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María Fernanda Cardoso
The evocative and metaphorical power of the natural world is central to Colombian artist María Fernanda Cardoso’s (b.1963) conceptual and performance-based work. The symbolic power of her representations —which deal with cycles of life and death— acquires an even more dramatic relevance in the light of the prevailing social, political and psychological climate in Colombia. The innate friction of these works obliquely reflects the specific existential anxiety of living in the midst of political violence and moral crisis.
Since 1993, María Fernanda Cardoso has been researching and training ‘cat’ fleas to use them in her Cardoso Flea Circus / Circo de Pulgas Cardoso: a show that takes place on a small retro-futuristic stage on which the tiny parasites perform acrobatic feats, tightrope walking, tangos, weight-lifting and death defying leaps to the tune of their tamer's orders. The first public performance of the Cardoso Flea Circus took place in October 1995, at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, which specializes in examining the intersections between art, science and perception. The Flea Circus highlights Cardoso’s aim of fusing art, entertainment and science, though none of these terms really describe this performance.
Instead of simply offering conclusions or specific messages about the culture/nature dichotomy, María Fernanda Cardoso's installations, sculptures and videos unravel the parodies, paradoxes and complexities that appear at the inetrsection where cultural systems overlap. She is an artist with an international career, yet her personal experience has led her to question and relativize the homogeneity of the international art scene.
She lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
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