Christina Fernandez, 1910, "Leaving Morelia, Michoacán," 1995-96. Archival pigment print. From the series Maria’s Great Expedition. Pomona College Collection, Student Directed Acquisition Fund
Christina Fernandez, "Untitled Multiple Exposure #5 (Figueroa)," 1999. Gelatin silver print. From the series Untitled Multiple Exposures. Courtesy AltaMed Art Collection, AltaMed Health Services
Christina Fernandez, "Lavanderia #1," 2002. Archival pigment print. From the series Lavanderia. Courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ralph M. Parsons Fund
Christina Fernandez, "Space Available #10 (Spring Studio)," 2004. Archival pigment print. From the series Space Available. Courtesy David Knaus, Los Angeles
Christina Fernandez, "Laura A. (Los Angeles)," 2018. Archival pigment print. From the series View From Here. Courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Photography Acquisition Fund
Christina Fernandez, "American Trailer," 2018. Archival pigment print. Courtesy the artist and Gallery Luisotti, Los Angeles
CHICAGO — DePaul Art Museum announces the opening of its spring exhibition, “Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures.” This show surveys the work of Fernandez, a Los Angeles-based artist who from the late 1980s to the present has conducted a rich exploration of migration, labor, gender, and her Mexican American identity through photography. “Multiple Exposures” will open March 20 and run until Aug. 3 at the museum, located on DePaul University’s Lincoln Park Campus.
“DePaul Art Museum is pleased to bring the work of Christina Fernandez to Chicago audiences this spring as a continuation of our commitment to highlighting Latinx stories in our exhibitions and programs,” said Laura-Caroline de Lara, director of DPAM. “This exhibition grapples with themes that ring true in Chicago as well as LA. We hope that the conversations that spring out of the Chicago iteration of the show and its programming will create new geopolitical and cultural understandings for our university students and neighbors.”
Bringing together the artist’s most important bodies of work for the first time, Fernandez’s retrospective highlights the experiences of Mexican Americans, from border-spanning family histories to contemporary “lavanderías,” or laundromats. Fernandez also portrays the realities of being an artist, professor, and mother through series that acknowledge both the beauty and the instability of a creative life.
The exhibition’s title, “Multiple Exposures,” refers not only to a photographic technique but also to the artist’s revealing of that which is often hidden away, including fraught racial histories and the mistreatment of precarious communities. The exhibition evokes the artist’s self-exposure as a woman and the vulnerability of certain communities to exploitation and displacement. Whether staged or candid, Fernandez’s photographs record touch and mark-making, engaging the medium’s distinct ability to convey surfaces — the surfaces of bodies, architecture, and the images themselves.
“Christina Fernandez brilliantly weaves self-portraiture, family history, the built environment and broader Latinx narratives into her work,” said Ionit Behar, curator. “Her photography illuminates the rich complexities of Latinx identity and invites viewers to actively engage with the layers of her imagery."
Planned programs include an exhibition walkthrough with Fernandez, a family-oriented workshop on self-portraiture as part of DPAM’s Learning Studio ongoing Family Day series, a panel with local artists on Chicago Latinx photography and a podcast interview with the artist to be released in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago.
The traveling exhibition is organized by UCR ARTS and curated by Joanna Szupinska, senior curator at the California Museum of Photography; Chon Noriega, distinguished professor of film, television, and digital media at UCLA, is the curatorial advisor. Behar organized the presentation of this exhibition at DPAM. This exhibition was made possible by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. DePaul Art Museum’s iteration of the exhibition and accompanying programs is generously supported by the Teiger Foundation and Vincentian Endowment Fund. An opening reception will be held on March 20 from 6 – 8 p.m.
DePaul Art Museum is located at 935 W. Fullerton Ave. on DePaul University’s Lincoln Park Campus. The museum is open 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free to everyone. Additional information is available online at https://artmuseum.depaul.edu/ or by calling 773-325-7506.
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Media Contact:
Julia Cremin