Always Cartagena

"This book does not exist. Here there are walls, laughter, there are sadness and dreams, maybe there are hurricanes. But the truth is that it is Rulfo's ghosts that laugh, those who greet, those who dance mecumbé, those who sneeze. And There are no pages, no smells, no stories, no words. There is a clear memory that sees the woman being sad, the car leaving a passenger. In this way, Cartagena is a catalog of emotions that return to the skin and bring back the setting sun. , a furtive hug, a kiss that is not forgotten, the full moon at 12 noon, the street breeze that drags a joint or that drags skirts, offices of people with briefcases, shade under the trees. Cartagena is here. Here there is its warmth, smell, flavor, humor and love as always, each page that is turned is a corner, each photograph one more memory, a deep emotion, each word a way of being again on the beach, beyond the breeze , the laughter and the smile, each image a voracious memory that gives no respite, that returns, that lives between the heart and the senses.

This is not, then, a book from Cartagena, about Cartagena. This is the same Cartagena as always, the city that Hernán Díaz invented, the one that each person builds in their memory. Villegas Editores recovers it from the albums and, without makeup of any kind, places it back on the mace, makes it deep – as it is – and diverse, turns it into a reason for reflection, a little beyond the scenes of beach, a little further away from the coffin, perhaps at the exact point where we return to being with ourselves in front of the immense sea where the sun sets while in the distance, beyond the horizon, we hear sounds of Fellini's party that we cannot hear. They say nothing to us, immersed in the emotion of being and being, of living again and here in Cartagena.

"From a very young age Hernán Díaz revealed himself as one of the best photographers in Colombia, I admire the versatility with which he faces a multiple, disconcerting, varied thematic repertoire; Author of deep portraits of beautiful women and astonished children, of landscapes, still lifes or architecture. Hernán Díaz invites you to a reunion with Cartagena, not to a discovery..."

Belisario Betancur

"His camera gives us the testimony of unimportant things, those that we have relegated to the back room because we are very sure of possessing, the same things that are the essence of life..."

Antonio Bergman

"In the photography of Hernán Díaz there is something that identifies him more than his name: It is a fidelity to himself that is always on the rise, an aristocracy of the soul in the gaze, which beautifies everything he sees; the magic that transforms the object into metaphysics, the real in poetry, the everyday in wonder..."

Gonzalo Arango