Yungayan artist Hernando León is back. After a home accident that kept him unable to paint for many months, he decided to exhibit again in Germany, this time, to celebrate his 90th birthday. The exhibition was inaugurated at the beginning of October at the Chilean Embassy in Germany, where León currently resides, and will be open to the public until mid-November.
The exhibition is titled “Expulsion, exile, return” and for the embassy it was also an opportunity to join the activities that are being carried out on the occasion of the fifty years since the coup d’état. From that distribution they explained that “Hernando León is turning 90 years old and the Chilean Embassy in Germany wanted to honor his extraordinary artistic personality through this exhibition. León has recently dedicated himself to portraying the fate of refugees in Europe, who are in search of a new life, as he did precisely 50 years ago.”
Because indeed, the Yungayan artist had to leave the country into exile in 1973, after being detained in the Antofagasta prison where he witnessed the passage of the Caravan of Death.
But this is not the first time that the artist exhibits at the Chilean Embassy in Germany. In previous years he had also done it, including an exhibition that was held on the occasion of his 80th birthday, a decade ago, a date that was also celebrated in Chile through his legacy, the Chillán Graphic Museum that Hernando León himself founded in the nineties and which today is the responsibility of the Chilanejo municipality.
León
Months ago, the Yungayan had a home accident that kept him immobilized for a long time. “I fell on my back, which caused severe damage that, thanks to therapy, has been able to be reversed,” he tells La Discusión over the phone.
“It was tremendous. I spent almost two years without being able to paint or go out. Before, I went to Spain in the winter, but I haven’t even been able to do that because I am prohibited from moving from here,” he says, hoping that this situation will change in the short term.
For this reason, the exhibition that he inaugurated at the beginning of the month at the embassy gave him new air that today, at 90 years old, boosts his renowned career and trajectory more than ever.
“The inauguration was tremendous. Even with Chilean empanadas. It was set up in the Chile Room of the Embassy in Berlin and will be there until November 17, with the possibility of extending it even further over time. Expulsion, exile and return, within the framework of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup, is about my life. In that exhibition I summarize the years from the coup d’état in Chile to my work and life today as an artist and teacher of visual arts in South America and different countries in Europe,” he says enthusiastically.
“There are 40 works and a 60-minute film about my life in Chile and the world. It was made by a German filmmaker. The film is in Chile and is called The Road to Ithaca. It was already shown at the Quinchamali Hotel when I painted that mural a few years ago,” Hernando recalls.
Regarding the exhibition in Germany, the artist adds that “there are many people who have gone to the exhibition and are left with a clear vision of what my childhood was like in Ñuble and how my life moves to the years of exile and the return.” to Chile, which was not definitive, but which I never forgot. At the inauguration it was quite public, both Chileans, Germans and other foreigners in such a way that now they are going to continue with interviews that they are doing with me in different media as part of the celebration of these 90 years of life,” he points out.
Regarding a possible visit of the exhibition to his native Ñuble, León says that “all of this is in conversation with the embassy because they did not know about this particular exhibition. The ambassador who gave the inaugural speech, the new minister Magdalena Atria, was at the ceremony and we talked something with them. I also had to speak at the ceremony and in the conversations we are seeing what path this exhibition can take because my life from ’73 to the present day is very clear. It is a review of South America and Europe where I have worked as an academic, set painter, etc.”
Before saying goodbye, Hernando León adds that one of the gifts of this exhibition is to remember Chile. “The critics here in Germany have said it. Despite so many years abroad, I am a Chilean who does not forget his country, both in form and content. And it’s true. I do not forget the country or the province or my people and in Chile they know that,” he adds.
