ERNESTO MARENCO
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE OBJECTS
LA VERDADERA HISTORIA DE LOS OBJETOS
Monsieur Le Merde, 2025, Mixed media, 8 x 5 x 3 inches
HEIDI VAUGHAN FINE ART is proud to present THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE OBJECTS, LA VERDADERA HISTORIA DE LOS OBJECTOS, a solo exhibition of works by the Mexican artist Ernesto Marenco featuring sculptures and objects that give shape and form to words. The show opens Saturday, October 18, 2025, at HVFA, 3510 Lake St., Houston, TX 77098, in Houston's oldest Gallery Row. The doors open at 11. The artist's reception and party will take place from 5 to 8. We encourage our guests to dress in an artistic way, in a costume, or with a Surrealistic flair in the artist's honor.
The exhibition is part of the inaugural Houston Art Weeks (October 10-19, 2025). A portion of the sales from this show will help provide care and treatment to those experiencing mental health issues through the StellaNova Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit in Houston. More information is at houstonartweeks.org and below.
A hardcover book published in English and Spanish, Ernesto Marenco The True History of the Objects, La Verdadera Historia de los Objetos, accompanies the exhibition. It is made possible through the generosity of the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, Noon Consulting in Brussels and Madrid, and the Alina Art Foundation in Turin and The Hague. Additional funding comes from the artist's private collectors.
In the book, renowned Mexican journalist and art critic Santiago Espinosa de los Monteros writes of Marenco's work, "Since I met the first pieces of his authorship, I understood that his work went far beyond the simple manipulation of objects and, of course, his candid and apparent perversion. If in a first glance they made a kind of homage to the absurd, it was because those things created by him had entered into a secret conversation with Marenco and had revealed to him in detail his intimacy."
Since childhood, Ernesto Marenco has been surrounded by creatives, painters, and writers. The son of an exiled Nicaraguan poet and diplomat, Marenco, who was born and raised in Mexico City, never identified with the Mexican School of Painting or Mexican popular art. As he came of age in the 1970s, Marenco instead focused his attention on European modernist movements and currents such as Dada, Surrealism, and Art Povera. It was Marcel Duchamp's readymades, Méret Oppenheim's objects, and Man Ray's assemblage sculptures that spurred Marenco to venture into the world of art making. For years he honed his skills in carpentry, stonework, wood carving, metal casting, welding, and molding plastics. Though he is a self-taught artist, his studies in art conservation and restoration, as well as museology, greatly influenced his artistic vision and practice. According to Marenco, "I write with abandoned and uncommon materials and create three-dimensional poetry." Continual themes in his art, both visual and performative, include faith, death, love, secrets, abandonment, nothingness, and oblivion.
Marenco's works that showed at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art in Houston in 2023 were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2024. His works have also shown in Barcelona, Brussels, Monte Carlo, Turin, Shanghai, Mexico City, Queretaro City, New York, Miami, Sarasota, Naples, Chicago, San Antonio, Austin, and College Station. In 2026, Marenco will be part of Zona Maco in Mexico with 6xcuatro and The Affordable Art Project.
The inaugural Houston Art Weeks takes place at art venues across Houston October 10-19, 2025. It is designed to celebrate Houston's vibrant arts scene and local artists while raising funds for mental health issues. The StellaNova Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit. Its mission is to provide care and treatment to Houstonians experiencing mental health issues who may not have access to, or resources for, care and treatment. Some of their beneficiaries include the Montrose Center, the Purple Heart Project, AHEPA Service Dogs for Warriors, Guitars for Vets, and Healthcare for the Homeless.
