«Regreso… al origen», Heriberto Nieves invites visitors to explore an intimate and symbolic territory where biography and creation converge. His works, forged, modeled and assembled in metal, constitute material testimonies of a constant search for artistic essence. Through them, the sculptor explores the space that opens between memory and the present, individual experience and shared memory, and proposes origin as an anchor from which to understand the changing condition of human beings, in permanent reconstruction.
The exhibition traces the artist's different life and creative stages, charting a journey between past and future in which Puerto Rico, his birthplace, occupies a central place. Beyond its geographic dimension, the island is an emotional, cultural and symbolic reference that runs through all of his production. In dialogue with this territory appear landscapes, water, fire and natural elements, together with transformed matter, which articulate a plastic language from which to reflect on the relationship between human beings and their environment and the forces that shape their existence.
The works gathered at the Museo de América, made between Puerto Rico, Valencia and Madrid, span sculpture, painting, installation and audiovisual creation. The diversity of techniques and formats shapes a coherent and open visual universe, in which the pieces dialogue with one another and reveal a trajectory marked by experimentation and artistic sensitivity. Nature occupies a fundamental place in this body of work, not only as a subject of representation but also as a structuring principle of a reflection on transformation, fragility and permanence, closely linked to a profound ecological awareness.
The international character of the exhibition is the result of the collaboration between Margarita Aizpuru, in charge of the curatorial project in Spain, and Cheryl Hartup, in Puerto Rico, as well as the support of Caribbean University and its president, Dr. Ana E. Cucurella. This joint work has made it possible to establish links between different geographic and cultural contexts, reinforcing the transatlantic dimension of the proposal. Through Nieves's work, the exhibition connects diverse experiences of belonging, memory and identity, and shows how artistic creation can build bridges between territories and ways of understanding the world.
«Regreso… al origen» thus offers an approach to Heriberto Nieves's trajectory from the relationship between personal memory, territory and the transformation of matter. The route invites each visitor to establish their own dialogue with the works and to discover new perspectives on the meaning of origin, the construction of identity and the bonds we maintain with the world we inhabit. It is an open reflection in which returning to origin does not mean going back to an unchanging point, but recognizing the traces of the past and understanding how these continue to transform in the present.
In parallel to the temporary exhibition "Regreso al origen...", we present the academic-cultural programme conceived by Caribbean University as part of Heriberto Nieves's temporary exhibition.
This programme consists of three meetings organized around these major questions: how is human experience transformed into artistic creation? how does curation construct new interpretations of the work? and how can art become a platform for entrepreneurship, management and cultural transformation?
The first meeting is titled "Cuando la vida se convierte en arte: Heriberto Nieves, memoria, biografía y creación", and proposes to explore the relationship between life and work based on the human and artistic trajectory of the Puerto Rican artist. It will be led by Rodolfo Lugo, PhD in Philosophy and Letters with a specialization in Puerto Rican Literature, and Raquel Lanseros, poet, translator and internationally recognized voice of contemporary Spanish poetry.
© Ministerio de Cultura - Gobierno de España