Return Journey to Honda
(Matterhorn sights)
Video/Action, 2017
This work was shown at The Humboldt Forum, Berlin in 2019, at Museo de Arte de a Universidad Nacional, Bogotá in 2019 and in Espacio el Dorado, Bogotá in 2017. Video 55min, Colombia, 2017.
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"In his work two natural views are juxtaposed: on the one hand one materialized in a logo, and on the other a real and changing one that expands beyond the framing of the camera."
"In general terms, it can be said that there are two constant landscapes in the video: the one synthesized in the logo, referring to the Alps, and the Andean landscape observed in the truck's route. In this way, Bermudez proposes a strategic perspective by offering a visual narrative that builds a historically and humorously charged discourse."
"(...)first there are the overpowering Andes, conceptually shaped by the nineteenth-century European gaze, and in contrast there is the alpine mountain, white and with a blue background. Here a series of historical links are intertwined that allow us to question the alpine image within the famous logo, and at the same time the role of that image that runs through space, since throughout the video the viewer can only see the back of the vehicle. Therefore, in this case it is not so much the truck that makes the trip, but the logo that moves from the angle proposed by the camera."
"In this way, the video proposes two distant landscapes in the same space allowing a dialogue between the representations, the first created virtually and the second through the material approach."
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"(...) by recognizing in the Alps the sublime and the timeless that challenges the limits, the logo can be understood as a "unified body" 1 within the frame that contains it. In this way it enunciates a distant reality and embeds it in the Colombian context through a visual synthesis proposed by a mercantile gaze."
"(...) this case, referring to the power relations implicit in Bermúdez's work allows to complexify the journey and the discoveries of the transporting truck through the ironic tone present in the work, evidenced in the everydayness of the situation proposed in the video, without any kind of theatricalization. The synthesized Monte Cervino that travels through the Andes, like the nineteenth-century European explorers, alludes to the political charge of the history of the territory where they are found."
Luis Rey Celis, Art Historian
To follow an Alpean mountain while it travels down The Andes.
This video is a parallax between nineteenth century travelers’ chronicles and its idealistic drawings and the real geography of the Colombian mountain ranges. The video shows the action of following a truck transporting lactic products from the higher city and capital from Colombia (at 2600 meters above sea level)
to the first fluvial port of the Magdalena River (
600 meters above sea level) . In the back of the truck we can see a logotype depicting the famous mount Matterhorn in Switzerland.
The Magdalena river connects Honda to Puerto Colombia, and then the Atlantic Sea connects Puerto Colombia to Europe.
The logo printed on the back of the truck, depicts the Matterhorn mountain: emblem of the Alps.
This is a one hour excerpt from a six hours journey.
