The Annex Space was originally created as a project room intended for Galician emerging artists. Following this line, it will host the individual exhibition of a young Galician artist who has been participating since the year 2000 in individual and group exhibitions in Galicia and abroad.
Fran Herbello is well known in the artistic milieu for his black and white photographs, which are in fact unreal images conceived as conceptual collages, composed of elements among which different relationships can be established. Due to these combinations, each artwork is subject to many different interpretations; however, the artist tries to go beyond a simple mind game. These images consciously transmit feelings, but they also reveal unconscious relationships determined by the spectator's state of mind.
Herbello presents two different proposals at the Annex Space -an installation and a video screening- specifically designed for this environment. He introduces new elements and resources which were unusual in his earlier work in order to take up the challenge of such a space as the Annex's.
The first installation, Souvenir 1, is located in the main hall, which has been transformed into a grass field that occupies the whole room. There are also hidden loudspeakers that give out a cricket chirping in different tones and intensity, so as to transmit a feeling of randomness stressing the natural character of the sound. This installation could be interpreted as the background for the photograph of a voyage, or a panorama worthy of a souvenir photograph that each spectator may customize with his presence. The cricket field is a place that recalls our past and demands our memory to act as if we were watching childhood pictures. The artist reproduces a rural scenery that we may evoke when we feel surrounded by the green field, the smell of the grass and the sound of the crickets. It recalls past experiences and takes the country to the city, turning the museum into a space designed for public holidays, leisure and tourism. In this way, it is a clear reference to the scenery we may find in natural spaces and recreational gardens where the concept of attraction substitutes the concept of entertainment. No wonder why, for the first time, the façade of the Annex Space has been substituted by a glass wall in order to take this scenery to the street and turn the exhibition room into a shop window for passers-by.
Souvenir 2 is a video screened on the wall at the back of the corridor which shows us a dog sleeping. Every time a person comes into the room and approaches the screen, a presence detector is activated and the dog wakes up, starts barking and falls asleep again after a while. This actor-dog behaves as Cerberus, the guard dog owner of the hall during the whole exhibition. This artwork, full of irony and humour, is used by Herbello to show the limits of security in museums and urban spaces, in contrast with the rural world. Taking again an image reminiscent of his childhood as the starting point, the artist draws our attention to the two sides of the figure of the dog and the value of the land in the rural and urban environment: in the country, this animal is the alarm that protects the land; in the city, there are electronic alarms to prevent from burglary in houses and robbery in public spaces. The land -with an essential value for the rural world- disappears as a property and is substituted by a car or a house.
The two sequences of the artwork share the same title. Souvenir is our memory, but also a memento, and a panoramic or picturesque view that is worth looking at.