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“The work of Mercedes Fernandez is a
radical celebration of the human form as source of honest hilarity and charm. The anonymous
characters in her photographs take part in preposterous situations, for example, a lone naked
woman with garish orange street cones that cover her head and breasts suggests a
quasi-Shakespearean scene of jest, hence art-as-hammer-as-reiteration of the unpredictable
foibles and spontaneous allegories of true living. What can we surmise from these scenes of
silly yet serious theatrics? Through ‘the performance of being’ and a self-styled ‘universe for
the bodies to exist’ as described by Fernandez, the rituals of bodily engagement with reality—
and the bare body especially—become heightened modes of playful ontology and surrealist fantasy”
Taliesin Thomas, Ph.D. is an artist-philosopher, lecturer, and writer based in Troy, NY. She has
published with Yale University Press, Hyperallergic, Chronogram, Testudo, Dirt, Artpulse,
Journal of Daoist Studies, Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, and ArtAsiaPacific.