, the Instagram phenomenon, is partly what I was just talking about, so I think I have already answered some of it.
I think it is positive to have the ability to do this. But not everyone knows how to do it.
Like anything else, it is a tool that you have to learn how to use, and nobody really teaches you how to use it.
Something similar happened with photographers and mobile phones. Suddenly, mobile phones could take photographs that were better than those taken by cameras, and everyone thought they could become a photographer.
But it does not work that way. You need to have a real understanding of the craft of photography and the artistic practice of photography. There is an enormous difference between an amateur and a professional.
What I think happened with the arrival of Instagram and social media is that it also created a period of greater confusion: anyone can be a photographer, anyone can be an artist, because if I take a very good photograph and upload it to social media, suddenly I am an artist.
That, to me, can be negative. Because there is a reason why people train, study, encounter different kinds of things during their formative years, and gradually unlock and build their relationship with matter and materials.
That takes time. And you need guides, teachers, people who can guide you properly. Doing it entirely on your own is really difficult.
So the tools of social media can be more democratic, but they can also create confusion about how to distinguish a true artist from someone who is not.
I would say that social media is not a good factor for determining whether someone is a good artist or not.
You always have to see the work live and in person, and at least have some guidance or education in how to look, in order to determine whether what you are seeing has value, whether it has validity, and whether it resonates with you or feels important.
Argentine art encompasses two distinct poles: on one hand, large-scale commercial success from figures like Helmut Ditsch with multi-million dollar sales; on the other, a resilient independent scene creating outside the market. How do you evaluate these two paths, and to what extent does market price reflect an artist’s true value today?
In general, market value is not a particularly clear factor when it comes to perceiving reality.
If I tell you that my painting is worth ten thousand dollars, or one hundred thousand dollars, or one million dollars, and that someone paid that amount for it, well, it is difficult to know.
The only truly reliable way to know is through public auctions, where the numbers become visible. All the other figures may be real or they may not be. But for me, market value has to be constructed above all through the artist’s trajectory and through the validation of certain aspects and factors that contribute to that value.
It can be the institutions that have shown the work, the collections that own it, who sells the work, how long that work has been sold, and how that trajectory has been built.
All of that creates a certain level of prestige and solidity around those prices. The rest — if it appears in the newspaper that a certain artist sold a work for a certain amount — well, that could be a publicity operation. I don't know.
And honestly, it is not even that important, because ultimately what creates value and establishes artists within the structure of the art world are the artists themselves.
If your fellow artists do not consider you to be a good artist — ethically, artistically, at every level — and you fall outside that consideration, it is very difficult to have a reliable market value.
So, in general, for me it comes down to those things: who sells the work, how long they have been selling it, how long that person has been selling that kind of work, and how they have built that path.
Looking at the broader picture — both locally and across the international circuit: what “wind” do you feel is currently blowing through contemporary art, what shifts do you observe around you, and where do you sense things are heading?
I think that both locally and internationally, if you look at what is happening, the truth is that I am very concentrated on my work and my everyday life. It is not as if I have a very broad overview of everything happening around the world.
But what I do see is that, if there is such a thing as a commercial bubble around contemporary art, and if many people are saying that it is beginning to burst, with many galleries closing and many artists losing access to credit or funding programs around the world — in places like Berlin, the United States, or Europe — I think it is a good moment to find out whether what you do can cross the boundaries of the commercial.
Whether it can cross the boundaries of what is merely circumstantial, what belongs to the particular moment we are living through.
And whether you have to make the kind of art you have to make out of necessity, because if you do not make it, your life depends on it.
So it is a good moment to decide and define what kind of artist you are, what kind of art you make, what you are connected to, and what kind of response the environment gives to that connection.
In general, I think that good expressions — artistic expressions, as well as other kinds of expressions — are sustained by the solidity of the person who proposes and makes them.
Philosophy of perception, reflection & global Identity
The reflective, glossy surfaces of your works act almost like a mirror: a person passing by in a bright red sweater instantly becomes part of the composition. Could one say that a painting is never truly finished in the studio, but continues to be completed by every new space and viewer?
Yes, the glossy surface of the work clearly functions as — I don't know if I would call it a mirror — but it is a surface that allows everything around it to enter the image.
And it depends very much on the light where the work is installed: daylight, nighttime, natural light, artificial light, directed light, general ambient light. It also depends on what kinds of situations are happening in front of the work.
That aspect of the gloss is very important in the works that have it. Not all of my works are glossy, because some have a certain opacity.
But I do understand that the shine of the enamel, the varnish, and the metal makes it a kind of conditioning element.
In situations of half-light or darkness, the image can disappear and you only see the texture of the metal.
If the work has indentations, undulations, holes, or folds, what you perceive is simply the movement of the light across them. And then the painting-object becomes something else. It becomes something more mysterious.
