https://bertoherrera.com/artwork daily 1.0 2025-02-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1581854258744-XMFM66TDECELK4C5CCPY/90_percent_humidity.jpg Artwork https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1591869322796-KMX7XG23VG2FXTA411SS/04.jpg Artwork https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689615747670-IEMZSYXHYP6HDTG9EQL4/Quadawg_small.gif Artwork https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1600176892180-K9E2QM1SVJ8OECDGT3DR/infrared_trees_clouds-1.jpg Artwork - What Is Home? Growing up in a military household I was exposed to things that normal people would know I grew a love for military technology where most of our current tech comes from when it has become declassified and decommissioned. I find using former military tech such as IR (infrared) that has been used primarily for military personnel to achieve their goals no matter how nefarious they may be. Converting my camera into a full spectrum IR camera I wanted to challenge myself how to view the wealth disparity in America and its infatuation with military pride be it used for exploiting the capitalist/democracy agenda or being used against the American people. Highlighting the wealth disparity and racism in America can be abrasive or very subtle – such as the National Housing Act of 1934, Redlining with its damages felt to this day. In minority neighborhoods developers purposefully didn’t put in enough trees what this does is multi-faceted, for one viewing trees reduces stress levels which in turn reduces tensions within the neighborhood and deems a neighborhood peaceful versus combative. Another use is shade in the summer months this shade is critical to minority neighborhoods given they are higher to use public transit more often and the lack of community space such as park. These tactics further disrupt the people in these communities on a psychological level. This disparity shows the critical interrelationship that cloud coverage and trees adds to a hot summer day. These images bring joy to me cause I can see Black, Brown and Yellow communities playing in the park, grilling, connecting and loving each other. This is beyond the interrelationship of trees and clouds but our interrelationship as a species that we all need each other. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689616229944-ZRSMOM4BU3LYXU8QU33F/Omnipresence-1.jpg Artwork We all watch the world burn sometime in our lifetime, I’ve experienced it a few times and a few different ways. I can’t help but to lose myself in the times drowning in the daily clickbaity news articles and endless scrolls of videos and shouting people sharing similarities yet opposed, shouting-in the end to figure out who is more oppressed. These debates are all valid and all need to be taken with a critical eye and mind but I always come back to the question. How can I be everywhere? After experiencing occupational burnout from a high leadership position, lofty title and pay. I started to examine my own, albeit unhealthy relationship with my phone. Logging hours on hours and evern more on my computer staring into the glowing abyss. Screenshotting, saving images, reference points and everything to shape narratives of understanding but yet the world moves on. Lockdown after lockdown through the dark German winter lonely-sequestered and slave to capitalism. These tools are the tools that many of the world’s population use to a lot of the same things I do-stay informed, reference and many others things. These things are portals into regions and foreign realms all accessible through a domain. Tabs of websites that span the global over and over. Not being able to travel even leave my flat outside a 5km range I explored these tools as a medium to exam us our behaviors and what’s happening in the world-the climate so to speak. YouTube live feeds, to subreddits (r/whereintheworld) livefeeds, hack security cameras with livefeeds. The moiré effect in many ways reminds me of interference and buzz of these everyday objects and duplicitous nature of them. Macrophotography mixed with digital cameras brings these surfaces to life in the very way I felt comfort and the ability to escape from the confines of 5km. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689615624264-TYKHPGBZVCGTKDY0YL4T/1astral.jpg Artwork https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689615496475-3J1C8IVVGOO30O96LUWY/untitled_trauma_1.jpg Artwork https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689694175243-OCFHIWGHAPGQB17UT4IC/the_uncanny_forest-1.jpeg Artwork This body of work explores the interconnection of the world we live in and the digital world we portray ourselves in; while also questioning the traditional idea of photography. What justifies the image? Who is the true artist, human or machine? As bio machines we yearn for further advancement but we don’t question what purpose is serves or the ramifications of the technology itself. This project was made in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689591917678-VDSPBJ9R5Z42ZG33J81H/Camp_Amateur_Publication_2022_2.jpg Artwork Camp Amateur A Happy Death - Muzeum Ksiazki Artystycznej, Lodz, Poland Part of the FotoFestiwal Lodz Program Nico Baumgarten, Demelza Watts & others Camp Amateur is the place where professionalism is finally put to rest. A life misspent competing with peers, touching up white walls, and ordering business cards has finally come to a bitter end. Nico Baumgarten and Demelza Watts invited a group of international artists to collectively bury their professional selves, and be reborn as a loving collective of self-confident amateurs. Camp Amateur was created to share, collaborate, care and explore with a goal to be awakened free from the ties and suits of professional life. While reflecting on amateurism, the idea was to deliberately be inefficient and dedicate a lot of time and attention to all the unprofessional aspects of their existence. Participants: Wioleta Piotrowska, Tamara Skalska, Berto Herrera, Konstantinos Zirganos-Kazoleas, Marta Kiela-Czarnik, Monika Dramalieva, Franek Wardynski, Magda Jaroń, Sima Choubdarzadeh, Milena Soporowska https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689592263627-09WYJB0QUEGJD4OR8911/declassified_untitled_1.jpg Artwork In his latest series, the American born artist, Berto Herrera pulls together disparate visual elements to create entirely unique collages that comment on the way in which surveillance subtly dominates culture today. Surveillance has always been used to gather data and information about people, events, and lands. In a post-modern and digital age, the line between private and public has blurred, becoming a point of contention between establishments of power and private entities. This invasion of privacy is central to Herrera’s Declassified*. Across a series of 25 works, the artist is asking us to peel back the relationship between consumerism, intimacy and media by combining decommissioned government documents, drone surveillance, CCTV footage, with a number of cultural references that feel familiar but are not immediately recognizable. Traces of the self also appear in a number of the works. Built up, and layered together, there’s a real weight - both physical and intellectual - to the works. Embedded in each composition are also multiple references to the military. As an ex US military member himself, Herrera understands how deeply rooted the modern military is in our daily lives, perpetuating a patriarchal, toxic masculinity which aims to gain further power over people. Rigorously laid out on the same size paper - which itself is as close as possible to a record album in scale - there’s also a rhythm and repetition to the work that adds impact. Together, they show a perversion of Orwellian governance that is present across our lives. Though we are so often blind to how our information is bought and sold to the highest bidder, Herrera’s series lays bare how nefarious this can be and how oppressive it can feel. In a post pandemic society, the artist felt the true weight of this and chose to unravel it herein. The global mass collection of data - via the Black Lives Matter movements, to Me Too, and the vaccine roll out - charted our values and movements in an unprecedented way. Why? What and who will use this information? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/1689701233401-UX5GVU9HB7DQ6RD2PSLT/haiku_1_4.jpeg Artwork https://bertoherrera.com/contact daily 0.75 2019-12-12 https://bertoherrera.com/about daily 0.75 2024-08-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc8276cb91449434d7f70dc/64c13438-7f49-433b-8795-c367700e78b1/348869776_625748122522204_6944969926806978165_n.jpg About Portrait by Basil Vargas https://bertoherrera.com/exhibitions daily 0.75 2025-02-10