Rodrigo Hernández at Antenna Space, Shanghai

Rodrigo Hernandez’s work inhabits and projects a magical territory embedded in our world but not confined to it. Recognizing our human limitations to understand and engage with reality, he puts forth speculative positions, at once surprising and plausible, to test the limits of our shared assumptions and knowledge, leading us in a marvellous dive into the forgotten and the unknown. His universe materialises through associative gestures connecting different agencies, cultures and times.

In Lyriform Organ, Hernandez’s first solo exhibition in China, the artist includes drawing, painting and sculpture, choreographed around an intricate architectural setting. The works portray several creatures, some somewhat human in shape while others resembling animals. The metal pieces depict figures hovering in what seems like a zero-gravity environment of liquid contours. Frozen mid-way a flight or a swim, their bodies fold in impossible positions and loving embraces. Similar in its metallic aspect, a sculpture parallels the ambiguity of those figures, merging what could be recognized as a human face with a dog or maybe a wolf head. It stands as a strange presence whose lack of body, further complicates the comprehension of what sort of being we are being presented with. The eye-level positioning of the character enhances the eeriness of its features, while signalling an interaction, previously suggested by the reflecting surfaces of the wall-mounted pieces, enclosing the visitor in their midst.

His universe materialises through associative gestures connecting different agencies, cultures and times. Often wrapped in architectural arrangements, images and objects are released from “original” frames of belonging and playfully reconfigured. We are guided through forking pathways, stage-like playgrounds designed to entice our imagination.

-Words by João Laia

About the Artist

Rodrigo Hernández (Mexico City, Mexico, 1983) currently lives and works between Lisbon and Mexico City. Studied at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe, and at Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. He has been a fellow of the Laurenz-Haus Stiftung in Basel (2015), Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Cité International des Arts in Paris (2016) and Istanbul Modern (2019).

Working mostly with classical medias and techniques of art making, including drawing, sculpture and painting, Rodrigo Hernández is interested in the constitutive movement of art and image making, from Mesoamerican iconography to contemporary art. His projects vary from object making within a devoted studio practice to site specific and research oriented projects. He draws on a number of aesthetic references, which range classical Japanese printmaking to fashion, and European modernism, among others, to develop a very personal formal vocabulary.

His recent solo exhibitions include: with what eyes?, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco, US(2024); Flux of Things, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, DE(2023); El Espejo, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, MX(2022); I Am a Stranger and I Am Moving, Swiss Institute/Offsite, New York, US(2022); EL ESPEJO, Museo de Arte Moderno, Medellin, CO(2022); Petit-Musc, Kunsthalle Kohta, Helsinki, FI(2021); Pasado, CIAJG, Guimaraes, PT(2021); Dampcloot, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam, NL(2020); A Moth to a Flame, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, US(2020); What do I hear when I hear the flow of time?, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City, MX(2019); O mundo real não alça voo, Pîvo, São Paulo, BR(2018); Who Loves You, Kunsthalle Winterthur, CH(2018); A Complete Unknown, Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis, US(2018); THE GOURD & THE FISH, SALTS, Birsfelden , CH(2018); The Shakiest of Things, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV(2017); I am nothing, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, DE(2016); Every forest madly in love with the moon has a highway crossing it from one side to the other, Kurimanzutto, Mexico City, MX(2016); El Pequeño Centro, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, MX(2016); Go, Gentle Scorpio, Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca, MX(2016); What is the Moon?, Bonnefanten museum, Maastricht, NL(2014).

His work has been exhibited in venues such as: Kunstmuseum Den Haag; Kunsthalle Münster; Göteborg Konsthall; Istanbul Modern; PinchukArtCenter, Kiev; GaMec, Bergamo; ZKM Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe; Kunstverein Nürnberg; Bonnefanten museum, Maastricht; Gladstone Gallery, Brussels; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel.