A young boy and a dwarf, they give this book its title, but at first glance it is hard to make out anything like them in Arturo Herrera’s collages. Only a closer look will spot some telling details in the work’s rich textures: the bellows of an accordion, a dwarf’s cap. Are these pictures representational or abstract? Arturo Herrera says: “The challenge is, how can an image so recognizable, like a dwarf, have another meaning that I impose to it? Is it possible? Can I make something so clear ambiguous? Can I uproot it?” He can: the ambiguity of his collages slows down the gaze, the figurative and the abstract cease to be simple opposites. And the repeated motif gives the eye free rein to study the method and virtuosity of Herrera’s take on abstraction.

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In collaboration with Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin,
and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York