Berto Herrera

Practice & background

Berto Herrera is an American artist based in Germany whose photography, painting and collage examine surveillance, identity, power and technology. His background includes military service, graphic design and art direction—experiences that inform his attention to how images and branding shape everyday perception.

His official biography traces a path from fine-art training at Parsons and the Los Angeles collective BOXeight/IMG-81 to graphic design in 2009 and a decade as an art director at Adidas. Working within both art and commercial image-making provides context for his scrutiny of branding and consumer culture.

In Declassified*, decommissioned government documents, drone surveillance and CCTV imagery become the material for layered collages. Their repeated formats and overlapping fragments invite viewers to examine the increasingly uncertain boundary between private experience and systems that collect and circulate information.

Declassified* comprises 25 works on uniformly sized paper, close to the scale of a record sleeve. That shared format provides a rhythm for documents, surveillance images and cultural fragments. Their juxtaposition asks viewers to notice how information is collected and organized rather than accept an image as a neutral record.

In his Who Art You conversation with Celine, Herrera discusses CAPTCHA imagery, artificial intelligence and contemporary events. He stresses that military references are intended to prompt critical reflection rather than celebration. He also recalls an unexpected connection during the pandemic: volunteering his presentation skills to help artists develop exhibition and grant pitches led to a friendship with Jerry Gogosian.

His exhibition record includes 48.T.K.Y.1 at Safelight Gallery, Berlin (2020), Call Me Collateral Damage at Ghost Gallery, Los Angeles (2024), and PANAFTICON at LOODS 6, Amsterdam (2025). Residencies at Verzasca Foto Festival (2020) and Hybrid Realities – 6 Minutes Past 9 (2024) add further contexts for his work across photography and digital environments.

Looking at the work

His practice reorganizes existing images and documents through collage. A useful viewing exercise is to ask who produced an image, who is allowed to look, and whether the person being watched can opt out. These questions connect the work’s visual construction to its surveillance concerns.