Blick in die Ausstellung
Projekt #4: Mario Hergueta
DavisKlemmGallery Projektraum, Kirchstraße 4, 65239 Hochheim am MainProject #4: Mario Hergueta
MATERIALS
Acrylic on canvas. Mario Hergueta chooses a very classic material. As a result, the contrast to the digitally generated motifs with there digital appearance gets larger. The material alone points to the current position of artists between digital possibilities and influences and analogue art history. Some viewers are more used to looking at a screen than looking at a painting. But when it comes to art, most people expect a canvas instead of a screen. Or not?
THE ARTIST
Mario Hergueta studied from 1988 to1995 art history and fine arts in Frankfurt and Mainz and was a master student in Prof. Ansgar Nierhoff's sculpture class at the now Kunsthochschule Mainz. His works deal with the possibilities and intersections of different media. Painting, printing, sculpture, murals and video installations Malerei, Druck, Skulpturen, Wandmalereien sowie Videoinstallationen can be found among his works.
PRODUCTION
The starting point for project #4 is a random sentence generator that Mario Hergueta developed and programmed in 1997. The programm „Stop Making Sense“ builds random nonsense sentences from a word data bank (see: www.stopmakingsense.hergueta.org ). He does the translation from the digital to the analogue world himself: he chooses from the randomly created sentences with the corresponding random typeface, font color and background color. The sentences are then printed and stretched on stretcher frames. After that he applys an acrylic paint with a paint brush, leaving visible brush strokes on the surface - as expected from "real art". It is precisely with these expectations and questions that Hergueta plays: what is art? What is a creative process?
INFLUENCE
What is art? This question is one of the oldest in art history. It is no easier to answer today with the development of artificial intelligence. where are the limits? What can a machine do? In particular, the creative process is attributed to humans alone. If a work is made half by a machine, is the creative part only the selection process done by the artist? Hergueta refers to Marcel Duchamp, who declared a bottle dryer to be a work of art through his own decision at the beginning of the 20th century.
INSTALLATION
While art has often only been perceived digitally over the past year and a half, Mario Hergueta creates in project #4 an analogue display. His "screen", i.e. the shop window, gives an insight into a space in which the digital has crossed over into the real world. The walls are covered with confusing sentences, color impressions and typefaces. And thus only depicts a fraction of a real screen. Hergueta makes a small selection from the endless variety of random sentences. With this he gives his answer to the question of creative processes and the role of the artist: he chooses and creates art through his choice.
THE SPACE
The 20 m² room, in which pens and exercise books were previously sold, is now available to artists from the DavisKlemmGallery as a project space. Instead of regular but limited opening times, the room can be viewed around the clock: the entire room and thus the project can be viewed at all times thanks to the large window front. Changing projects, installations, works of art and artists can be discovered here. The current presentation will be on view until April 3rd, 2022.