You do not know whether it is something liquid, or whether it is wet, because the shine can sometimes be confusing.
And that is what makes the metallic shine of the painting-object interesting.
In a world where attention has become the scarcest resource and art is constantly swiped through on flat screens, can a physical, tactile object still compel someone to pause for 5 to 10 minutes? Do you view your practice as a form of quiet resistance against digital speed?
Hernán: Clearly, I think attention is going to become increasingly necessary in the world we live in.
Precisely because of what we were talking about earlier with social media and situations related to being disconnected, people are unlearning how to pay attention.
I think it is vital for any artist, and visual artists in particular have that capacity to pay attention to everything visually around them and to notice any visual situation or circumstance that is very new or very different.
I think that in the world today, watching a film for an hour and a half without interruptions, reading a book, listening to a record of music, and certainly going to contemplate works of visual art in any of their forms creates a kind of cultural resistance, a kind of counterculture.
And the more that space expands, the more I think people begin to understand and perceive small details, even if they have never studied them. Something similar happens with a phenomenon that, for me, has become very important recently: food. Food, and cooks and chefs, have raised their status to that of artists. And this has created a kind of division, because food is fundamental to life, but not everyone has access to certain kinds of food. Nor does everyone know how to distinguish between a good, very good, or excellent wine, or between a dessert or an elaborate dish, because that capacity for sensitivity is something that is trained.
It is trained over time, by paying attention to the different characteristics that a wine, a painting, a piece of music, or a film director can have. You have to use that attention to build your own world, to understand what you like and what you do not like, based on the experiences you have accumulated in the past. And we all have our own personal taste, whether in films or music, depending on what we have been exposed to. It is also true that the visual arts require a live experience with the work. It is no use seeing an exhibition through a phone and saying, “I saw this exhibition.” No, that is not really true.
There are architectural questions, space, silence, narrative, the way you move through the exhibition. There are details, colors, materialities, energies that belong to the experience of seeing the work live and in person. If you have not had that experience, it is not easy to speak about it as an experience, because you have not actually lived it. For me, it all comes back to attention. And for me, it is highly connected to how willing people are to live outside virtuality, outside the computer, outside the phone, and in reality.
To go to places, to travel, to discover spaces, to speak with artists, to speak with cooks and chefs, to taste, to get involved, to ask questions, to be curious, to have an active mind, and to establish your own response to the things you are experiencing.
Yes, the glossy surface of the work clearly functions as — I don't know if I would call it a mirror — but it is a surface that allows everything around it to enter the image.
And it depends very much on the light where the work is installed: daylight, nighttime, natural light, artificial light, directed light, general ambient light. It also depends on what kinds of situations are happening in front of the work.
That aspect of the gloss is very important in the works that have it. Not all of my works are glossy, because some have a certain opacity.
But I do understand that the shine of the enamel, the varnish, and the metal makes it a kind of conditioning element.
In situations of half-light or darkness, the image can disappear and you only see the texture of the metal.
If the work has indentations, undulations, holes, or folds, what you perceive is simply the movement of the light across them. And then the painting-object becomes something else. It becomes something more mysterious.
You do not know whether it is something liquid, or whether it is wet, because the shine can sometimes be confusing.
And that is what makes the metallic shine of the painting-object interesting.
In a world where attention has become the scarcest resource and art is constantly swiped through on flat screens, can a physical, tactile object still compel someone to pause for 5 to 10 minutes? Do you view your practice as a form of quiet resistance against digital speed?
Hernán: Clearly, I think attention is going to become increasingly necessary in the world we live in.
Precisely because of what we were talking about earlier with social media and situations related to being disconnected, people are unlearning how to pay attention.
I think it is vital for any artist, and visual artists in particular have that capacity to pay attention to everything visually around them and to notice any visual situation or circumstance that is very new or very different.
I think that in the world today, watching a film for an hour and a half without interruptions, reading a book, listening to a record of music, and certainly going to contemplate works of visual art in any of their forms creates a kind of cultural resistance, a kind of counterculture.
And the more that space expands, the more I think people begin to understand and perceive small details, even if they have never studied them. Something similar happens with a phenomenon that, for me, has become very important recently: food. Food, and cooks and chefs, have raised their status to that of artists. And this has created a kind of division, because food is fundamental to life, but not everyone has access to certain kinds of food. Nor does everyone know how to distinguish between a good, very good, or excellent wine, or between a dessert or an elaborate dish, because that capacity for sensitivity is something that is trained.
It is trained over time, by paying attention to the different characteristics that a wine, a painting, a piece of music, or a film director can have. You have to use that attention to build your own world, to understand what you like and what you do not like, based on the experiences you have accumulated in the past. And we all have our own personal taste, whether in films or music, depending on what we have been exposed to. It is also true that the visual arts require a live experience with the work. It is no use seeing an exhibition through a phone and saying, “I saw this exhibition.” No, that is not really true.
