We Will Have To Tear Down All These Walls
20 April - 20 May
Kates Ferri Projects, New York
KATES-FERRI PROJECTS is proud to present Gonzalo Hernandez’s first solo exhibition in New York City. WE WILL HAVE TO TEAR DOWN ALL THESE WALLS is on view between April 20 - May 20, 2023, and the reception is on Friday, April 21, 6-8 pm. The Peruvian-born multimedia artist consistently investigates labor and the capitalist’s impact on individuals in his work. In his newest series, AB (short for Art Basel), the artist interrogates the relationship between the art market and the artists by analyzing the art included in the prestigious art fair.
Happening upon a Craigslist ad selling Art Basel catalogs the year the fair turned twenty, Hernandez felt it an appropriate tool to reflect on the art, the artists, the market, and the role of the fair. For many, showing at Art Basel suggests that they have made it to the top of the art market. Hernandez selects, at random, images of works from the catalogs to feature in his work, proposing that “making it” is perhaps by chance. Using the Craigslist circular radius that shows the range of the pick-up as a recurring motif, Hernandez cuts out circles from various artworks in the catalogs. He creates paper collages with these circles or uses the pages with the missing circles as the first sketch. Based on these collages, he makes textile work and oil on canvas in black and white and in color with handmade frames. He connects these literal dots of art almost haphazardly, next to and on top of one another, as he acknowledges the impreciseness and the overabundance of the market. To underline the effect of market forces, Hernandez keeps his frames incomplete to connote how artists and their work are presented in certain ways to ensure marketability. As some of the artists in the catalogs are now forgotten, one could argue that Art Basel might not a great indicator of market longevity and wonder what becomes of an artist after arriving at this supposed pinnacle, or other markers of success.
Ultimately, artists must negotiate their place between not only museums and galleries, but also between collectors and curators. AB_Agglomeration (2023) foregrounds this complex interplay. Taking up much of the floor of the gallery, it is the centerpiece of the exhibition. The textile transfer is propped up by actual Art Basel catalogs to create a landscape of incomplete artworks. Forming an illusion of the art landscape, Hernandez pieces together knowledge of the unstable terrain that all contemporary artists must navigate.
The title of the exhibition comes from Szántós’s conversation with Koyo Kouoh. The Executive Director of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, argues that it is time to rethink the white cube, synonymous with today’s commercial art galleries and big museum exhibitions. Kouoh shares Afriart Gallery’s founder Daudi Karungi’s multifaceted approach to building an ecosystem for artists and communities to find creative platforms along with sustainable growth and security. Hernandez joins Kouoh’s call to break the frame of how art and artists are viewed, discussed, received, and operate in the art world.
