Rodrigo Hernández: I wonder how quickly you will forget about me in Paris: Contour Biennale 11, Belgium

Rodrigo Hernández works across drawing, painting, relief, sculpture, and installation, with a practice shaped by poetry, philosophy, literature, and dreams. Drawing on a wide constellation of references, including Pre-Columbian art, Japanese printmaking, European modernism, mythology, and scientific imagery, Hernández constructs visual languages in which intimacy, symbolism, and memory intersect.

I wonder how quickly you will forget about me in Paris, a permanent sculpture installed in the secluded Stiltetuin garden, lingers between sleep and wakefulness. Two bronze casts rest on the grass: heads of a couple, almost identical, mirroring one another. Each gently presses an ear to a hand, poised at the edge of sleep, while their open eyes search for the other’s gaze. Timeless and suspended, the figures seem to drift slowly towards and away from one another. Their faces are familiar yet elusive, hovering at the edge of recognition: less portraits than placeholders for projection, reflection, and desire.

In an accompanying poem, Hernández recalls his partner’s voice in the moments before sleep: ‘I was wondering how quickly you will forget about me’. The line lingers as a whispered afterimage, articulating the anxiety that love, stretched across distance, might dissolve.

Photo by Filip Claessens