Taxonomic Landscapes

Taxonomic Landscapes refers to the representation of landscape in urban artistic practice, especially in the interventions made anonymously on walls. Today in Caracas, the mythology of modernity has been replaced by a nationalist imaginary that emphasizes historical and heroic scenes and a rural mapping with the “typical.” In this practice, the representation of nature is presented as a "native” setting and as signification processes stimulated by the exotic. This image, illustrative of the territory, shares the same concept of artifice, if we think that the vision of the natural has become distant and almost referential, or "mere fiction, a negative utopia," as the philosopher Henri Lefebvre warned when challenging a production-based view on the environment.

Paisajes taxonómicos

Paisajes taxonómicos alude a la representación del paisaje en la práctica artística urbana, sobre todo en las intervenciones de muros realizados de manera anónima. Hoy en día en Caracas la mitología de la modernidad ha sido sustituida por un imaginario nacionalista que enfatiza las escenas histórico-heroicas y la cartografía rural de lo “propio”. En esta práctica, la representación de la naturaleza es asumida como decorado “autóctono” y al igual que los procesos de significación estimulados por el exotismo, esta imagen ilustrativa del territorio comparte la misma concepción de artificio, si pensamos en que la visión de lo natural se ha vuelto distante y prácticamente referencial, o “mera ficción, una utopía negativa”, según advertía el filósofo Henri Lefebvre, cuando cuestionaba la mirada productivista sobre el entorno.
Por Carmen Hernández

27-f

1994-97
Reveals the memories of the missing through images and declarations by their relatives, as a means of confronting the discourses and revealing the contradictions of officialdom in seeking to silence and conceal. The "unburied" are the players in this project, victims of one of the greatest massacres in Venezuela's democratic history, a tragedy that writes a new chapter in the history of disappearances in Latin America. The victims are the people who went missing on February 27, 1989, buried in common graves and still not identified. It is a tribute to the missing and their families.

Berenice's grimace

1995

During my research on the violence that shook Venezuela in 1989 and in subsequent years, I started to take an interest in the role of teeth in the identification of cadavers. I am fascinated by the human body and its "somatic discourse," the narrative discourses that speak of traditions and experience in Venezuelan culture.
The images attempt to reveal a cultural situation with hues of crude social reality and political tension, creating an atmosphere in a utopian place where the characters involved share the same experience: loss of identity. This is the place where the popular myths and history of the country and the state coexist and coincide.

Crimes and scenarios

1997

Portrays places that bear the mark of a murder. Although the scene of the crime seems to speak for itself, each image is accompanied by a text relating the event. When visiting these places to see if they conceal the murderer's tracks, it is essential to move in on the space the victim managed to see before dying. The project was undertaken in conjunction with crime reporter José Roberto Duque and consists of a total of ten cases that shook public opinion in Venezuela.

Homemade weapons and escaping tools

1997
A series of photographs of homemade weapons -firearms and sharp instruments- handmade by criminals under amateur conditions and confiscated by the police. A catalogue of sorts, seeking to show the beauty of the object outside its criminal context. The weapons are decotextualized to become just another objet d'art. They refer us to the origin of their creation: murder and destruction.

Armas caseras y objetos de escape (1997)
Una serie de fotografías de armas fuego caseras realizadas de manera artesanal por criminales y posteriormente confiscadas por la policía. Un catálogo de tipos que busca acercarse a la belleza del objeto fuera el contexto criminal. Las armas son decontextualizadas para convertirse en un objeto de arte, al tiempo que hacen referencia a su uso original, que es la muerte y la destrucción. Por ello no dejan de constituir también un comentario al contexto violento de Venezuela.

Part one, section one

1909-2000
This "archeology" of the disaster began with the tragedy in Venezuela in December 1999. Several days of continuous rain culminated in the floods in which more than twenty thousand people died. The exact number of victims is still unknown. This catastrophe, Latin America's greatest in the twentieth century, also changed the geography of the central north coast of Venezuela, in which the mudslides swept away whole villages and wiped the anatomy of these places clean off the map. The series of 10 images concentrates on interior spaces as metaphor of isolation and death.

A través del espejo

1998-2000
Un acercamiento al paisaje urbano que comienza por la captación de un espacio íntimo y continúa luego por itinerarios de viaje en los cuales se documenta el espacio exterior siempre mediado por una ventana, evitando documentar de manera directa el espacio exterior e interior al mismo tiempo, con la intención de crear distancia con el entorno inmediato. El paisaje contemporáneo como metáfora de violencia y desolación, en un intento por configurar una ciudad desde sus memorias y sus vidrios, que hacen las veces de espejos.

Through the looking glass

A glance at natural and urban contemporary landscapes. The series begins with an image depicting an intimate space before ultimately abandoning it, always mediated by a glass window in an attempt to create a distance between the observer and the thing observed. Images of journeys to different places in a search of one that fills the absence of the other. A research on the contemporary landscape as metaphor of violence and isolation in an attempt to reconfigure a city from its memoirs and its window-mirrors.

Souvenirs (cartografía en proceso)

1998-2005
Mi trabajo se ubica entre el de un arqueólogo, un investigador social y un artista. Las fotografías de esta serie son parte de un cuaderno visual que acumula imágenes producto de mis paseos por la ciudad de Caracas. Este archivo urbano no sólo se vincula a la relación que tiene la gente en general con las cosas cotidianas, sino también con la manera como los “usuarios” hacen uso del espacio urbano y social.

Esta serie es una aproximación al paisaje, una mirada más atenta a los objetos que la definen en su dimensión caótica. He puesto especial énfasis en Caracas, una metropolis que cambia continuamente en dos dimensiones: la de la informalidad, constituida básicamente por los cerros y barrios, aunque en última instancia permea otros espacios “formales”, y en segundo lugar por las áreas que han sido “diseñadas y planificadas”. En líneas generales, se aproxima al caos como inherente a la condición urbana, a pesar de la renuencia a aceptarlo por parte de sus habitantes.

En este acercamiento surgen temas como la superproducción, el desecho, centro y centralidad, segregación, el urbanismo como fracaso, el marcado de territorios y el espacio como lugar de negociación (reterritorialización simbólica), entre otros. El corazón de este trabajo también toca otras cualidad de la ciudad basadas en la estética callejera (más allá de clichés), el espacio público como arena de debate, y la invasión como solución habitacional, entre otros.

Souvenirs (cartography in progress)

My work is somewhere between that of an archeologist, a social researcher and an artist. The photographs in this series are part of a visual notebook that accumulates images product of my wanderings around the city. This urban archive not only deals with the relationship with people and things, but with that of the “users” with the urban and social space.

This series is an approach to the landscape, a closer look at the objects that define the city in all its chaotic dimension. I have placed special emphasis on Caracas, my hometown, a metropolis that changes continually into two dimensions: that of informality, constituted basically by the shanty towns –the most common architecturalwise living condition in the so called “third world”–, and secondly by the areas that have been formally designed and “planned”. In general terms, urban chaos and the discourse of violence have spread all over the city, therefore changing the relationship between citizens and their surroundings.

Overall, I deal with overproduction, disposability, center and centrality, segregation, urbanism as a failed discipline, the marking of territories and the urban space as a place for negotiation (reterritorialization), among others. The core of this project also deals with other qualities of the city based on the aesthetic of the street (beyond cliches), the public space as an arena for debate, and invasion as the solution for living problems, among others.