The Body Inherent

Henrique Faria is pleased to present The Body Inherent, a dialogue between Emilia Azcárate and José Gabriel Fernández. The exhibition brings together a selection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs, showcasing the distinctive perspectives of both artists while exploring the interplay of form, body, and material. Absence is a central theme in this exhibition, as it implies the invisible, unheard, and unfelt—yet becomes a palpable presence through the artists' creations. Both Azcárate and Fernández emphasize formal reduction and monochromatic tones, with black and white at the forefront. Their use of abstraction transcends representation, inviting viewers to visualize the body’s presence through its absence, embodying absence as a potent form of expression. As curator Juan Ledezma writes in the exhibition text: “It is a homoerotic presence that against the grain of abstraction edges its way into the volumes of Fernández. These bare masses of unrelieved white assert no other existence than their own in space, but they figure forth fleshly fragments as their sides meet at ridges that protrude and recede while curving: the arch of a glans or the pull of a frenulum, for instance, faintly graspable in what otherwise retains the literal condition of a freestanding bulk.” He continues: “Equally manifesting that which they withhold, Azcárate’s all-but-black paintings also assert absence to evoke a suspended presence. They do so through writing: their blackness bars light, but makes it present as a word which the artist has written in line with a geometric alphabet of her devising… The new series probes into light as signifier and concept. Providing the support for the inscription of the word “light” in different languages transliterated into the artist’s own alphabet, these paintings share in the legacy offered by the linguistic turn of much conceptual art.” Ledezma concludes: “Drawing a contrapuntal connection between abstraction and either lived or historical experience, the works of both artists thus propose what in loosely Derridean terms could be described as a mode of deferred embodiment. They touch on a moment in which sheer form proffers the presence of what it declares absent to allow such presence to be reshaped anew and otherwise, outside and against the persistence of established history or codified experience.” The Body Inherent offers an exploration of absence, presence, and embodiment through abstraction. Emilia Azcárate (b. 1964, Caracas) studied Fine Art at the Central Saint Martins School of Art in London in the eighties. She participated in the La Llama International Artists Workshop in Venezuela and in the Artist-in-Residence program CCA7 in Trinidad. She won the first National Prize for Visual Arts Arturo Michelena in 1999, in 2006 she was awarded the Cisneros Fontanals Foundation Grant Program (CIFO), and in 2016 she participated in the Latin American Roaming Art (LARA) Residency Program in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. She lives and works in Madrid. Azcárate has had individual exhibitions at Henrique Faria, New York; Museo de Historia Mexicana, Monterrey; 80m2 Livia Benavides, Lima; Miami Biennale, Miami; Galería Distrito 4, Madrid; Tiempos Modernos, Madrid; Faría+Fabregas Galería y Periférico Caracas, Caracas; Casa de América, Madrid; Caribbean Contemporary Arts 7, Puerto España; el Museo Alejandro Otero y la Sala Mendoza, Caracas; and the Centro Cultural de España, Santo Domingo, Domincan Republic. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at institutions including Fundación Juan March Madrid, MDE 15, Encuentro Internacional de Arte de Medellín; Matadero, Madrid; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana; Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; Americas Society, New York; Museo de Arte Moderno Cuenca, Ecuador; and the following biennials: the São Paulo Biennial; Prague Biennial and Havana Biennial. Her work is represented in collections such as the Jorge Pérez Art Collection, Miami; LACMA, Los Angeles; Cisneros Fontanals (CIFO) Collection, Miami; Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York; Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas; Banco Mercantil Collection, Caracas; Berezdivin Collection, Puerto Rico; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas; Banesco Foundation Collection, Caracas; Bank of Spain Collection and Coca Cola Foundation, Madrid; amongst others. José Gabriel Fernández (b. 1957, Caracas). 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. His work has been exhibited in University Galleries, UF, Florida (2023); Huxley-Parlour, London, UK, 2019; Henrique Faria, New York, NY, 2011; Sala Mendoza, Caracas, 2010; Galeria Emma Molina, Monterrey, Mexico, 2007; Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, 2003; 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, 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.

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