This interview took shape long before the idea of filming ever emerged. Its point of departure was the arteBA fair, where I made my first short video interview for Stories—a kind of visual commentary on the fair’s participants. Among the first booths I encountered was Herlitzka & Co. gallery, and meeting its founder, Mauro, left a strong impression: a rare combination of energy, charisma, and a rich biography turned our brief exchange into a distinct moment within the overall flow of the fair’s bustle.
Later, outside the fair’s immediate context, I turned to the history of the gallery and its curatorial program. As I explored the projects and artists represented by Herlitzka & Co., I increasingly felt the desire to experience this space in its own rhythm, under conditions of more focused and attentive perception.
That opportunity arose through the Circuito de Galerías de Arte de Recoleta—an open Saturday route through seven galleries in the neighborhood. This format, which encourages unhurried movement and dialogue between spaces, proved to be an ideal context for engaging with the current exhibition. It was then that I first encountered the work of Hernán Salamanca and his project Ojo de Agua—a painterly statement in which materiality, technique, and poetic thinking converge into a single, multilayered system.
Our conversation emerged naturally and immediately pointed toward the need for continuation, this time in the form of an in-depth interview. In artistic practice, I am прежде всего interested in the figure of the artist: their path, their system of coordinates, their ways of thinking, and the inner energy from which the work is born. It is precisely from this interest that the present conversation grew.