Federico Herrero

Federico Herrero’s intensely visual language is rooted in his observations of everyday life in Costa Rica’s ever evolving landscape, especially the way nature and culture collide. In his paintings on canvas, immersive installations, and public works, brightly hued organic shapes jostle against each other as they inhabit and negotiate space. There are dissonances and harmonies, which threaten to momentarily unravel but are bound together with an energy that seems to operate on a nearly atomic scale. They creep along the edges, and often break free of the frame entirely, winding onto the walls and into the crevices of his installations’ spaces.

Color for Herrero is an expression of space, both the absence of space and the abundance of space and the relationship between them. His canvases and installations therefore become exercises in seeing that compel the viewer to experience their environment in novel ways. Of his varied practice Herrero states, “When painting on a canvas, you know there is no transgression; it acquires a rhythm of production that is related to yourself…One deals with a personal universe, the other deals with a social vocation.” Through this duality, Herrero’s practice is essentially a study of liminal spaces—gaps between public and private, canvas and wall, figure and background, work and viewer–always infused with elements of play, pleasure, and humor.

Federico Herrero (b. 1978, San Jose, Costa Rica) has exhibited widely internationally, with solo exhibitions and public installations in São Paulo, Brazil; San Francisco, CA; Dusseldorf, Germany; Kanazawa, Japan; Tokyo, Japan; Mexico City, Mexico; Freiburg, Germany; and London, UK. Recent major institutional projects include Tactiles, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon, Portugal (2022); Barreras Blandas, Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica (2020); Tempo aberto, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, São Paulo (2019); Open Envelope, Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2018); and Alphabet, a site-specific installation for the atrium of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018). Herrero’s work was featured in the 2021 Thailand Biennale. He was the recipient of the Young Artist’s Prize at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001) and his work is in the permanent collection of numerous institutions including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Ella Fontanels-Cisneros Collection, Miami, FL; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; ME Collectors Room, Berlin, Germany; MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico; MUDAM, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; MUSAC, Castilla y León, Spain; Museo de Santander, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil; Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, CA; PAMM, Miami, FL; Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Tate Modern, London, UK; and Towada Art Center, Aomori Prefecture, Japan. Herrero is also the founder of Despacio and Cero Uno, two contemporary art spaces in his native San Jose, which have served as important forces in the continued development of Central America’s artistic voice. He lives and works in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Artist Statement:

“I was actually not motivated by the mural tradition in Latin America, although it is very strong and important in some places like Mexico and Guatemala. In my country it did not really develop, and graffiti has not been a strong practice either. I was moved by other reasons. Painting on a canvas is fine but for me it was never enough. In Costa Rica I am surrounded by moments of pictorial simplicity, which I am very attracted to. I am fascinated by the way people, who need to communicate something in a very direct way without the barrier of language, use paint. Looking at streets signs, advertisements, billboards and all other pictorial, non-language based forms of communication has influenced me a lot. The remarkable thing for me is that we see them everywhere in the cityscape and that they are placed there often randomly. “

Take a look at Herrero’s CV.