Luis’ artistic practice reflects on contexts and history, also analysing Western and Latin American (artistic) thought. He appropriates objects and imaginaries to create links between the work of the artist and the larger working-class community.
Luis has exhibited around the world (a.o. Colombia, US, UK, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Ecuador) at prestigious institutions, e.g. the Museum of Contemporary Art of George Mason U. in Washington and the Modern Art Museum of Medellin. He was artist-in-residence at CBK in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Luis' work can be found in major public and private collections in Colombia, Europe, and the Americas. He obtained a MFA from both the National U. of Colombia and the National U. of the Arts in Buenos Aires. He currently lives in Bogotá.
La Construccion de un Mundo Mejor - Gallery Nueveochenta
Visual and spoken language are powerful tools that humans use… However, we might be also victims of it. Maps do not represent the actual proportions of continents and countries. Nevertheless, we do not question them. They have remained the same…
I come from Colombia, and even though people did not speak Spanish there, I do now. Today, I live in Belgium, which has three official languages: Dutch, French, and German.
As a result of its history, Belgium has six governments and language has become fundamental in its society, involving resources, decision-making power in parliaments, etc. In theory, Belgians are required to learn all three languages and then add English on top of that, which is the language "everyone should master" nowadays. Many people here want to speak as many languages as possible, while others prefer to only speak French or Dutch.
Some may not want to speak English, but others even want to learn Spanish. What language should I speak? What does this mean for me after living in the part of the country where the language is non-Romance for five years?
Language allows us to communicate, which can bring us together but also set us apart. We can use language to recognize the other (as an intruder? a friend? Your equal? The alien?), as well as for making assumptions about (good ones or bad ones?) or taking interest in one another.
Semantic infiltration is the use of language to make the enemy vulnerable.
According to myth, in 1832, former prime minister of Belgium Charles Rogier wrote in a letter that he wanted to make French the only administrative language for the government so that "we will gradually be able to destroy the Germanic part of Belgium”.
We will be showcasing an individual exhibition of Luis, whose work is comforting to me because it addresses these paradoxical uses of language and it also creates the possibility of an absent language, an absent space in geography, a space to rest, a place where there is only form, where we only are, a place where it is possible to be equal. Would such a place be possible?
What are we beyond maps, language, and rivers? What are two words without a space between them?
Yes, without those empty spaces that separate the words that supposedly have all the content of myme ssag ean dwor ds. What is a language without spaces and are there languages like that? Or are those spaces common to humankind?
You are welcome to come see and experience Luis's exhibition. He will probably arrive himself at the end of May to carry out a work in situ and share it with everyone. As part of this exhibition, we will make bread one day.
-Laura Peña, director & founder PARCE
The place between words - Bradwolff Projects
ABYA YALA
Year: 2022
Technique: School maps and bronze
Format:
Abya Yala, which in the Kuna language means "land in its full maturity" or "land of vital blood", is the name used by the Native American Guna people who inhabit the geographic region called the Darién Gap, between what is now northwest Colombia and southeast Panama, to refer to the American continent since Pre-Columbian times. Hence, this is how the territory was called before the colonial conquest. Various groups are now trying to retake the name and it is associated with political mobilization to decolonize words. That is why school billboards and the continent are used horizontally to the north and south. In order to learn this name again.
luis hernández mellizo, La construcción de un mundo mejor at Nuevaochenta Gallery in Bogota in 2022.
The world corrected.
Year: 2018
Technique: Corrective liquid on map
Format: 24,5x31 cms
luis hernández mellizo, the place between words at Bradwolff Projects in Amsterdam in 2018.
ATLAS
Year: 2018
Technique: Book intervention
Format:
Luis explores identities by searching inside atlases for words and maps that have been drawn up, either highlighting or physically removing material from the books. His meticulousness in deconstructing these ‘books’ accentuates a ‘place’ that lies between the words.
Dutch Family
luis hernández mellizo, the place between words at Bradwolff Projects in Amsterdam in 2018.
Year: 2018
Technique: Post card intervention
Format:
In this work Luis refers to his exploration of cultural identities during his art residency of CBK/Stedelijk Museum in the Bijlmer neighbourhood (Amsterdam) and his endeavour to distinguish something that cannot in fact be written, spoken or translated. Luis’ project seeks to portray a social landscape through his own experience of coexisting in the midst of the multicultural area, where he is caught between being a tourist and a newcomer, visualizing his own experience and those of others living in the Bijlmer.
luis hernández mellizo, El papel del Trabajo (2015) and Patrimonio Baldio (2018) at Nuevaochenta Gallery in Bogota.
