Teresita Fernández: Elemental is made possible through the generosity of the Ford Foundation, The Diane & Bruce Halle Foundation, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust Exhibition Endowment Fund, Meredith and Charles von Arentschildt, and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Lee and Mike Cohn and Art Solutions & Installations. It is also made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Co-organized with Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the retrospective showcases more than 50 large-scale sculptures, installations, and mixed-media wall works created by Fernández over two decades, offering Arizona audiences the opportunity to experience her evocative creations that reinterpret the relationships between nature, history, and identity.
Based in New York, Fernández was born in Miami in 1968 to Cuban parents. She is renowned for her prominent public artworks and experiential sculptures, and through her practice, she explores perception and the psychology of looking, regularly manipulating light and space to create immersive, intimate, and unpredictable spaces. Using a range of materials, including silk, graphite, onyx, mirrors, glass, and charcoal, her minimalist yet substantive installations and sculptures often evoke landscapes, the elements, and various natural wonders, including meteor showers, cloud formations, and the night sky. Her recent body of work contrasts the sublime nature of traditional landscapes with the current politically charged climate of the United States and addresses social issues such as the challenges of democracy.
IMAGE CREDIT
Teresita Fernández, Fire (United States of the Americas) 2, 2018. Charcoal; 137 x 442 x 1 in. (overall). Installation view, Fire (United States of the Americas) 2, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, 2018. Courtesy the artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul; and McNay Art Museum.
Fernández, who has created site-specific commissions for such public spaces as Harvard College, Madison Square Park, and Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003. In 2005, she was named the MacArthur Foundation Fellow for integrating architecture, color, and light into constructed, contemplative spaces. Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (North Adams, Mass.); Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (Fla.); and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Texas), among others. Her work is featured in various international public and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art (N.Y.); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Mass.); Israel Museum (Tel Aviv, Israel); and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Calif.).
Teresita Fernández: Elemental is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), and curated by Amada Cruz, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum; Franklin Sirmans, Director of Pérez Art Museum Miami; Gilbert Vicario, the Selig Family Chief Curator of Phoenix Art Museum; and María Elena Ortiz, Assistant Curator of Pérez Art Museum Miami. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated, bilingual publication featuring scholarly texts written by the exhibition curators and additional contributors. The publication is designed by McGinty, Inc. and co-published with DelMonico Prestel Books.
IMAGE CREDIT
Teresita Fernández, Borrowed Landscape, 1998. Wood, fabric, oculus light, pencil, paint. Originally commissioned at Artpace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art/San Antonio, TX. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul.
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Phoenix Art Museum presents first mid-career survey of contemporary artist Teresita Fernández featuring large-scale sculptures, installations, and wall works Phoenix Art Museum receives $300,000 grant from Ford Foundation for first mid-career survey of contemporary artist Teresita Fernández
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