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Pipo Hernández Rivero
Spain, 1966
The works by Pipo Hernandez Rivero propose questions on “universally accepted cultural truths”. Built with images and ideas based on modern culture, his works move in the fields of cultural suspicion.
Pointing out to the complex possibilities for painting in the 21st century, his body of work offers a pictorial reconsideration from formal and conceptual structures, which references underlie a sense of failure to the cultural avant-gardes. At the same time, demonstrating that the discoursive standardizing results in the exclusion of voices.
Mixing painting with all sorts of materials and introducing texts in languages that are unconventional to the Western paradigm, his works place us at politically disturbed environments, confronting the viewer with an unsolved dialogue and pushing towards rethinking notions of identity and value.
He has exhibited at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Fundación MARSO, Museo de Arte de Pereira, ARTIUM Museoa, Centro de Arte La Recova, Círculo de Bellas Artes de Tenerife, Fundación Otazu, Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània, Prague Art Museum, and the Contemporary Art Hall of Tenerife. He has also participated in biennials such as the Havana Biennial, the Canary Islands Biennial, and the Dakar Biennale.
His works are part of the collections of TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, ARTIUM Museoa, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco, Fundación MARSO, Colección Galila Barzilaï, Kells Collection, Olor Visual, and MUDO Istanbul.
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Normas para el acecho
2025
Wood, oil, plastic and canvas
200 x 225 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Two Steps Away. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ. 2024
Pipo Hernández Rivero
“Algún día todo esto será tuyo- revisitado”
2024
Wood, plastic, oil and canvas
248 x 205 x 6 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Two Steps Away. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ. 2024
A dos pasos [Two Steps Away]
In Two Steps Away, Pipo Hernández Rivero challenges traditional notions of displacement and belonging, presenting migration not as a fleeting or burdensome event that will eventually be resolved, but as a fundamental part of the civilizing process—a constant driving force in the history of humanity.
The artist’s paintings, executed with a high level of technical skill, harken back to the tradition of landscape painting, from the frescoes of the Villa of Livia to the landscape of the 19th-century Romantic crisis. This period was characterized by an exacerbation of utopias of abundance. Among them, the utopias of discovery, conquest, and territorial domination coexisted with the passionate anti-rationalist and escapist spirit of Romanticism. These landscapes, devoid of human presence, evoke a sense of virginity, reinforcing the idea of an intimate, individualistic utopia of domination. The artist critiques contemporary art conventions. Without falling into appropriation, Hernández Rivero conceptually complicates and reclaims pre-Cézanne painting, with a critical and combative stance against conventional expectations for what painting could be in the 21st century.
The frames, important elements in the exhibition, are not mere functional boundaries or decorative conventions. In modernity, the frame was disregarded under the premise of pursuing purity in painting. However, in this exhibition, the frame takes on a deeper meaning, symbolizing territory. It delineates the space of utopia as a fortress, a closed drawing within which the civilizing process occurs and outside of which chaos threatens. The frame thus becomes a symbol of contact phobia, a wall against any contamination that threatens the possibility of mixing.
The framed landscapes, pictorial utopias, are disrupted by cynical elements, such as beach sandals, the cheapest available on the market, representing the humblest form of footwear. Through the use of these seemingly simple, everyday objects, the artist speaks to how the West finds ways to trivialize such a central issue as migration and the development of civilization. The first human migrations occurred 200,000 years ago; Western modernity began with the exploration and conquest of American territories and their immediate colonization. But it was the complex cultural climate of the 19th century, fueled by escapism and rationality, passionate rebellion and sensible conformity, extraordinary scientific curiosity, and intolerant morality, that pushed these two archetypes to the heights we are most familiar with: the explorer, with audacity almost never innocent, who ventured into unknown places, and the settler, who went to the already-discovered lands to settle and try to prosper. Migratory cycles continue and will continue, but with no more virgin territories to explore. Two Steps Away poetizes about territoriality, the feeling of invasion, inevitable mixing, and the cynicism with which the West approaches these issues.
