Fernanda Laguna

Fernanda Laguna (1972) lives and works in Buenos Aires.
She is a highly influential artist in Argentina, who besides her art production and published poetry has created and directed several alternative organizations, which are effectively part of her art practice. In 2000, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in Argentina’s history, Laguna founded the now legendary artist-run gallery Belleza y Felicidad (Beauty and Happiness), which for many years was the cauldron of emerging art and literature in Buenos Aires. She then moved the gallery to a shantytown on the outskirts of the city, where it evolved into an experimental art-based general education project for disadvantaged children and teenagers. Laguna was involved in starting Eloisa Cartonera, a publishing cooperative which brings together well established writers and the cartoneros, who make a living collecting discarded cardboard from the garbage. In 2011-2012 she run TuRito, a space open 24 hours a day (it had no doors) to performances, readings and actions. Laguna has been extremely active not only as visual artist and writer but also as curator, organizer and performer, doing so in an idiosyncratic playful manner which has become her signature style.

Laguna started her visual art production in the 90’s, as one of the younger exhibitors in the group of artists who showed at Centro Cultural Rojas. At the time she explored both figurative and abstract painting incorporating distinct references to local popular culture, both in the iconography as well as in the techniques and materials she used. During the early 2000’s, she worked in an immediate, almost precarious manner, often spontaneously recording her subjective states and the fluctuations of her relationships using inexpensive, everyday materials and conveying a raw emotionality and a distinct female perspective. She later developed a style of painting which is mostly abstract and has certain characteristic tropes: biomorphic, black, abstract shapes that act as humans, carefully carved shapes cut on the canvases, and wicker frames. These works create an almost tongue-in-cheek, surreal atmosphere in the tradition of Argentinean metaphysical painting.

Recently, her work was presented in a solo exhibition at The Drawing Center, New York (The Path of the Heart,2022) and at Bortolami in New York (Welcome to my show in New York!!!!!!, 2022). Prior to this, in 2021, she had a exposition at Nora Fisch gallery in Buenos Aires titled Arte_Lin Do Re Mi Fa# Sol La Siiiiii, in 2020 at the Institute for Contemporary Art Virgina Commonwealth University(As Everybody), in 2018 at Campoli Presti in London (I want to be an international artist), in 2017 at Nora Fisch gallery in Buenos Aires (En la galería de arte), in 2013 at Espacio Cobra in Buenos Aires (Cosas que no mostré), in 2012 at Nora Fisch gallery in Buenos Aires (No confíes en lo que ves), in 2010 at Mite gallery in Buenos Aires.

Her work has been showcased in several group exhibitions, including SCRIPT – MEMORY at Kunsthalle Winterhur (April 2024), El Corazón Aúlla: Latin American Feminist Performance in Revolt, curated by Alexis Heller and Tatiana Muñoz-Brenes at The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation in New York (2022); Take Me (I’m yours) curated by Christian Boltanski, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Chiara Parisi at Villa Medici in Rome (2018); and Casa Tomada curated by José Luis Blondet, Ruba Katrib and Candice Hopkins at SITE Santa Fe, (2018), among others.

Laguna's work is part of the permanent public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection; Pérez Museum, Miami; the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires; and the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires.