Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Teresita Fernández’s inclusion in Rewriting Histories, the Armory Show’s Platform presentation, on view at the Javits Center from September 7–10, 2023. Curated by Eva Respini, Rewriting Histories brings together large-scale works and site-specific installations by artists who challenge accepted beliefs surrounding history, art, and culture. The presentation will feature Fernández’s Island Universe 2 (2023), a large-scale, charcoal wall installation that elegantly combines all of the Earth’s landmasses, fusing them into one continuous, borderless terrain. “The artists included in Rewriting Histories explore complex histories often tied to colonialism, land, and power” states Respini. “Teresita Fernández’s monumental Island Universe 2 re-images global territories, visualizing the interconnected geological, cultural, and historical relationships of geographies. Made of charcoal, this installation illustrates so well Fernández’s interest in uncovering what she refers to as ‘stacked landscapes’—the conceptual framework that allows her work to reveal the often invisible, buried layers of historical violence embedded in land.” 

Created specifically for this presentation, Fernández’s Island Universe 2 disrupts conventions of mapmaking, representing the world’s continents and archipelagos as a single landmass evoking the early geologic supercontinent of Pangaea. Denaturalizing geographic and political borders, Fernández’s provocative work fervently challenges traditional understandings of geography, landscape, and nation—in particular, the view of North as the inherently superior “up” and the reciprocal positioning of South as the inferior “down”.