A second additional element in the exhibition is the climbing holds, an object that, according to the author, perfectly embodies the process of “sportification” of human dramas—a socio-ideological defense mechanism that Hernández Rivero critically addresses. These holds symbolize the trivialization of the struggle for survival, the overcoming of obstacles that separate us from an acceptable life. Romantic authors were, in fact, the first to explore a playful dimension of fear—Mary Shelley’s novels are proof of this. This exploration has not ceased to advance to this day. Primal fears and the confrontation with survival threats are now key elements in the entertainment industry, present in video games and virtual experiences. The climbing holds, placed on the ground, a space useless for their function, reflect the irony of how the West processes, through distance and entertainment, what in other contexts is a matter of life and death.
The third invasive element present in the pieces is the wall plug, which affects not only the painted canvas but also the wall that supports it. The grid-like arrangement of these plugs alludes to a democratizing subdivision, a metaphor for equidistance—another of the drives allied with Western self-complacency.
Nothing in this exhibition is neutral: not the walls, the floor, nor the paintings. Pipo Hernández Rivero’s exhibition presents works that explore the crisis of Western utopias, the frameworks of acceptability, and those that rise as guardians of these utopias. Rather than addressing migration as a problem/inevitability dichotomy, Two Steps Away delivers a critical discourse on the contradictions of the tormented Western spirit.
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Normas para una noche americana [Rules for an American Night]
2024
Oil, plastic and canvas
160 x 230 x 4 cm (canvas)
456 x 315 x 4 cm (installation)
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Two Steps Away. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ. 2024
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Cola de ratón
2024
Oil, plastic, wood and canvas
110 x 143 x 6 cm (canvas)
110 x 398 x 6 cm (installation)
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Sobre el miedo a los peces [On the Fear of Fish]
2024
Oil, plastic and canvas
204 x 220 x 6 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Normas para el descenso [Rules for the Descent]
2024
Oil, plastic, wood and canvas
114 x 95 x 6 cm (framed canvas)
201 x 95 x 6 cm (installation at the gallery)
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Si oyes cualquier sonido, corre [If you hear a sound, run]
2024
Wood, plastic, oil and canvas
185 x 152 x 10 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Si oyes cualquier ruido, tírate al suelo
2024
Wood, plastic, oil and canvas
Variable dimensions
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Ultraleve. Museo del Romanticismo, Madrid. 2022
Pipo Hernández Rivero at ARCOmadrid 2023
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Untitled (Imelda Marcos)
2022
Oil on canvas
114,5 x 111 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Untitled (JEanne d’Arc)
2023
Oil on canvas
96 x 115 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Untitled (Greta Thunberg)
2022
Oil on canvas
181 x 150 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Untitled (Gavrilo Princip)
2022
Oil on canvas
181 x 150 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Ultraleve. Museo del Romanticismo, Madrid. 2022
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Lo ultraleve: Gonzalo Queipo de Llano
2023
Oil on canvas
115 x 151 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Sombra blaaanca
2023
Paint, tile and wood
76 x 66 x 5 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Interludio. Fardos. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ. 2021
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Fardos
2021
Oil on canvas and elastic rubber
51 x 66 x 12 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Interludio. Fardos. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ. 2021
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Interludio. Fardos. NF/NIEVES FERNANDEZ. 2021
Fardos offers the appearance of almost a parcel or customs hall. With packaging ready to ship, in an in-pass that seems to condemn them to an eternal territory of transit. A useful paradox if you remember that Interludios is a valuable flash project. I pretend a climate of intense waiting as Fardos [bundles] reflects on the Deadlock, in the minimum deadlock that invites us to inhabit Interludios. Bulks made almost in the manner of makeshift rafts. ‘Rig with whatever you have’ seemed to promote Reinhard Mucha. Perhaps I too hope to put back on the table The problem of the background and the form in the architecture of Baroque. Maybe I have just tried to make sure that things fit in the truck, come and go reasonably safely and that in the room the pieces do not fall below the ground. In any case, the bundles exercise their beauty table, they contain their plan. They are configured halfway through the survival kit, the micro-narratives in distress or the bullets of Style awaiting the deployment of their variables. We know that beauty according to conservatives not only has to be Darwinian (beauty as the appearance of the best adapted), but also – and therefore, in terms of the culture of hedonistic masochism that assists us – it should be gymnastic. ‘Art has to fit’ Roger Scruton could whisper to us now. If anyone wants to consider Fardos a resolutely conservative exhibition, go ahead. After all, Fardos inhabits the third edition of Interludios and the later only seeks to keep its brief span of time in shape.
