Born in 1975 in Lima, Peru.
Lives and works in St. Etienne, France and Berlin, Germany
Armando Andrade Tudela explores the intersecting interfaces between popular culture, politics and fine art. While frequently using the South American cultural and historical context as a point of departure, on a deeper level Andrade Tudela’s work questions complex systems of translation and transference; for instance, how are aesthetic ideas assimilated and expressed politically, or socially, at a local level? And more broadly speaking, how are such ideas embedded within the fabric of place and topography?
Andrade Tudela moves freely among a wide range of media and material, including photography and video, sculpture, drawing and installation, while also regularly incorporating elements of craft and design in his work. In his in-depth, research-driven projects, he frequently employs quasi-documentary techniques, such as recorded interviews and on-site photographic explorations, combining them with multiple references to history, politics and informal or vernacular culture. In particular, his drawings and objects combine visual directness and technical accomplishment with conceptual complexity.
The characteristic layering and accumulation of references and field research in Andrade Tudela’s does not solidify into fixed or dogmatic historical interpretations or commentaries. Instead, by focusing on sites of cultural slippage across time, Andrade Tudela parses the hidden inner rhymes and subtle discordances within historic and societal framing structures, to which he adds his own creative yet critical point-of-view.
