Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/496780
146 CULTURED "Works of art, or literature or architecture, or mythology—they guide us. For me, art functions as this kind of way-finding. And we somehow know when we find ourselves." —Teresita Fernández DA: Beautiful. It's really one of the first three- dimensional urban squares. It moves you from the human plane to a multiple perspective moment, which leads me to the beautiful thing that I know is so important in your work, this question of light. Is the perception of light here related to the seasons? Is it about a kind of continual ritual? TF: It's interesting that you use the word "ritual," because I kept thinking of Fata Morgana not at all as an object but as a kind of procession, this urban performance of routine and commute set into motion by park visitors. All of my work really deals with that idea of light as something that's active—as something that's defined, in fact, by darkness. We are conditioned to think that light and dark are opposites, but the way we experience the world is nothing like that. Darkness really defines light, and vice versa. What we perceive isn't extremes of light and dark but rather the charged saccadic efforts that happens in between; a kind of vibrating between the two, which creates this nuanced experience. DA: So what do you mean specifically when you use the word "landscape"? TF: "Landscape" is a word that often is used in a very sloppy, lazy way. We tend to think of landscape to mean whatever is outdoors and in front of our eyes. Most of those narrow ideas about landscape, or light, or light in the landscape come almost exclusively from Western European painting traditions, in this very limited way. And, I think that when you're talking about light in a sculptural way or in an architectural way, it really forces you to negotiate light and place it on very different terms. When I talk about light in my work, there's a specific material reference as well. Materials themselves have a very loaded history and I often choose materials that are mined: gold, graphite, pyrite, iron-ore. I am using those materials to create images that are ephemeral and based on depictions of light. So, there's this connection between the subterranean and the cosmos. DA: Recently I learned that gold is one of the few materials that actually comes from the stars. It's an asteroid that hits specific parts of our planet and just folds into the geology. I think it's interesting that you're fascinated by this celestial material. Gold is revered as a luxury, but really its original reverence is as a divine material. I'm fascinated by the sprinkling of gold amongst the every day. And to talk about your social ideas about materials and people—there's something profound in that, almost like a coronation. It seems that you're somehow celebrating the everyday. TF: That is at the very heart of everything I have been making for so many years, although it's often overlooked when my work is read only formally. They are profound notions. I work with materials because materials are the history of people. Land, and by default, landscape, are the story of people. I spent a year researching over 15,000 gold objects in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection that had never been on view. My use of material is really a very subtle way of referring to deeper ideas about people and places. Gold has always been universally associated with the sun. I've often made pieces that deal with that connection between the subterranean (mined materials) and the cosmos. And I'm fascinated by that human narrative that attaches earthly metals to heavenly counterparts. The sky being that place that human beings have always looked for coordinates and orientation—a way of locating oneself in the world. DA Beautiful. What about at the show that you did at Mass MoCA, what other materials are you using to play with that notion of light and of materials carrying a history? TF: Everything in that show was made of black and gold; again, it was about light and darkness defining one other. I learned how to see this phenomenon most in Japan, where I've spent a lot of time over the last 20 years. There's this wonderful thing that happens in those dark, traditional Japanese interiors where you'll be in a completely darkened space, and there will be one tiny golden object—a small bowl, or a delicate piece of lacquerware and it will illuminate the entire room. It's like the visual equivalent of sound going through a speaker. By putting this huge sculpture in the middle of Manhattan, Fata Morgana becomes a way of amplifying the light in the city in a vey similar way. DA: That's beautiful. I heard someone refer to you as a 'landscape sculptor' which is sort of a very strange term. What does that really mean? TF: It's hard to come up with a term that describes what I'm really trying to do, which is conceptual, but also deals with materiality, cultural and historical references and ephemeral image- making. I'm creating conceptual landscapes with the raw material from a real landscape; the visual idea of landscape completely fused with the physical materiality of land itself. And that's different than '70s land-art, which actually shapes the land, and it's different than landscape painting, which focuses on sort of this picturesque image, and it's different than landscape architecture, which deals more with design elements. But, if you take aspects of all of those disciplines and you merge them, it becomes a kind of landscape sculpture. I like the term, too, because often sculpture seems to be the orphan of the visual world, it doesn't get the attention of painting. It doesn't have the scale of architecture. It exists in a weird place that's slow, and I've always been attracted to that. I like the term 'slow sculpture' as something that is not exactly the land growing, not exactly a still image, not exactly a designed form but really something that exists at the unlikely intersection of all of those things. DA: Your description brings me to another question. I've always been curious whether your work is specific or universal. TF: Both. In fact, it always has to be both. The first thing I do when I start a new work is ask the very simple question, 'Where am I?' I take that question very seriously. So, in a way I start excavating and researching where I am historically, economically, socially, geographically, visually, emotionally, physically—where exactly is this site located? Not just physically, but in people's imaginations and in history and in the entire context of place. For me, art functions as this kind of way-finding. As human beings, we have always been trying to find our coordinates. This is the reason why we have always looked up at the night sky for orientation, for navigation. That idea of finding our coordinates, not just literally, but as a means of finding one's place within all these layers of information that we're bombarded with in the world is what art is really about. Works of art, or literature or architecture, or mythology—they guide us. And we somehow know when we find ourselves. We feel right and we recognize locations or spatial situations that give us that sense of familiarity, that touchstone of belonging to a place, or a landscape.