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When you hear “distorted space and surreal architecture,” is your first thought of Hollywood, Florida? Maybe it is if you’ve lived in Florida long enough. If you’re not yet sold on Hollywood’s eccentricity, then a visit to Re:Construction, an exhibition of collages by Cuban-American visual and sound artist Richard Vergez, might change your mind.
Vergez, the PureHoney artist of the month, was recently given access to the Hollywood Historical Society’s archive of commercial and residential building photographs. These images are the basis for his survey of the city’s rich architectural history, which runs from October 14 to January 2024 at Hammerstein House in Hollywood.
Vergez’s signature style is minimalistic, hand-cut collage works exclusively from vintage publications focusing on the 1920s to the 1970s. They are retro-chic, tasteful, and classy but have a solid undercurrent of malaise — debauched beauty, like couples dressed to the nines waltzing on the deck of the Titanic.
Vergez revels in his dystopian worlds, but the Hollywood project has generated a different motivation for his Re-Construction series. Vergez and the Hollywood Historical Society hope to open visitors’ eyes to what is gone and what they stand to lose with the city’s gentrification.
“The dystopian angle is this idea of wallowing in destruction and accepting the fact that this is the future, this [destruction] is what has happened,” Vergez tells PureHoney. “But then there is the utopian part of me that wants to reconstruct this stuff and make it not dystopian and find positivity, as opposed to just dealing with the rubble and existing there.”
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Visitors will see landmark buildings including “the original Diplomat Hotel, the Great Southern Hotel, City Hall, and the Bandshell, which, the bench is still there, but it was originally a different design, which is cool,” Vergez says.
These won’t be simple architectural collages; he will add a little spice. “I’ve been taking these photos and putting them into grayscale, sending them off to print large-scale, and then taking all those big, different pieces and cutting them up to make new compositions,” Vergez says. “It is all about color and architecture. The idea behind the colors is very primary. My main colors are blue and yellow to symbolize sun and water, and then red, which symbolizes these dead buildings. So, blood.”
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Vergez’s work is much in demand, with his hand-cut collages regularly printed to accompany articles in publications such as The Guardian and the The New York Times. Burton Snowboards just licensed one of his images for a snowboard this year. But he is enthusiastic about working locally with the Historical Society: ”It’s just a really cool organization because it’s trying to hold on to this little piece of Florida history that we have left here before it all becomes demolished and turns into condos. So, the exhibition is like a nostalgic thing to hang.”
Vergez is also a noted musician and founder of the Noir Age label. True to his retro sensibility, his label releases music on cassette tape and vinyl. For Re-Construction, his musical inspiration was German experimental music group Einstürzende Neubauten.
“They reference architecture. In English, it means ‘collapsing new buildings,’” Vergez says. “They have a compilation that I always return to called ‘Strategies Against Architecture.’ The instrumentation that they use is cement mixers, pieces of metal, and stuff like that. So, I feel like their music is very architectural and lends itself to the architectural dystopia/utopia. So, they’re collapsing new buildings, building new ones through their music. So, there’s kind of a conceptual ghost there that ties in with this artwork because it’s kind of abstract and it’s kind of collage, and that’s very much the aesthetic of the music.”
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The Historical Society will hold a closing party for the show either in December or January with a sonic element. “After this whole exhibition is through,” Vergez says, “I’ll be putting something together at the end with the sound component, possibly a visual component. A process-driven kind of thing using materials that I work with to create the art. That’s definitely always on my mind whenever I’m creating visual stuff, just because it goes hand-in-hand for me, the processes are parallel.”
RE:CONSTRUCTION opens October 14th. The Hammerstein House will also be open Halloween evening 5-9pm and the first Sunday of each month from 1-4pm. There will be a closing of this exhibition in late Dec. 2023 or early Jan. 2024 with music performances. Private group tours are also available by appointment. Hammerstein House is at 1520 Polk St., Hollywood, Florida
Find Richard Vergez at cargocollective.com/richardvergez ~ Kelli Bodle
