The Gallery at Windsor hosted an exclusive weekend to celebrate the opening of A Piece of Waterfall in the Sound of Crickets, an expansive solo exhibition by the leading Costa Rican artist, Federico Herrero. The exhibition, which will run until April 26th, brings together a selection of recent paintings and monotypes by Federico 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, curated by Elena Ketelsen González, assistant curator at MoMA PS1, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog published by DelMonico Books, including a foreword by The Hon. Hilary M. Weston, an essay by Ketelsen González, and an interview with artist and Bernardo Mosqueira, chief curator at the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art.

A Piece of Waterfall in the Sound of Crickets 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.

“I am delighted to welcome Federico Herrero to exhibit at The Gallery 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. We are thrilled to add Federico to that list.”

The Gallery at Windsor is open to the public by appointment. While there is no admission to visit the Gallery at Windsor, exhibition visitors may support The Windsor Charitable Foundation with a suggested donation of $15. This gift is tax-deductible and is designated to support arts education.

Visit the website for more information and public opening times: windsorflorida.com/gallery.

About Federico Herrero

Federico Herrero’s intensely visual language is rooted in his observations of everyday life in Costa Rica’s ever evolving landscape, especially the way nature and culture collide. In his paintings on canvas, immersive installations, and public works, brightly hued organic shapes jostle against each other as they inhabit and negotiate space. There are dissonances and harmonies, which threaten to momentarily unravel but are bound together with an energy that seems to operate on a nearly atomic scale. They creep along the edges, and often break free of the frame entirely, winding onto the walls and into the crevices of his installations’ spaces.

Color for Herrero is an expression of space, both the absence of space and the abundance of space and the relationship between them. His canvases and installations therefore become exercises in seeing that compel the viewer to experience their environment in novel ways. Of his varied practice Herrero states, “When painting on a canvas, you know there is no transgression; it acquires a rhythm of production that is related to yourself…One deals with a personal universe, the other deals with a social vocation.” Through this duality, Herrero’s practice is essentially a study of liminal spaces – gaps between public and private, canvas and wall, figure and background, work and viewer – always infused with elements of play, pleasure, and humor.

Federico Herrero (b. 1978, San Jose, Costa Rica) 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). Herrero is also the founder of Despacio and Cero Uno, two contemporary art spaces in his native San Jose, which have served as important forces in the continued development of Central America’s artistic voice. He lives and works in San Jose, Costa Rica.

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 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 catalogs 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, a 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 by 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