José Antonio Hernández-Díez

Caracas in the 1980s — From Cinematic Time to Looped Video and Objects

Hernández-Díez studied at the Centro de Formación Cinematográfica in Caracas and began working through film and video. MACBA presents him as part of a Venezuelan generation that emerged in the 1980s, opening its retrospective with early experimental videos and works built around screens and display cases^*2. New Museum likewise describes him as trained in film and video and as one of the artists who produced early video work in Venezuela^*1. María Elena Ramos’s 1991 essay, digitized by ICAA, traces his movement from an interest in film to video and then video installation^*6. In works from the late 1980s, brief recorded actions loop so that an event from the past repeatedly returns as a present occurrence on the monitor. e-flux describes these electronic images as early experiments in which video takes on magical, possessive qualities^*11. In a 1991 review, Luis Ángel Duque identifies the 1988 Los sueños no duran más de cinco minutos as Hernández-Díez’s entry into the public art scene and discusses him as part of the period’s “neo-conceptual” generation^*4. The attention to time and repetition developed through film continues in later works built around a beating heart, operating machinery, footage of a dog eating, and objects altered by viewers’ actions.

International Exhibitions in the 1990s — Caracas Street Culture and Global Contemporary Art

Hernández-Díez’s international activity expanded during the 1990s, as debates over contemporary art as a “global language” intensified and Euro-American institutional dominance came under scrutiny. SITE Santa Fe places the emergence of a new Venezuelan generation, including Hernández-Díez, alongside the economic and social crisis of the late 1980s and describes work that engaged both local culture and international postmodernism^*7. MACBA situates his participation in Aperto ’93 at the Venice Biennale, Cocido y crudo at the Museo Reina Sofía in 1994, and the first Gwangju Biennale in 1995 within this period^*3. Reina Sofía’s exhibition record shows that Cocido y crudo brought artists from different cultural regions into the same exhibition^*18. That international circuit continued with the 1999 Carnegie International, where Carnegie Museum of Art lists Hernández-Díez among the participating artists^*17. New Museum emphasizes the way he connected international languages of Pop and Minimalism to the streets, religious imagery, and consumer goods of Caracas, reading the work outside the color and exoticism often expected of “Latin American art”^*1. Ivo Mesquita’s discussion of the MACBA collection similarly cites San Guinefort and Vehículos perfectos as examples of youth culture and street pop entering international institutions^*21.

San Guinefort — Building a Relic as a Preservation Device

The 1991 San Guinefort translates the medieval French legend of a dog venerated as a protector of children into a display apparatus made from taxidermy, Plexiglas, metal, a tank, and rubber gloves. Christie’s record confirms both the 1991 date and the material construction of a taxidermied dog enclosed in an industrial preservation case^*8. An exhibition essay from the period, digitized by ICAA, analyzes the legend and the technical structure in parallel, showing the importance of an early work that places religious imagery and machinery on the same plane^*4. In New Museum’s 2003 survey, viewers could insert their arms into the gloves fixed to the case and touch the “saint dog” inside^*1. Faith becomes an experience produced through preservation technology, museological display, and the viewer’s bodily action.

Sagrado corazón activo — Constructing the Sacred Heart with a Cow’s Heart and Medical Equipment

In Sagrado corazón activo, also from 1991, Catholic Sacred Heart imagery is assembled from a cow’s heart, a transparent cross, tubing, and medical equipment. MACBA’s exhibition material notes that Hernández-Díez referred to the works from this period as a “new Christian iconography”^*2. A contemporary article preserved by ICAA records the artist discussing his interests in film, photography, video, and religious imagery together as he sought to produce new iconographic forms^*5. An essay by Latitudes published by MACBA closely analyzes the structure in which a heart connected to life-support equipment and devotion to the Sacred Heart place corporeal “real presence” and devotional “presence” in the same work^*20. Technology and religion establish presence through different procedures. A beating heart reads as life; an image of the Sacred Heart reads as sacred. The work places those two forms of visual persuasion side by side.

La Hermandad and Arroz con Mango — Skateboards, Pigskin, and Baseball Bats

The 1994 La Hermandad combines skateboards made from pigskin with video, bringing street culture, food, and the animal body into the same work. Revista Estilo records an installation of three televisions, pigskin skateboards, and metal-and-rubber wheels, with video showing three phases at once: frying the skateboard, riding it in the street, and a dog eating it^*16. Arte Al Día discusses the footage of the pigskin skateboard being eaten by a dog as a central example of the artist’s “conceptual dissonance,” which unsettles ordinary recognition^*13. In the 1997 Arroz con Mango, each strike of a baseball bat against the apparatus changes the audio, so the viewer’s action advances the work. New Museum describes this participatory structure as an experience in which the play, competition, force, and violence contained in sport continually change register^*1. The objects shift from relics to skateboards and sports equipment. In each case, a familiar thing is made to behave according to unfamiliar rules, destabilizing its usual meaning.

