Juan Fernando Herrán - "La Pierre et la Poussière" [Stone and Dust]

About

For his first major solo exhibition in Europe, Juan Fernando Herrán (b. 1963, lives and works in Bogotá) proposes at Centre d’art contemporain La Halle des bouchers a site specific project based on the age-old sedimentation of the city of Vienne.

If materials and archeological objects’ study is the key to allow him to interpret the past, it also reveals and testifies the way present is grounded in History. Juan Fernando Herrán’s works address issues that acknowledge a crossing of cultural backgrounds with societal subjects not always visible at first sight. For his Vienne project, the artist got interested in tracing out and questioning the archeological and patrimonial material of the city, and the way sedimentation has shaped its History. While investigating on the now abandoned former Abbey of Saint-André-le-Haut, built on an ancient Roman site, used at some time as a cemetery, then confiscated at the French Revolution to be later transformed into a housing facility (that lasted until the late 1990s), Juan Fernando Herrán reveals History cycles and our constant re-use of past elements. Such perpetual shifting is a way for him to explore the notions of hidden memory, inherent violence and sovereignty rooted in ideological and social changes along History.

This research has enriched an installation project – including sculpture, video and photography – which inhabits the contemporary art center’s space.

Exhibition organized as part of Année France-Colombie

In the meantime, from September 16 to December 22 2017, la Villa du parc centre d’art contemporain in Annemasse will present a solo exhibition by Danilo Dueñas.