8,068,807,218. Sangre en oro (Blood in Gold) presents the most recent production by María Luisa Fernández (Villarejo de Órbigo, León, 1955). In it, she continues her quest for sculpture that is meaningful in every sense: that transcends itself, does not become self-absorbed and is relevant enough to impact the emotions of its viewers, prompting them to reflect beyond their experience in the exhibition space. It is also a sculpture that helps her confront reality, what is happening around her and signifies, takes a stance, ultimately taking a side, which she has labelled as “design of tragedy” this time, as it shapes that looming dreadful future and reveals the blueprint of what will unfold if left unchecked. This approach to engaging with the environment traces back to her early works in the early eighties as part of the Artistic Surveillance Committee (CVA). CVA was interested in what seemed peripheral, initially overlooked, yet when scrutinized and critically utilised, revealed how the museum operates and what has been termed the “art system”: those frames with different mouldings used to display small objects and large installations.
In this exhibition, María Luisa Fernández revisits one of the series she had previously worked on in the nineties, adding new layers of meaning to it and exploring different materials. In the Artistas ideales series, she transformed the geometric shapes of circular statistical graphics into sculptural elements. Crafted in wood and typically painted in oil in either white or black, these elements were arranged upright, stacked upon each other, or later, placed on foam mattresses, creating compositions that acquired a quality that art critic Manel Clot described not as anthropomorphic, but as anthropometric. These regular forms of statistics, which serve as a way to establish models or prototypes of perfection, maintained seemingly precarious balances as they took shape in these sculptures erected as columns or, when lying on mattresses, failed to fit perfectly; the scales did not correspond, and the circle was impossible to close. Here, these pieces have been suspended from the ceiling, imposing their weight on the space and adding a monumental dimension. They are Artistas ideales engulfed because they are no longer painted; instead, the black colour and iridescence result from the carbonisation process that occurs when the surface of the wood they are made of is burned. If in the nineties, the Artistas ideales referred to the way the idea of genius had been constructed, of the “great artist,” and to how María Luisa Fernández herself positioned herself in relation to and against these stereotypes that led to so many exclusions, now, hanging by a thread, in precarious balance, the questions broaden their scope to include what artists do in response to what is happening, where artists place themselves in relation to a reality that is heading towards tragedy.
This method of working, in which questions returning from the past or perpetually present ones are provisionally addressed, is also evident in the Coronas. They are crafted from discarded wood pieces that morph into peculiar decomposed and fragmented circulatory systems. This appears in many of María Luisa Fernández's recent drawings as well, which bear semblance to anatomical representations devoid of muscles and bones, leaving only arteries and veins. Yet, upon closer inspection, the silhouettes of restless animals moving across the sheet of paper are discernible. These silhouettes of wild animals, many on the brink of extinction, populate other drawings as if shadows, ghosts of what they once were. They delineate a void, an absence, that which has departed or is on the verge of departure. In another group of new sculptures, sheets of acrylic are stacked, forming a circle at the entrance of the room, akin to alchemical symbols, through which the viewer must traverse, explore and encircle. These sheets rest on bases with pointed legs, seemingly poised to penetrate the ground, though such an act remains impossible. This strategy echoes that of the lionesses’ torsos, overseeing the visitors’ paths, with a hint of a ram by their supports, or the wings of a mythical bird, resting against the wall, etched with a knife. Lionesses and birds reminiscent of protective idols from a distant past. Lionesses and birds crafted from foam, which over time will change colour, transitioning from blue to green, then yellow, gradually fading into dust, erasing themselves ever so slowly, in a “poetics of extinction,” as described by one of María Luisa Fernández's former students and now friend, Vanesa Díaz. They will not become ruins, remnants or vestiges; they will transform into residue.
Residues, like those produced by the 8,068,807,218 inhabitants of Earth referenced in the title's number, which, by the time this text is read, will have exponentially increased. Over eight billion individuals who, in a few years, following the well-known Fibonacci sequence, that spiral showcasing the progression of adding two natural numbers and their subsequent sums, 1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21-34-55-89-144-233…, will be many more, if there is not a collapse to prevent it: since her last solo exhibition in 2018, titled 7,608,766,433 + -, the global population has grown by over 460 million inhabitants. A terrible Fibonacci spiral that María Luisa Fernández has now constructed within the exhibition space. A fateful spiral that draws near to another, one containing the measures of beauty: the divine proportion or the golden ratio, that metal into which the current system of overexploitation converts blood. Over eight billion people is the perfect audience for the exhibition, but this same population is also responsible for unsettling nature.
