art.wikisort.org - Artist

Brendan Fernandes (born 1979) is a Canadian contemporary artist. He specializes in installation and visual art and currently serves as a faculty member at Northwestern University teaching art theory and practice.[1]

Brendan Fernandes
Brendan Fernandes in 2016
Born	1979 Nairobi, Kenya
Nationality	Canadian
Awards	2010 Sobey Art Award Short List
Website	brendanfernandes.ca

Early life and education

Fernandes was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1979. His family, Indians in Kenya of Goan descent, moved to Canada when he was nine years old. He went to school in Newmarket, Ontario.[2][3] Fernandes trained professionally as a ballet dancer, but tore his hamstring during his senior year at York University in Toronto, the injury ending any possibility of a dance career.[2][4]

He completed the other half of his double major, a Visual Art Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at York, and then pursued a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario. In 2006, he participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan, New York.[2][3]

Exhibitions and performances

Fernandes exhibited a series of sculptures and live performances at the Graham Foundation^[where?] titled The Master and Form, in 2018.[5] The series explored mastery and discipline within the culture of ballet through the use of designed objects that enable dancers to perfect and extend iconic positions.[6] This work was featured in the 2019 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art.[1]

In 2017 at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Fernandes presented Free Fall 49, a work that addressed the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The performance was a choreography of eight dancers, improvised over two hours of music produced by Tom Krell of How to Dress Well.^{[clarification needed]} Music samples interspersed at abrupt intervals – reminiscent of the staccato of gunfire, the beat cut into the propulsive music 49 times, cuing the dancers first to hit the ground, then rise in moments of memorial and resurrection.[7] This performance art piece was later presented in the Kogod Courtyward of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in June 2019.[8]

In 2011, Fernandes was included in Found in Translation^{[clarification needed]}, exhibition at The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York.[9]

On the occasion of Fernandes' Noguchi Museum project he has published a book titled Re/Form in 2022. [10]

References

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