– Pipo Hernández Rivero
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Fardo 2
2021
Canvases, acrylic, and elastic rubber
Variable dimensions
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Fardo 12
2021
Mixed media on canvas, elastic bands
Variable dimensions
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Fardo 4
2021
Acrylic, canvases, elastic bands
Variable dimensions
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Fardo 10
2021
Acrylic, canvases, elastic bands
Variable dimensions
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Esquinitas. TEA Tenerife. 2023
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Esquinitas. TEA Tenerife. 2023
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Lounge. NF/NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ. 2018
Lounge brings together works that approach the social dimension of art within the sphere of the domus, where familiarity translates into a welcoming experience for the public while simultaneously challenging the nature of art itself. The use of materials that evoke these dynamics of privacy—such as the traditional tiles found in kitchens and bathrooms or the books that fill living room shelves—establishes connections with an atmosphere of comfort displaced from its usual territory.
In this way, Lounge transforms and disrupts the exhibition space, giving it a new facet as an assumed leisure environment where adjectives like pleasant, soft, and comfortable prevail.
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Lounge 2
2018
Tile, wood, fabric, resin, and acrylic
77 x 66 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Lounge 3
2018
Tile, wood, fabric, resin, and acrylic
76,5 x 66 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Lounge 5
2018
Tile, wood, fabric, resin, and acrylic
77 x 66 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Lounge. NF/NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ. 2018
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Archipiélago Manzoni
2018
Tiles, oil on canvas and paper
213,5 x 100 x 5,5 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Lounge 4
2018
Tile, wood, fabric, resin, and acrylic
77 x 66 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Petite collection
2018
Tiles, resin and acrylic, neon tubes
158 x 100 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Variaciones
2018
Resin and acrylic
Variable dimensions
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Lounge. NF/NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ. 2018
Pipo Hernández Rivero. Lounge. NF/NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ. 2018
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Víctor y la playa
2018
Tiles, resin, neon tubes, cushions, and oil on canvas
71 x 140 x 154 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
6 recuerdos, se quedan nº 3. Serie Corre, corre, corre…
2013
Acrylic, canvas, and metal
30 x 40 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Serie primavera-verano. Tiempo de espera
2017
Acrylic, canvas, and metal
23 x 28 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Serie primavera-verano. ¿Puedes sentirlo ya?
2017
Acrylic, canvas, and metal
22 x 38 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
La derrota de los sarracenos
2017
Acrylic, canvas, and metal
75 x 117 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Serie Primavera-verano. La infancia de Iván
2017
Acrylic, canvas, and metal
27 x 28 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Trinidad
2022
Wood, plastic, acrylic on canvas, and nails
130 x 90 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Las Furias
2022
Wood, plastic, acrylic on canvas, and nails
90 x 10 x 29 cm each
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Confesión
2022
Polystyrene, epoxy resin, and stainless steel
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Monument, oh… Serie Lounge
2018
Epoxy resin, fluorescent tube, wood, white clay, tile, metal, and pine
100 x 34 x 20 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Segundo asalto. Serie Lounge
2018
Epoxy resin, fluorescent tube, wood, white clay, tile, metal, and pine
133 x 63 x 37 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Caín – Caeiro
2017
Wood, neon, book, and nest
133 x 63 x 37 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Lounge
2017
Wood, neon, book and nest
20,5 x 132 x 14 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
De frente y sin miedo
2016
Fabric, fluorescent lights, and wood
90 x 74 x 10 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Tanta presión… Serie Lounge
2018
Wood, tile, fluorescent tube, epoxy resin, and acrylic
84 x 60 x 8 cm
Pipo Hernández Rivero
Faro
2019
Acrylic and wood resin
84 x 60 x 8 cm