Arturo Herrera: Constructed Collage

Celebrating Herrera’s expansive practice, the show features works ranging in date from 1998 to 2019, including collage, a cut felt wall-hanging, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and an offsite wall painting. The exhibition, curated by Elyse Gonzales, director of Ruby City, is the first to examine the enduring importance of collage through the artist’s ongoing use and expansive conception of the medium. Constructed Collage demonstrates how this art form continues to shape all facets of the artist’s practice.

Herrera became well known in the 1990s for his abstract collages that featured intricately cut forms taken from popular culture source material with portions of recognizable elements that only hinted at potential meanings. Over the years, he has continually mined this art form, viewing collage as the quintessential expression of, as he states, “our fragmented world which we make sense of by associative thinking.” As a result, all his work is deeply informed by collage, using it as a means of expression and guide. When making any of his works, no matter the medium, Herrera relies on a unique visual language rooted in the methodology of collage—cutting, fragmenting, layering.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, and now based in Berlin, the internationally exhibited artist is familiar to San Antonio residents through the large site-specific painting Adam (2013), which is seen in the heart of downtown San Antonio adjacent to San Fernando Cathedral.