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Sergio Verastegui

Sergio Verastegui considers his art as an archaeologist considers his field of excavation. He methodically explores reality to extract its underlying objects, manipulating his finds to transform them into fragmented works. Such is the case with his Ecdysis - the term used to describe the moulting of anthropods' exoskeletons - in which fragments of materials that are or have been are assembled in clumped layers. Here, honeycomb, honey and bees reflect the substance of a world sewn from shreds, perforated and dislocated. Is it nature that contaminates art, represented by the traditional material of gold leaf, or is it art that takes over from nature by filling in its gaps? Sergio Verastegui doesn't answer this question, but simply questions the reality he has seized through the notion of memory, time and space.

The artist sees his work as the spatial articulation of realities that are incomplete or, like language, have no physicality of their own. As he likes to repeat: "When you cut off people's arms, they continue to hurt until they see it in a mirror, or on a screen." By stratifying layers of meaning, Sergio Verastegui delivers polysemic pieces, comparable to palimpsest manuscripts that need to be scratched away to discover their original state. Intestins 1 and 2 integrate this polysemic dimension, setting the signifying form in motion. The latter then becomes the link between language and reality. Combined with pictorial materiality, language is integrated into space through organic sculpture in the truest sense of the word.

Biography

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

TRAINING

  • 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, Institut Français, Madrid, Spain Pellejos sueltos,
  • La Vitrine, FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris
  • 2018 / (S)CRYPTE, Galerie Thomas Bernard, 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, Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, 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 NewYork, New York
  • 2014 / Quelque chose à vous dire, 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

RESIDENCES - SELECTION

  • 2017 / La Métive, residency in partnership with the LMB in Felletin, the FRAC artothèque Limousin and the Musée de la Sénatorerie in 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 - Centre National des Arts Plastiques / Frac Ile de France / Capc musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux

PRICE

  • 2013 / Prix Show-Room Art-O-Rama, Marseille
  • SYMEV Young Creation Prize, Paris
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