Teresita Fernández, internationally acclaimed visual artist and 1998 Artpace residency alumnus, has just opened her first mid-career retrospective exhibition at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. The exhibition, titled Elemental, spans over two decades of the artist’s work and includes several installation works from Fernández’s career.

Among them is a complete recreation of her 1998 Artpace exhibition, Borrowed Landscape (Citron, Cerulean, Violet, Blue). Fernández spoke about her Artpace exhibition for several minutes during a talk to a crowded auditorium at the opening weekend of the retrospective. She told the audience how her interest in landscapes originated with her time in San Antonio, and that Borrowed Landscape influenced many of her later works. She chose the colors for the work partly because of their complementary nature to Artpace’s bold red brand color.

Writing about the work in 1999, Lisa G. Corrin stated, “Although we perceive its derivation from architecture, Fernández’s Borrowed Landscape is a built object that functions as an ambivalent physical container. While we may be bound by the solid walls of each ‘chamber,’ our experience of them is never circumscribed by their construction. On the contrary, the silken, sensuous surfaces incite us to question how space is built to house the social body – its desires, its disorders and its disillusions.”

Elemental at Pérez Art Museum Miami was co-curated by Franklin Sirmans who also curated the Spring 2008 International Artist-in-Residence Program. Sirmans curated the show along with former Artpace Executive Director Amada Cruz.
The exhibition will be on view until February 9, 2020.