José Gabriel Fernández | Selected Works (2003-2019)

March 26, 2021 - June 25, 2021

META Miami and Henrique Faria New York are pleased to present Selected Works (2003-2019), José Gabriel Fernández’s first solo exhibition at the foundation's Wynwood space. This exhibition features a selection of works in different media (sculpture, reliefs, photography and collage) that spans over 15 years of the artist’s production. 

Referring to the artist’s ouvre, art historian and independent curator Juan Carlos Ledezma wrote: "In the works of the last several years, Fernández proposes an intimate corporeal reading of sculpture through spotless geometries and naked volumes that create a dialogue between the body and the works. The precise edges and outlines that define these sculptures and reliefs seem to blur their achromatic nature and sobriety, imparting an aura of calmness and timelessness, while giving them a light and ethereal quality - weightless and immaterial - in spite of the imposing dimensions of some of the works. Quiet but potent with energy, these shapes and forms penetrate, modulate, and mutate from one to the other, from negative to positive, from repose to motion in a sensuous inter-dialogue.”

Fernández’s practice has traditionally been influenced and informed by the history and development of Modernism not only in Venezuela, his native country, but also in the rest of Latin America including Mexico, Brasil, Argentina, Puerto Rico and Perú. His works closely deal and relate to concepts and organic ideas of geometry, line and form, space, dance and music. In his series Lingam and Erotes, the artist explores theories and concepts of gender, offering a very personal take in the human body, eroticism and sex. Ledezma concludes: “In this most recent series of sculptures - from which a suite of photographs, present in the exhibition,  reveal singular moments of the same works with subtlety and sensuality - Fernández remits, be it by their titles or by their forms, to archetypical erotic expressions of desire that reinterpret languages of 20th century Avant-Gardes.”

Born in Caracas, Venezuela.

Studied Fine Arts at Middlesex Polytechnic, London, 1979-82; Slade School of Fine Arts, University College London, 1986-88 and Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, 1988-89. Lives and works in New York City.

Recent solo exhibitions at: Huxley-Parlour, London, UK, 2019; Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, NY, 2011;  Sala Mendoza, Caracas, 2010; Galeria Emma Molina, Monterrey, Mexico, 2007; Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, 2003.

Recent group exhibitions include: 2019 Materia, Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery, London; 2018 XIV Bienal de Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador; Stock. GBG Arts, Caracas, Venezuela; 2017 Sum of the Parts III, ARTSOLAR, East Hampton, NY; Passages in Art, The Mercantil Collection. Pinta Miami, FL; 2016 “Illuminations II’, OMM Project, Miami Biennale, Miami, FL; “Contralapared”, Espacio Monitor, Caracas, Venezuela; “Paralelo”, Espacio Monitor, Caracas, Venezuela; Do Ask, Do Tell”, Art from Latin America (1970s – 2016), Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, NY; “Contingent Beauty”, Contemporary Art from Latin America, Museum of Fine Arts. Houston, TX; 2013 Deferred Archives, CIFO, Cisneros-Fontanals Foundation, Miami, FL; 2011 Marked Pages III, Sicardi Gallery, Houston; Geometrias Alteradas, Faria + Fabregas Galeria, Caracas, Venezuela; Picture No Picture, Carriage Trade, New York, NY; Post-Kinetic: Conceptualism and Geometry in Venezuela, KaBe Gallery, Miamii, FL; 2010 Negativa Moderna, Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, NY; Not Made in China, Galeria La Cuadra, Caracas, Venezuela; 2008 Correspondences: Contemporary Art from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Beard and Weil Galleries, Wheaton College, Norton, MA; Geografías (in)visibles. Arte contemporáneo latinoamericano en la Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes,  Santiago de los Caballeros, Domican Republic; 2007 6ta Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brasil; Jump Cuts: Venezuelan Contemporary Art from the Coleccion Mercantil, CIFO, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL; 2006 Cruce de miradas: Visiones de America Latina, Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes. Mexico, D. F.; Jump Cuts: Venezuelan Contemporary Art from the Coleccion Mercantil, Americas Society, NY; Passion et raison d’un esprit constructif. Collection Fondation Daniela Chappard. Espace Bellevue, Biarrtiz, France; Archivo Pons, Koldo Mitxelena Kultureanea, San Sebastian, Spain; Paralelos, Museu de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo, Brasil; Paralelos, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.