For the last five years, New York and Toronto based artist Brendan Fernandes has explored how stillness and static movement can be powerful tools of resistance. Informed by his training in
ballet and modern dance, Fernandes’ practice routinely explores the role of the body within social and political spaces, questioning and breaking down the notion of hegemony. For Fernandes,
choreography serves as a remarkable tool for decoding and unpacking this complex conversation. Inspired by ballet movement vocabularies relating to labour and endurance, the work demonstrates
the artist’s keen interest in responding to histories of avant-garde dance and its relationship to visual art. His work takes on numerous forms, building on an effort to negotiate a complex
sense of both individual and cultural identities within performative acts.
Featuring texts by Hendrik Folkerts, curator of documenta 14 and Jess Wilcox, Programs Coordinator of the Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, and with
contributions from curators Shaun Dacey, Anik Glaude, Robin Metcalfe, Crystal Mowry, and Stuart Reid, this monograph focuses on Fernandes’ use of language and dance as a means to explore
power, endurance and resistance.
Fernandes has exhibited internationally at venues including the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Art and Design, New York; the National Gallery of Canada; the Brooklyn Museum; the
Studio Museum in Harlem; MASS MoCA; the Andy Warhol Museum; the Seattle Art Museum; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Deutsche Guggenheim. He has been awarded several highly regarded
residencies around the world, including a Robert Rauschenberg Residency Fellowship in 2014.
The artist’s work is included in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada; the University Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Massachusetts; the Art Gallery of Nova
Scotia; the Art Gallery of Hamilton; The Art Gallery of York University; and the University of Buffalo Art Galleries.
Published in partnership with the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; Rodman Hall Art Centre, Brock University; the Southern Alberta Art Gallery; the Varley Art Gallery; St. Mary’s University Art
Gallery; and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver.
