The Gallery at Windsor is pleased to present A Piece of Waterfall in the Sound of Crickets, an expansive solo exhibition of work by Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero, which will be on view from January 27 through April 26, 2024. This exhibition, curated by Elena Ketelsen González, Assistant Curator at MoMA PS1, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by DelMonico Books, including a foreword by The Hon. Hilary M. Weston, an essay by Ketelsen González, and an interview with the artist and Bernardo Mosqueira.

A Piece of Waterfall in the Sound of Crickets brings together a selection of recent paintings and monotypes by Herrero, who for over twenty years has produced a vast body of works on canvas, paper, walls, and streets, including many site-specific commissions and architectural interventions. The exhibition takes its name from a poem by celebrated Costa Rican poet Alfonso Chase (b. 1944), in which he reflects upon the mundane beauty of the sights and sounds of the country that has long inspired his poetry, despite frequent trips to New York City and Europe.

Like Chase, Herrero’s practice often looks beyond his surroundings but remains deeply situated in the lush urban setting of San José, Costa Rica, where he creates geometric abstractions that breathe outwards into the open structures of a city in flux or what Herrero calls “incomplete”, and beyond into the highly ordered cities of the North. From this context emerge works that achieve harmonic resolution while recalling the colors and contours of a city constantly transformed by tropical growth and decay.

Vivid colors merge together to mirror overgrown terrains, while muted hues evoke sun-weathered buildings, as lines blur together to suggest a landscape view from above or the silhouette of a figure in motion. Triangles—both right-side up and upside down—conjure images of volcanoes or mountains. Shapes fall into each other to form precarious yet balanced compositions, reflecting an ever-changing topography, while newer paintings like Lost at Sea (2023) verge on the figurative, resembling a ferry crossing an expanse of ocean.

These paintings speak to Herrero’s profound connection to the territory he works from, in which he—and his studio—occupy the space where the human-made becomes entangled with the natural landscape. Together, the works in the exhibition demonstrate Herrero’s maturity as a painter who over two decades has made sensuous works that are rooted in a profound understanding of the interplay between color, form, intuition, and the place that spurs their creation.

“I am delighted to welcome Federico Herrero to exhibit at Windsor,” said The Hon. Hilary M. Weston, Windsor Cofounder and Creative Director of The Gallery at Windsor. “This exciting show follows our long-standing curatorial focus at The Gallery, which has presented a diverse roster of some of the world’s leading contemporary artists for more than two decades.”

Federico Herrero was the recipient of the Young Artist’s Prize at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001). He has exhibited extensively in museums worldwide. Recent exhibitions include Tactiles, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon, Portugal (2022); Barreras Blandas, Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica (2020); Tempo aberto, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, São Paulo (2019); Open Envelope, Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2018); and Alphabet, a site-specific installation for the atrium of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018).

His work is in the permanent collection of numerous institutions including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; Tate Modern, London, UK; MUDAM, Luxembourg; MUSAC, Castilla y León, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; and São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brazil.

The Gallery at Windsor is open to the public by appointment. Visit the website for more information and public opening times windsorflorida.com/gallery.

About Elena Ketelsen González 

Elena Ketelsen González is a curator and writer based in Queens, New York, originally from San José, Costa Rica. She is currently an assistant curator at MoMA PS1, where she recently organized the first New York museum solo exhibition of Leslie Martinez (2023). Previously, she held programming positions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of the City of New York. She was the founder of La Salita, a curatorial project dedicated to the investigation of artists working from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diaspora. She regularly writes for periodicals and museum catalogues, and frequently presents and gives lectures at universities and other institutions.

About Windsor

Established in 1989, Windsor is a private residential sporting club community spanning 472 acres of lush barrier island between the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean in Vero Beach, Florida. In the early 1990s, W. Galen Weston and the Hon. Hilary M. Weston of Toronto, Canada visited South Florida in search of a winter home for themselves and their children. In Vero Beach they became enchanted by a property that over the next decades would become a cherished home, passion project and ultimately a critically acclaimed residential community. Windsor was designed by renowned town planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk in the New Urbanism style of residential living. It offers public and community spaces framed by timeless architecture and landscape design that celebrates its tropical and unspoiled setting. Windsor is comprised of 350 homesites in various styles, including village homes, cottages and country estates, all remarkable for their signature Anglo-Caribbean architecture and gracious living. Residents enjoy privacy and seclusion combined with the finest amenities, exemplary services and sporting activities.  Windsor is embarking on its final development phase with the launch of the North Village, a 47-acre neighborhood featuring 40 residences, new and enhanced amenities and a heightened commitment to sustainability. windsorflorida.com

 About The Gallery at Windsor

Founded in 2002, The Gallery at Windsor is an independent art space at the heart of the Windsor community. The Gallery annually invites curators to respond to the space with museum-quality shows of contemporary art. The Hon. Hilary M. Weston serves as Creative Director for The Gallery.

The Gallery has exhibited works by leading contemporary artists including Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Weber, Peter Doig, Alex Katz, Per Kirkeby and Christopher Le Brun. In April 2011, a three-year collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, London realized exhibitions by Beatriz Milhazes, Gert & Uwe Tobias, and American Icon Jasper Johns. In 2018 the Gallery’s first presentation in a three-year collaboration with the Royal Academy featured the provocative Grayson Perry, this was followed exhibitions by Sir Michael Craig-Martin and Rose Wylie. In 2023 the Gallery presented an exhibition of sculptures and works on paper by Sir Tony Cragg. windsorflorida.com/gallery