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Sergio VERASTEGUI

Sergio Verastegui views his art as an archaeologist views their excavation site. By methodically exploring reality to extract the underlying objects, the artist manipulates his findings to transform them into fragmented works. This is evident in his Ecdysis – a term referring to the molting of the exoskeleton of arthropods – assembling fragments of materials that are or have been within agglutinated layers. Here, honeycomb, honey, and bees reflect the substance of a world sewn from scraps, riddled with holes, and dislocated. Is it nature that contaminates art, represented by the traditional material of gold leaf, or is it art that takes over nature by filling its gaps? Sergio Verastegui does not answer, simply focusing on questioning the reality he has seized through the notion of memory, time, and space.

The artist envisions his work as the articulation in space of incomplete realities or those that, like language, have no inherent corporeality. As he likes to repeat: “When people have an arm amputated, they continue to feel pain in it until they see it in a mirror or on a screen.” Through the stratification of layers of meaning, Sergio Verastegui delivers polysemous pieces, comparable to palimpsest manuscripts that must be scratched to discover their original state. Intestins 1 et 2 integrate this polysemous dimension and the activation of the signifying form. The latter then becomes the link between language and reality. Combined with pictorial materiality, language integrates into space through an organic sculpture in the truest sense.

Biography

Sergio Verastegui was born in 1981 in Lima (Peru). He lives and works in Paris.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

  • 2006-2010 / DNSEP at Villa Arson, Nice
  • 2002-2004 / Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro

SOLO EXHIBITIONS – SELECTION

  • 2019 / Temporary Spaces, French Institute, Madrid, Spain Pellejos sueltos,
  • La Vitrine, FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris
  • 2018 / (S)CRYPTE, Thomas Bernard Gallery, Paris, France
  • 2017 / Skelettons, La Métive, Moutier-d’Ahun, France
  • 2016 / Pellejos Sueltos, Salón, curated by: Tiago de Abreu Pinto and Francesco Giaveri, Madrid, Spain
  • 2015 / Lines eyes lies, sp-arte 2015, São Paolo, Brazil

GROUP EXHIBITIONS – SELECTION

  • 2019 / Art-O-Rama, Friche Belle de Mai, La Cartonnerie, Marseille
  • The Sound of Silence, Praz Delavalade, Los Angeles
  • 2018 / Intoto 6, Ricard Corporate Foundation, Paris, France
  • 2017 / BIENALSUR, National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires
  • 2016 / Mi casa tu casa, Casa Imelda, Mexico City
  • 2015 / Dust: The plates of the present, February 2013-July 2015, Baxter St/Camera Club of New York, New York
  • 2014 / Something to tell you, Galerie Thomas Bernard – Cortex Athletico, Paris
  • The Circular Ruins, Meetfactory, Prague
  • 2013 / Salon International Jeune Création, Centquatre, Paris, France
  • 2011 / Musik fur Kreisverkehre & Sculptures for Rondabouts, Golden Pudle Club, Hamburg
  • 2009 / 54th edition of the Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge

RESIDENCIES – SELECTION

  • 2017 / La Métive, residency in partnership with the LMB of Felletin, the FRAC artothèque Limousin and the Musée de la Sénatorerie de Guéret, Moutier d’Ahun, France
  • 2015 / Casa Imelda, Mexico City
  • 2014 / Meetfactory Residency, Prague

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

  • FRAC Bretagne / MAMCO, Geneva / FRAC Limousin / Artothèque du Limousin / CNAP – National Center for Visual Arts / Frac Ile de France / Capc museum of contemporary art of Bordeaux

AWARDS

  • 2013 / Show-Room Art-O-Rama Prize, Marseille
  • Prix Jeune Création SYMEV, Paris
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