Teresita Fernández: Elemental Exhibition at PAMM

Teresita Fernández. Night Writing (Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai), 2011. Colored and shaped paper pulp with inkjet assembled with mirror. 49 ¼ x 66 inches. Collection of Art Berliner. Courtesy the artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul; and Singapore Tyler Print Institute.
Teresita Fernández. Night Writing (Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai), 2011.
Colored and shaped paper pulp with inkjet assembled with mirror. 49 ¼ x 66 inches. Collection of Art Berliner.
Courtesy the artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul; and Singapore Tyler Print Institute.

Oct. 18, 2019 – Feb. 9, 2020

Pérez Art Museum Miami
1103 Biscayne Blvd.,
Miami, FL 33132
305 375 3000
pamm.org

Teresita Fernández: Elemental offers visitors an unparalleled opportunity to experience numerous works by one of the nation’s leading contemporary artists. The exhibition tells the story of a creator who, through her practice, reflects and challenges perceptions of the natural world and the U.S. social order, and asks viewers to contemplate their roles with those spaces.The retrospective will introduce visitors to the artist’s large-scale sculptures, installations, and mixed media works that merge formal and conceptual aspects of her practice through the use of natural materials and the historic genre of landscape to reinterpret relationships between nature, history, and identity.

Teresita Fernández. Rise and Fall #16, 2017. Solid graphite and pencil on wood panel. 8 x 20 x 2 inches. Collection of the artist. Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul. Photo by Matthew Herrmann
Teresita Fernández. Rise and Fall #16, 2017.
Solid graphite and pencil on wood panel. 8 x 20 x 2 inches. Collection of the artist.
Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul. Photo by Matthew Herrmann

Teresita Fernández: Elemental spans the mid-1990s to the present, offering a comprehensive view of Fernández’s career to date. Featured works include Untitled (1997), a mirrored floor sculpture that references voyeurism but encourages self-reflection from those within the structure, and Fire (2005), which uses thousands of hand-dyed silk threads to construct flame patterns that become animated by light and air as viewers move around the sculpture.

Teresita Fernández. Viñales (Subterranean), 2015. Glazed ceramic. 72 x 144 x 1 ½ inches. Rechler Family. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul. Photo by Elisabeth Bernstein
Teresita Fernández. Viñales (Subterranean), 2015.
Glazed ceramic. 72 x 144 x 1 ½ inches. Rechler Family.
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul. Photo by Elisabeth Bernstein

The exhibition will also showcase the artist’s most recent body of work, in which she contrasts the sublime nature of traditional landscapes with the current politically charged climate of the United States. Both Fire (America) 5 (2017) and Charred Landscape (America) (2017) underscore Fernández’s reinterpretation of depictions of the land, presenting a contemporary American landscape marred by violence, climate change, and warring ideologies that stands in stark contrast to the idealized vision of the American dream.

Teresita Fernández, Borrowed Landscape, 1998. Wood, fabric, oculus light, pencil, and paint, dimensions variable. Commissioned by Artpace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio, Texas. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul
Teresita Fernández, Borrowed Landscape, 1998.
Wood, fabric, oculus light, pencil, and paint, dimensions variable. Commissioned by Artpace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio, Texas.
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul

Based in New York, Fernández, who was born in 1968 in Miami to Cuban parents, is renowned for her prominent public installations and experiential sculptures. Through her practice, she explores perception and the psychology of looking, regularly manipulating light and space to create immersive, intimate, and evocative experiences. Using a range of materials including silk, graphite, onyx, mirrors, glass, and charcoal, her minimalist yet substantive artworks evoke landscapes, the elements, and various natural wonders, including meteor showers, cloud formations, and the night sky.

Teresita Fernández, Drawn Waters (Borrowdale) 1, 2009. Natural and machined graphite on steel armature, 121 3/16 x 43 1/2 x 86 in. Installation view: University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, 2009. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Photo: Aaron Igler, Greenhouse Media
Teresita Fernández, Drawn Waters (Borrowdale) 1, 2009.
Natural and machined graphite on steel armature, 121 3/16 x 43 1/2 x 86 in. Installation view: University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, 2009.
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Photo: Aaron Igler, Greenhouse Media

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