Biography

Berto Herrera, a Black-Hispanic artist with a unique background as a former U.S. military member now living in Germany, brings a profound and multifaceted perspective to his work. Since his first exhibition in 2006, Herrera has consistently focused on dismantling and examining the subtle cultural biases that pervade our society. His art is a powerful exploration of the intersections between identity, power, and technology.

Classically trained in fine art at Parsons, Herrera was a key figure in the Los Angeles art scene during his 20s, contributing to the influential collective Box Eight alongside artists like Ben Cope and Peter Gurnz. In 2009, he shifted his focus to graphic design, where he spent a decade working with Adidas as an art director. This experience allowed him to blend his passion for culture and design, especially through the medium of photography.

In recent years, Herrera has returned to his fine art roots, releasing his acclaimed series What Is Home? internationally. His work—spanning painting, photography, and collage—is deeply engaged with themes of techno-feudalism, systems of power, and the pervasive reach of surveillance. Herrera’s keen understanding of design aesthetics and the commercialization of ideas enables his work to resonate across cultures, challenging viewers to reflect on the underlying forces shaping our contemporary world.

As an artist, Herrera calls upon his audience to confront the complexities of modern existence, urging them to question the systems that govern our lives. His art is not just a reflection of society but a call to action, encouraging us all to examine and dismantle the structures that perpetuate inequality and control.

Artist Statement

Prelude

As we move forward the question at hand is the identity of self, the branding of our lives. Although I believe our lives can be reduced to this concept I believe the strength of memories of yourself living in others is stronger than the branding and self curated idea of ourselves. In this overly giving post internet, post human, post art world we live in exposing every detail of everything. We are going the other route and masking everything in mystery-smoke and mirrors. Such as the world and geopolitical landscape. Today this experiment isn’t real it lives in the source code in the memory of computers and phones, nor is it art or entertainment. It aligns itself with anti-distraction to root people into feeling and living. The immediacy of something living within a finite moment is more important than forever. Welcome to nowhere, to the viewed mass, the over watching eye, to the invasion of privacy, to the discourse of contemporary society, an exhibition. I see you.

I. Surveillance Democracy

As we move throughout space and time we surrender our privacy to terms and conditions of large tech, other corporations and government agencies. We view democracy and just reasoning through old tactics of public humiliation and recognition. From this democratic rule we are a compression of time and space and the existence and nonexistence of us within a frozen time span of a fort night that will soon be wiped from existence again after all information and metrics have been syphoned out and sold. What rights do we have when those liberties come and go within the transitions of AI monitoring and leadership changes? Bought… sold… cash cows of the technocrats and names placed on watch lists. As cows to the trough we ingest more than live divided and sub divided into a speck of humanity. Editing ourselves within comment sections or risk getting booted from existence.

II. Post-Identity

NPC’s materializing in and out of proximities of peripheral vision, we drone in harmony in our bio-mechanical suits to the black pocketable obelisk to define ourselves, our singular vision of brand of the digestible self to be consumed and categorized within sentient lines of code and  neural networks. As we rot from the blue glow of a pulsar in our linens and surrounded artifacts in our mausoleums-we transmit words and videos for some for of connection to justify our own being. To understand who we are through borderless transactions that may identify within a cultural realm only to in the end to be left hollow. We are no one nor are we defined by ideological constructs of identity-I say therefore I am-means nothing in the cacophony of vying voices for attention and the next payout. I post therefore we are no one, we are all one bound by no identity to define our motives and hide in the forest in caves hot boxing laughing at shadow puppets.

III. Censorship

We barrel towards the self, towards freedoms, all the while giving them up through convenience of algorithms and platforms and the ease that our lives have become with vast knowledge at our finger tips - like Icarus to a flame. We the people are dictated how, when and where to talk in edited paraphrases of semi corporate babble that is albeit non-human for the overlords to boost engagement in whichever form - in short we all are double speaking. 24/7 monitoring and public ridicule if we step outside societal norms that change daily, it begs the question are we even really our genuine selves or our we self caring to our early beds? One day cancelled the other day the darling of the public eye. The biological eye is as hypocritical as any; over the mechanical eye while we become an ouroboros of self, community, and state monitoring - roofied into a foggy haze of what was to what is as we deal with those repercussions one micro dose at a time. 

IV. De-Branding

The concept of branding gets its contemporary roots from colonial conquest namely the Dutch Trading Company and their exploits. We aim to brand everything and everyone into digestible concepts even if those concepts aren’t meant to be digestible - in the post digital era we are commodifying ever aspect of our lives to be bough and sold to the lowest common denominator, since marketing experts believe that is the best for return of investment. Microcosms of labels, shapes, typography to amalgamate into dividends to further prop up investment assets. We have lost our way in a sea of symbols and marks forgetting that the truest test of the concept of branding is remembrance through oral history as many native peoples have done since the dawn of time those histories past down to the people through their lineages a ever evolving form of what was and what will be the future undefined through discourse. We all are tired of tag lines and being sold to join me on this exploration of de-branding.