There are architectural questions, space, silence, narrative, the way you move through the exhibition. There are details, colors, materialities, energies that belong to the experience of seeing the work live and in person. If you have not had that experience, it is not easy to speak about it as an experience, because you have not actually lived it. For me, it all comes back to attention. And for me, it is highly connected to how willing people are to live outside virtuality, outside the computer, outside the phone, and in reality.
To go to places, to travel, to discover spaces, to speak with artists, to speak with cooks and chefs, to taste, to get involved, to ask questions, to be curious, to have an active mind, and to establish your own response to the things you are experiencing.
Many emerging artists feel immense pressure to secure European or US residencies, viewing them as the ultimate stamp of validation. Having studied in Belgium while maintaining your primary base in Buenos Aires, how essential is international experience today, and how do you preserve your connection to your local identity?
I think that going to Europe or the United States as an artist generates two things for me. One is very positive, and the other not so much. If you go to study in the United States, Europe, or another important cultural center, you have access to being close to the works of the great masters in museums and other places. That proximity to the great masters, and even to the masters of contemporary art, gives you the possibility of seeing that work live and in person, without it being mediated by a book, a website, or something someone has told you.
You are actually seeing what an artist’s work is like, how it is perceived, how it feels. That is very positive.
Another positive thing is understanding how the world operates: how residencies work, how relationships between different parts of the system work, and how certain institutions and countries take care of their artists and their public and private institutions.
They give art value as a symbolic value that contributes meaning to society. When you return to your own country and see that those institutions either do not exist or do not have that same value for art, you become discouraged. You collide with the reality of the country and the fact that this is not happening here. That shock, that change, can be very difficult. However, I also understand that the major cultural centers are extremely competitive and do not give people coming from peripheral countries the same possibilities and opportunities as locals.
So you have to have a great deal of resistance and resilience within those structures in order to develop and find your own path in an environment that is not your own.
There are resources, but not for everyone. And resources are prioritized for local people rather than foreigners.
So it has this double face. And in other countries, you will always be a foreigner. No matter whether you have lived there for 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, you will always be a foreign artist, and you will not have the same possibilities as local artists. No matter how good your art is, no matter how high your consistency and dedication are, I understand that it is different.
So producing from your own country has a lot of disadvantages, but it also has the advantage that if you manage to emerge from your own country and reach the outside world, you demonstrate to the world that you can also emerge from environments that are not as easy, or where there are not as many institutional or private resources available for people to develop. Ultimately, there are pros and cons on both sides.
For me, in terms of education and formation, I think it is excellent to remain attentive to what is happening around the world and to move through the world. Because it gives you the possibility of encountering works from the world’s artistic heritage, and you need to have those experiences live and in person. They can be incredibly rich, especially when they happen at exactly the right moment — when you are ready to absorb all of it.
I think that going to Europe or the United States as an artist generates two things for me. One is very positive, and the other not so much. If you go to study in the United States, Europe, or another important cultural center, you have access to being close to the works of the great masters in museums and other places. That proximity to the great masters, and even to the masters of contemporary art, gives you the possibility of seeing that work live and in person, without it being mediated by a book, a website, or something someone has told you.
You are actually seeing what an artist’s work is like, how it is perceived, how it feels. That is very positive.
Another positive thing is understanding how the world operates: how residencies work, how relationships between different parts of the system work, and how certain institutions and countries take care of their artists and their public and private institutions.
They give art value as a symbolic value that contributes meaning to society. When you return to your own country and see that those institutions either do not exist or do not have that same value for art, you become discouraged. You collide with the reality of the country and the fact that this is not happening here. That shock, that change, can be very difficult. However, I also understand that the major cultural centers are extremely competitive and do not give people coming from peripheral countries the same possibilities and opportunities as locals.
So you have to have a great deal of resistance and resilience within those structures in order to develop and find your own path in an environment that is not your own.
There are resources, but not for everyone. And resources are prioritized for local people rather than foreigners.
So it has this double face. And in other countries, you will always be a foreigner. No matter whether you have lived there for 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, you will always be a foreign artist, and you will not have the same possibilities as local artists. No matter how good your art is, no matter how high your consistency and dedication are, I understand that it is different.
So producing from your own country has a lot of disadvantages, but it also has the advantage that if you manage to emerge from your own country and reach the outside world, you demonstrate to the world that you can also emerge from environments that are not as easy, or where there are not as many institutional or private resources available for people to develop. Ultimately, there are pros and cons on both sides.
For me, in terms of education and formation, I think it is excellent to remain attentive to what is happening around the world and to move through the world. Because it gives you the possibility of encountering works from the world’s artistic heritage, and you need to have those experiences live and in person. They can be incredibly rich, especially when they happen at exactly the right moment — when you are ready to absorb all of it.