Artist: Miguel Ángel Férnandez
Before science and religion were clearly delineated, it was believed that the movement of celestial bodies is governed by divine laws. In 1596, after having abandoned the study of theology, astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler published a book titled The Secret of the World or Mysterium Cosmographicum, hoping it would be read as a precursor to cosmological essays for discovering the secrets of the universe. Years later, Kepler was forced to discard his original model of regular polyhedra and the harmony of spheres. Despite his initial conviction, he realised that God did not create planets moving along perfect geometrical paths, but rather planets moving in elliptical orbits. It was on the basis of this realisation that he could write the three laws of planetary motion that redefined human understanding of the universe.
Miguel Ángel Férnandez’ artistic trajectory could be described as a constant search for a harmonious conjunction of two planets that are obviously diametrically opposed in many ways: art and life. In this experimental research exercise, the work itself is transformed into a new element of our personal constellation, which is subject to the laws and principles of our existence. The artist creates plastic performative situations in which different everyday objects and ordinary materials are subject to the causality of chance with unpredictable results creating a new reality, which is completely different from the previous one, but still as perfect as it is original.
At the time when astrologers were considered the new philosophers, the discussion about the impact of planetary movement on human behaviour foregrounded, again, the debates about historical astrology as a means of interpreting our existence and its most important events under the forces ruling the universe. Under the influence of this idea, the artist connects with the humanist spirit in order to show the implicit acceptance of causality and the determinist perception of reality as something inevitable for mankind, and to highlight the potential of art to counter the inherent fatalism of our existential doubts.
Curator: Yasmín Martín Vodopivec
GalerijaGallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia
16 May – 6 June 2017
Supported by the Embassy of Spain in Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana
Photos: Bojan Salaj. GalerijaGallery Archive.
