JONATHAN HERNÁNDEZ
PSYCHOTRAMA IS NO DRAMA
Opening: 25. June 2014, 19h
Exhibition Duration: 26. June – 2. August 2014
Mexican artist Jonathan Hernández (born 1972 in Mexico City) lives and works in Mexico City. Following his exhibition Chlichés, Contradictions & Ping-Pong, which took place while he was artist in residence at the Krinzinger Projekten in 2009, he is now presenting work in his first exhibition at the Galerie Krinzinger. This show can be seen as a continuation of the exhibition of 2009 but it is also a specific study on Austrian, or more precisely, Viennese culture, nature and history. In his explorations, the artist works with his typical collage technique in the media photography, paper and sculpture.
Jonathan Hernández makes use of the medial elements of collective memory, such as newspaper photos, postcards, advertisement brochures, and other everyday objects, taking them from their original context to then combine and to thus re-contextualize them. This way the previously ordinary aspects of daily life become absurd worlds that invite free (mis)interpretation, reflecting one’s own particular perception. Humor, irony as well as strong contrasts and their interplay always feature significantly in his collages. Past and future, surface and depth, light and dark are such dichotomies. Juxtaposition and contrast serve Hernández as a means for intense observation and reflection as a basic point of departure. “I like the idea of a tourist who has to make his way through disgusting mud … and in this very same moment a tourist who is happily walking in a lovely landscape… both experiences could be elements to construct a language,” as Hernández stated.
“The highly civilized apes swung gracefully from bough to bough; the Neanderthaler was uncouth and bound to the earth. The apes, saturated and playful, lived in sophisticated playfulness, or caught fleas in philosophic contemplation; the Neanderthaler tramped gloomily through the world, banging around with clubs. The apes looked down on him amusedly from their treetops and threw nuts at him. Sometimes horror seized them: they ate fruits and tender plants with delicate refinement; the Neanderthaler devoured raw meat, he slaughtered animals and his fellows. He cut down trees that had always stood, moved rocks from their time-hallowed place, transgressed every law and traditional of the jungle. He was uncouth, cruel, without animal dignity -from the point of view of the highly civilized apes, a barbaric relapse of history.”
Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon.
Seilerstätte 16, 1010 Wien, Austria
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