Thinkers — Reading Hume, Kant, and Marx in Sneaker Logos

In Thinkers, sneakers are stacked so that letters drawn from brand logos spell the surnames of Western thinkers including Hume, Kant, Jung, and Marx. New Museum presents the series as a point of overlap between two forms of self-formation: the “thinking subject” and the “buying subject,” joined through advertising signs and philosophers’ names^*1. Reviewing the 2003 exhibition, The Brooklyn Rail discusses Hume and Marx, praising the direct use of youth culture and globally recognizable consumer signs while also noting the risk that some works collapse into a single-line idea^*10. Photography turns the stacked shoes into a single legible word with the clarity of an advertising image. Once “HUME” resolves, the authority of the brand logo and that of the philosopher depend on the same act of reading a visual sign. Galería Freijo provides images of several works from Thinkers^*15.

Monitors Repeat the Past — When Video Becomes Necessary

In Hernández-Díez’s early videos, the temporal structure of repeated events and the monitor as an object matter as much as the recorded content. The Latitudes essay published by MACBA analyzes the late-1980s loops through the image of domestic television as a “ghost machine” that repeatedly summons the recorded past into the present^*20. e-flux likewise describes the screens and display-case works of this period as treating electronic images as magical and possessive phenomena^*11. In La Hermandad, three videos hold separate stages of the pigskin skateboard’s transformation at the same time: frying, street use, and being eaten by a dog^*16. Video preserves the object’s transformation as duration. It is assigned to events that unfold through time—life, memory, consumption, destruction—while the preservation case in San Guinefort and the life-support apparatus in Sagrado corazón activo perform different kinds of work.

Petare 2009 — A Still Photograph Lets Viewers Read Urban Density at Their Own Pace

Petare 2009 is a case in which photography turns directly toward the city. Arte Al Día presents the work as a large-scale photographic installation about Petare, the vast barrio in Caracas, and records an exhibition structure that paired the image with writing by H. G. Wells^*14. In the wall-sized still image, the accumulation of housing enters the field of view at once: viewers can step back to see the whole slope or move closer to follow individual buildings. Here, viewing time belongs to the viewer. The photograph holds the city on one surface while allowing its interior to be reread in any order. Wizard Gallery summarizes an artistic trajectory that began with film training and moved among photography, video, and sculpture^*19. Within the same body of work, repeated events call for video, tactile situations call for an apparatus, and an expansive city is held by a still photograph that can be scanned at the viewer’s own pace.

The Speed of Humor and the “One-Liner” Critique

Hernández-Díez designs devices that can be grasped quickly: philosophers’ names spelled with sneakers, an apparatus struck by a baseball bat, hands inserted into a case to touch a saint dog. That immediacy draws the viewer into the work. BOMB argues that his reversals of everyday objects, medical equipment, and religious motifs use humor in ways that make viewers complicit in the work’s absurdity^*9. In its review of the 2003 survey, The Brooklyn Rail values the dense conjunction of faith and technology in San Guinefort while warning that works such as Thinkers can approach the logic of a “one-liner”^*10. A later retrospective review in ArtNexus argues that when the early works are shown again after a quarter century, the obsolescence of what once counted as current technology produces a new layer of meaning^*12. As the machines age, they become objects that require preservation and reactivation, much like religious relics.

What Photography, Video, and Installation Each Do — Thinkers Is Read, La Hermandad Holds Time, San Guinefort Requires Touch

MACBA’s retrospective brought early experimental video, screens, display cases, photography, sculpture, and drawing into a single chronological account of the artist’s work^*2. San Guinefort requires a display case and the viewer’s body because the viewer inserts an arm through a rubber glove to touch the saint dog^*1. Sagrado corazón activo places the cow’s heart and tubing physically in the gallery so that religious imagery and the material presence of life-support technology are experienced together^*20. La Hermandad uses video to hold three stages in the pigskin skateboard’s transformation simultaneously^*16. In Thinkers, color photography gives the stacked shoes the clarity of an advertisement so that “HUME” or “MARX” can be read at once^*1. Petare 2009 leaves an immense quantity of urban detail still, allowing viewers to vary their distance and viewing time^*14. Across these works, acts of reading, touching, waiting, and approaching are tied to specific choices of medium.