Little Colorado, Arizona 2011

José Guerrero shapes memory and oblivion with his camera. His photography does not focus on the passage of time, but on its consequences. The change that this causes and the change that we make on these landscapes is what highlights these images loaded with the past and the horizon.

“I am interested in the landscape itself, but also in how we interpret it, reinterpret it, understand it. The landscape is where we live: what happens in that environment if humans are there or not; what happens if it is dominated by nature or urban influences. Because the human being is always there even if he is not there, even if he is in the frame. I consider myself a landscaper”, he concludes.

Light and color come first. The subject is secondary, the photographic character of his work is far above the documentary character that can be attributed to his work. The series is a format that adapts to your view, where the wholeshould always take precedence over the part. Consistency is one of the principles with which you are obliged to comply.

If we take a journey from its beginnings to today, stopping at each of its main series, we will take a path towards dispossession and essence. A distancing from all noise towards the absolute silence of the primordial, distancing oneself from everything superfluous to stay with the only vital thing: that footprint. From Efímeros (ruins and abandoned remains that were built or prepared to be spaces for men), passing through Desert(where aridity and abandonment acquire a greater intensity), Orbit (human beings suddenly appear and their day to day traces are tangible), Andalusia (the universality of the concrete landscape) y Down Town (the hectic city) to reach a key moment in this process with Thames (the fog and its dreaminess as the protagonist in the liquid city). Likewise, we see how it sharpens in The Channel (the eternal yellow horizon), surprises in Heavens (the city night and its skeleton of light, the mark of scientific progress), and is consolidated in The Bay(again the fog, the atmospheric phenomenon in a gaseous state).

The acquisition by Fundación MAPFRE amounts to 20 works and focuses on the series dedicated to the Thames (Thames I and II, 2008) – where the urban space is gently modified by fog and mist while the city is silenced- and in a set of photographs taken in the United States in 2011 that capture the vastness: Texas, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, show open landscapes with earthy tones.

José Guerrero / After the Rainbow. (Cat. Exp.), Centro de Arte Alcobendas, 2015
ArtSituacions. (Cat. Exp.), Editor: María y Lorena Corral, 2015
Premio Internacional de Fotografía Pilar Citoler 2014. (Cat. Exp.), Editor: Alfonso de la Torre. Universidad de Córdoba, 2014
Diccionario de Fotógrafos Españoles. Editor: Oliva María Rubio. La Fábrica, 2014
Contexto Crítico. Fotografía Siglo XXI. (Cat. Exp.), Editor: Rosa Olivares. Ministerio de Cultura de España, 2013
Manual Español de Arte Contemporáneo. (Cat. Exp.), La Fábrica, 2013
Stand By_012. (Cat. Exp.), Editor: Sema D’acosta.Fundación Valentín Madariaga, 2012
Fundación Coca Cola adquiere en ARCO varias obras de artistas andaluces, entre ellos una fotografía de Guerrero (Europapress, 17 Feb 2012)
Entre lo mejor del arte andaluz. Granada Hoy, 2012
La imagen como fábrica. Fotografía contemporánea en Andalucía. (Cat. Exp.), Centro de Estudios Andaluces, 2011
EXIT 39. The Circus. Magazine, 2010
Desvelar Poéticas Ocultas. Diario de Sevilla, 2010
Jiménez/Guerrero. Captar el Támesis y otros mundos. Diario de Levante, 2010
Procesos del paisaje. (Cat. Exp.), Obra Social Cajasol, 2009
Arte=Vida=Arte, 26 Artistas con Vostell. (Cat. Exp.), Museo Vostell Malpartida, 2009
Generación 2009, Becas de Arte Caja Madrid. (Cat. Exp.), Obra Social Caja Madrid / La Fábrica, 2009
EXIT 34. Cars. Magazine, 2009
Purificación García Prize. STL, SA. (Cat. Exp.), 2008
Arte desde Andalucía en el siglo XXI. (Cat. Exp.), Junta de Andalucía. Consejería de Cultura, 2008
Sandunga muestra los paisajes desolados de José Guerrero. Granada Hoy, 2008
Light and darkness. Essays about Spanish Photography. (Cat. Exp.), Foundation of Visual Education, Poland, 2007.
Las fotografías de Guerrero convierten en poesía espacios urbanos olvidados. El País, 2007
Iniciarte Ceroseis. (Cat. Exp.), Junta de Andalucía. Consejería de Cultura, 2006
Efímeros. (Cat. Exp.), Obra Social Caja San Fernando, 2006

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