Join us at the gallery at 7pm for a conversation between Adrián Fernández and Mailyn Machado in connection with Salvaged Stories, the artist’s current exhibition with Thomas Nickles Project and first dedicated solely to sculpture. Salvaged Stories, Fernández’s most recent body of work, continues his inquiry into Cuban futurability through his experimentation with steel and bronze. The dialogue will address how his deconstructive approach to national symbols and representations of reality through photography has led him to his current abstractionism in sculpture. It will also examine how this non-figurative body of work engages with Cuba’s abstract art tradition, shaping visions of possible futures during periods of political crisis, and how his relocation from Havana to New York four years ago—part of the largest wave of Cuban emigration to the U.S. since 1959—has influenced his artistic practice.
Adrián Fernández perceives images, forms, and objects as archaeological remnants intimately tied to historical contexts and cultural paradigms. He studied visual arts at the San Alejandro Fine Arts Academy (2004) and the High Institute of Arts (2010) in Havana, Cuba. Fernández began experimenting with photographic media in the early stages of his career. Viewing architecture as a material expression of society, he photographed domestic exteriors between 2006 and 2008. From 2008 to 2010, he documented private spaces, capturing portraits of foyers, dining rooms, and terraces. This exploration of interiors was followed by a focus on home decor, featuring still lifes that showcased the contrasting styles found in Cuban homes.
In 2014, Fernández centered his photographic investigation on the representation of national identity. He enlarged segments of postage stamps issued in Cuba throughout the twentieth century, distorting them into abstract images of traditional Cuban symbols. This series led to his first three-dimensional clay models. Since then, Fernández has expanded his practice to include installations and sculptures. His photographic style has also evolved from a documentary black-and-white approach to studio photography, incorporating digital images and computer-generated elements to visualize imaginary topographies as landscapes for his three-dimensional structures.
Fernández has exhibited in group and solo shows in Cuba, United States, Mexico, Panama, France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. His work can be found in the collections of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the 21C Museum Hotels, the Perez Art Museum Miami, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and in the National Museum of Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba. He works as an independent artist and as a professor of Documentary Photography for New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.
Mailyn Machado received her BA in Art History from the University of Havana, and her MA in Art Criticism from the University of Girona, Spain, in 2006, which led to her work as a curator and critic of contemporary art and audiovisual media. She is the author of Fuera de revoluciones (2016), and the trilogy Open Studio (2018), completed with the exhibit El circuito del arte cubano (El Apartamento, 2019). She was a professor of Art Theory at the University of Havana (2001-2008). In 2009, she received the Guy Pérez Cisneros Art Critics Award, and the National Curatorial Award for the exhibition Tanda corrida. She has curated exhibitions for the Cuban National Museum of Fine Arts, the Havana Biennial, the Cultural Centers of Spain in the Americas, and the Jewish Museum in New York as part of the project Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video (2013-2016).
