EN
Sergio Vega, 2014. Photo: Michelle Greenberg
Sergio Vega, 2014. Photo: Michelle Greenberg

Sergio Vega has been working since 1995 on a large project with the main title El Paraíso en el Nuevo Mundo, based on a theory of Antonio de Leon Pinelo from the 17th century, according to which the Garden of Eden is to be found in South America. Using various media, Vega reinterprets Pinelo’s depiction of paradise with a great deal of subtle humour. For example, the large-scale photographs Paradise on Fire show trees in the tropical rain forest; only at second glance do we see the wildfire. In the large-format photographs Inside the Forest, on the other hand, Vega depicts the rainforest from the perspective of baroque painting: The chiaroscuro of Caravaggio, the voluptuousness of Rubens' formsor light reflecting on vegetation as in Vermeer. Or in the video Parrot Theory 101, he takes a look at the iconology of parrots, which were seen in the 17th century as birds of paradise.
 
All works are part of a complex, critical multi-media exploration of historical and contemporary methods of representation, in which the modus operandi of colonialist ideology in the development of culture and social circumstances is examined. Vega roguishly combines theory, empiricism and mordant criticism of power and society and finally creates, in art, a paradise in which sensory stimulus and critical discourse come together.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1959, Sergio Vega attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study program in 1991/1992 and received an MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 1996. He participated in numerous international exhibitions, among them the 51st Venice Biennale, the 5th Biennale de Lyon, the 3rd Moscow Biennale, the 2nd Kwangju Biennale and the 1st Yokohama Triennale. He lives and works in Gainesville, Florida and teaches photography at the University of Florida since 1999.

Exhibitions

Publications

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions
2018
Paraísos Perdidos de la Modernidad

Galería Rocio Santa Cruz, Barcelona, Spain

2017
Sergio Vega. Borges in the Alhambra

Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France

2017
Shanty: On the mimetic faculty II

Untitled Art Fair, Special project, Miami, FL, USA

2015-16
Hashish in Naples (screening)

MADRE - Museo d'Arte contemporanea, Naples, Italy

2015-16
Sergio Vega. When Clouds enters the Forest & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France

2015-16
Latin American Art Museum, Department of Parrots

Jennielift, Miami, FL, USA

2013
14 juillet, le manifeste du coq flâneur et autres histoires…

Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France

2013
Sergio Vega – Disassembling Paradise

Wynwood District, Miami, FL, USA

2012-11
Sublime Entropies

Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany

2011
Paradise: Real Time (stills)

Kabe Contemporary, ARCO, solo projects, Madrid, Spain

2010
Paradise: Real Time

Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK

2009
El Paraíso en el Nuevo Mundo

Kunstfilmbiennale Köln, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany

2009
Parrot Theory

Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France

2009
Hashish in Naples

Umberto di Marino, Naples, Italy

2008
Excerpts from Paradise in the New World

LWL Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, Germany

2006
Momentum 6: Tropicalounge

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, USA

2006
Crocodilian Fantasies

Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France

2006
Utopian Paradises: modernism and the sublime

Umberto di Marino Arte Contemporanea, Naples, Italy

2003
High Art

John Erickson Museum of Art (location variable museum)

2002
Modernismo Tropical

Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA

2002

Julia Friedman Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA

1999
El Paraíso en el Nuevo Mundo

Basilico Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA

1997
Sergio Vega

Espacio 204, Caracas, Venezuela

1996
Memoirs of an outspoken parrot

Basilico Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA

Group exhibitions
2022
South America

Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France

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2022
Accrochage

Galerie Karsten Greve Paris

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2021
Amazonía

Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain

2019
Embodied Landscape

Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France

2019
Künstler der Galerie

Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland

2019
Room for failure

Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami, FL, USA

2018
Processo alla Natura

Umberto Di Marino at spazio Maria Calderara, Milan, Italy

2018
Impact

Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, Frankreich

2018
The World to Come, Art in the Age of the Anthropocene

Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA

2018
Estructuras Vivientes, el arte como experiencia plural

XIV Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador

2017
Collezione Agovino. Frammenti di Paradiso

Le Scalze - Chiesa di San Giuseppe a Pontecorvo, Naples, Italy

2016
Genesis According to Parrots

IRL, Moving Image New York, NY, USA

2016
Florida Prize in Contemporary Art

Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, USA

2016
Status Quo - Photoszene-Festival Köln

Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany

2016
Foto Monumental "Geopolíticas Transversales"

Callao Monumental, Lima, Peru

2015
Theorem

Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ, USA

2015
100 Degrees in the Shade, A survey of South Florida Art

Design Sublime, Miami, FL, USA

2015
The Devil is in the Details

KaBe Contemporary, Miami, FL, USA

2014
Encontro de Mundos

Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2014
Sur / Nouvelles Narratives

Fernelmont Contemporary Art Festival, Château de Fernelmont, Belgium

2014
Repurposing the Wunderkammer: Building A New Space for Science and Art

Samuel P Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA

2014
Global Books

Bibliothèque Louis Nucera, Nice, France

2014
Affective Architectures

Aluna Art Foundation, Miami, FL, USA

2013
Permission to be Global, CIFO

Cisneros-Fontanals Foundation, Miami, FL / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA

2012
documenta 13

Kassel, Germany

2012
The Storytellers: Narratives in International Contemporary Art

Stenersenmuseet, Oslo, Norway

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