Bread and Work
Year: 2018
Technique: Paint roller intervention
Format:
Luis starts from objects and images historically associated with the concept of work, such as money, agricultural products, tools and political symbols, and adds a new meaning, through which he questions the definitions of art, production, value, originality and legitimacy. He establishes a series of contrasts between the original pieces and the interventions that reveal their non-capitalizable character and speak of work as an action that is transformed, showing that both the value and the meaning of the objects linked to the notion of work are given by associations and precise meanings and that these can be annulled by means of formal alterations. This is how the function, scope and relevance of the work as a concept are restated, while proposing a reinterpretation of it, showing that its meaning is much wider than that of the social construction in which it is framed.
LEARRIVING
Year: 2018
Technique: Cropped Carpet
Format: 80 x 120 cm
luis hernández mellizo, the place between words at Bradwolff Projects in Amsterdam in 2018.
No Place
Year: 2018
Technique: Marker and corrective liquid on booklets.
Format:
By asking a series of questions about places, languages and words, Luis attempts to find a common ground in the middle of a diversity of experiences, memories and coexistences. With these questions, he encourages people to contemplate on their position in society and their own background. The artist takes this exploration of identities further by searching inside dictionaries and atlases for the words that have been written, either highlighting or physically removing material from the books, and as a result, creating another kind of language. His meticulousness in deconstructing these ‘books’ accentuates this ‘place’ that lies between the words.
luis hernández mellizo, the place between words at Bradwolff Projects in Amsterdam in 2018.
Raffael des Meisters Gemälde in 202 Abbildungen
Year: 2016
Technique: Book intervention
Format: 29 x 26 x 3 cm
“Lumpenproletariat, worker, aristocrat, all in one. To be an artist probably means striving to become foreign to everything. Autonomy and good deals. Trompe l ́oeil. All of the artist ́s tools are double-edged swords. An artist might sell his soul, but never his time. The artist learns by doing and that means making everything sooner or later, only he knows that he does not know (don ́t tell anyone). Painting is the artist’s only trade, as it is for all those who have been able to make non-painting into a singular profession. The artist ́s trade is the art of not working. Luis ́s work makes constant reference to painting. The artist ́s work is the trade of not knowing any art. Luis ́s work makes constant reference to work. The artist ́s art is the work of having no trade (...)”.
Acerca de El papel del trabajo / About The role of work. Pablo Rosales Consulted in: http://lhm-txt.blogspot.be/2015/12/acerca-de-el-papel-del-trabajo-pablo.html
The Little Red Book
Year: 2013
Technique: Book intervention
Format: 13,5x9,5x3cm
“(...)These works work as a place where elements that I consider iconic in their objectual dimension are gathered. The study of some popular group manifestations and the observation of a series of natural phenomena on certain elements. Books, banners and speeches, potatoes and air are re-considered in their materiality and by means of a particular work they become visible in a particular way that allows to point certain ideals of justice, liberty and happiness, amongst others. This is why, in addition, they work as art pieces (objects, paintings, engravings), because within the contemporary art society it seems to be the only place to say in a barely comprehensive and/or coherent way , the supposed non-sense. Hence, the idea of manifestation is difficult to achieve, and utopia. Perhaps, utopia is best defined
from dystopia(...)”. Conversation between Maximo Jacoby y Luis Hernández Mellizo about an exhibition in which this work participated. http://lhm-txt.blogspot.com.ar/2014/08/conversacion-entre-maximo-jacoby-y-luis.html
PAINT, PAINTERS, PAINTINGS
Year: 2020
Technique: Video
Format: 5 minutes
Luis creates a sound collage or sound composition that works as an archive of musical sound fragments around the work of painting.
La vestidura del pueblo ("The clothes of the people")
Year: 2010
Technique: Bills folded
Format: 15 x 15 cm
This piece is part of a series in which Luis folded various bills to clothing: the clothes of a people. The bills refer to specific issues for the country, for example a historical event. The folds were customized for each piece and contain bills from various countries around the world, communist countries and countries that no longer exist.
This specific bill is the one thousand pesos bill of Colombia, which is no longer in production. It displays The Bogotazo of 1948 and Colombian political leader Gaitán. Gaitán was beloved by many for criticizing the ruling classes and promising greater equality and land reform. He was murdered in 1948, setting off an outrage across the city, in a wave of violence known as the Bogotazo. The Bogotazo resulted in the death of over 5,000 people and was the start of a violent period of political unrest in Colombia: a 10-year civil war, known as La Violencia.
Luis folded the bill in such a way that not Gaitán but his public are visible: he's pointing at the people. The way this series is commercialized is also a political act by the artist. By giving anyone and at the same time not everyone the opportunity to obtain the work: the sale of the piece is not restricted by any concession (this is the only piece of Luis' work that he doesn't allow any big commercial gallery to commercialize; he decides who sells it or if he wants to give it as a present to people that he decides), in this way, Luis defies the art trade dominated by an upperclass (it is his only piece at such a price; a collectible item, both as art piece and historical bill and there is a limited amount of copies, which allows buyers to keep the piece or resell it at the price they want. In this way, the power is given back to).
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