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Teresita Fernández

Caribbean Cosmos

London

Sep 14–Nov 5, 2022

Detail of wall sculpture by Teresita Fernández

No.9 Cork Street

Mayfair, London W1S 3LL

Lehmann Maupin announces Caribbean Cosmos, an exhibition of new work by New York-based artist Teresita Fernández. Known for her expansive practice characterized by an interest in materiality, conceptual wayfinding, and reflective engagement, Fernández creates immersive work that critically rethinks landscape and place. Incorporating diverse historical and cultural references, Fernández challenges entrenched spatial frameworks and poetically exposes the history of colonization and the inherent violence embedded in how we imagine and define both land and location. On view at Lehmann Maupin London from September 14–November 5, 2022, Caribbean Cosmos includes a charcoal sculpture, a large-scale, glazed ceramic panel, and a new series of seascape dissolves rendered on copper.

In Caribbean Cosmos, Fernández presents a nuanced understanding of the Caribbean, looking beyond dominant, continental narratives and instead considering the region as emblematic of an expansive, decentralized physical geography, and a global, diasporic state of mind. Using this dispersed lens, she unravels dynamic strands of rhizomatic connection, sprawling landscapes, and a metaphysical understanding of the natural world. Fernández uses earthly elements—including fired clay, etched and polished copper, and solid charcoal made from burned trees—to summon a churning material world in the ever-changing flux of decay, evolution, and renewal. In Caribbean Cosmos Fernández infuses matter with meaning, achieving a type of alchemy in the transformation of her raw materials.

Installation view of Teresita Fernández at Lehmann Maupin London
Installation Views: 1 of 3
Ceramic wall work by Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández

Caribbean Cosmos, 2022

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Teresita Fernández in conversation with Rachel Thomas, Chief Curator at the Hayward Gallery

Filmed on September 15, 2022

Wall sculpture by Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández

Kalunga(Maria/Marea), 2022

Wall sculpture by Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández

Kalunga(Copper Planet), 2022

Wall sculpture by Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández

Pendent(Lynched Land)2, 2022

Installation view of Teresita Fernández at Lehmann Maupin London
Installation Views: 1 of 3
Portrait of Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández's work is characterized by an expansive rethinking of what constitutes landscape: from the subterranean to the cosmic, from national borders to the more elusive psychic landscapes we carry within. Fernández unravels the intimacies between matter, human beings, and locations. Her luminous, sculptural works poetically challenge ideas about land and landscape by amplifying the powerful, emotional connection in how we imagine place, and, by extension, one another. Fernández exposes the complex narratives that stem from distorted, colonial histories, elaborating on these themes in subtle ways that insist on intertwining beauty, the socio-political, the intimate, and the immense. Imagining the landscape with reciprocal sentience, Fernández has said “You look at the landscape, but the landscape also looks back at you."

Fernández is a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the recipient of numerous awards, including a Creative Capital Award; Guggenheim Fellowship; the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award; an American Academy of Rome Fellowship (AFAAR); and a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist’s Grant in Visual Arts, among others. Her works have been exhibited and collected both nationally and internationally including: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Menil Collection; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; SITE Santa Fe; The Smithsonian Museum of American Art; MASS MoCA; and Castello di Rivoli, Italy, among others. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

Learn about the artist
Caribbean Cosmos | Lehmann Maupin