SANTA FE — Accompanied by a slideshow of journey pictures, the voice of Robert Smithson seems again on a 1969 journey to Mexico. “There’s something about Mexico,” he exclaims, shortly after explaining Mayan agricultural customs, “an general hidden hid violence concerning the panorama itself. […] So it’s important to be very cautious while you go to Mexico so that you’re not caught up on this — in any of this type of unconscious, harmful violence that’s actually lurking in each patch of earth.” The slideshow and recording describing this notorious journey compose “Lodge Palenque” (1969–72), a part of Teresita Fernández / Robert Smithson at SITE Santa Fe, co-curated by Fernández herself and Lisa Le Feuvre, govt director of the Holt/Smithson Basis.
Fernández’s “Charred Panorama (America)” (2017) encircles the identical room, put in alongside the partitions, and traverses the display upon which Smithson’s footage are projected. The set up’s summary charcoal panorama evokes the ability of fireplace as an emblem of Western violence and the usage of managed burnings by Indigenous individuals of their agriculture.
The dialogue between these two works units the tone of each the exhibition and the dialog it initiates between the 2 artists. Their practices overlap of their use of panorama as inspiration and subject material, and of uncooked pure supplies. But the artists’ approaches couldn’t be extra totally different. Fernández emphasizes the way in which structural energy dynamics, corresponding to neocolonialism and cultural and useful resource extractivism, have an effect on how people relate to position. In “Manigua (Mirror)” (2023), the entanglement of those geopolitical relationships is characterised by an abundance of tropical fauna. Behind charcoal and black sand, a layer of aluminum faintly displays the determine of the spectator, inviting us to contemplate our particular person roles in a globalized system. Smithson, alternatively, evades self-reflection, each figuratively and actually, in his work: in “Yucatan Mirror Displacements” (1969), mirrors mirror nature however the work doesn’t acknowledge the truth of people’ ever-changing and complicated interconnection with our surroundings.
Smithson’s concepts of territory and land possession are revealed in three small illustrations of islands. In them, the artist locations flags over these imaginary plots of land, perpetuating the notion of land as one thing to be conquered and claimed. In distinction, Fernández’s “Archipielago (Cervix)” (2020) reconfigures components of the very actual geography of the Caribbean islands into the form of a dilated womb, underscoring land because the preliminary supply of life whereas alluding to the similarities of the violence traditionally exerted over girls and nature.
Smithson’s failure to place himself inside his artwork and its influence upon nature echoes the colonialist practices that granted him privilege as a White, male artist working in the US. This alone separates him from Fernández, a Latina girl, however Smithson’s early loss of life signifies that his observe couldn’t develop as hers may. We don’t know the way his artwork and concepts would have advanced or how he would have reacted to up to date sociocultural adjustments.
Fernández has had the time to mature her observe, and because the present’s co-curator, she has studied Smithson’s work deeply. Consequently, the exhibition each respects Smithson’s work and traces the ways in which the artists’ sociopolitical positions formed their views. It is very important create areas the place tough conversations round race, privilege, and energy can happen. Teresita Fernández / Robert Smithson does simply that.
Teresita Fernández / Robert Smithson continues at SITE Santa Fe (1606 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, New Mexico) by way of October 28. The exhibition was curated by Teresita Fernández and Holt/Smithson Basis Govt Director Lisa Le Feuvre.