The threshold of uncertainty I

“The threshold of uncertainty” is a series developed in two phases. In both cases the subject of the photograph is the same: Catholic religious icons. Only the point of view changes, the focus of attention. Below we reproduce fragments of the text "They look at us when we see: from/to the camera in Adrián Fernández's photograph" by the critic Antonio Eligio Fernández . (…) With "The threshold of uncertainty", Adrian continues the gradual expansion of the space occupied by his work, which, for now, maintains its center in the creation of photographic images. In this space, notions of the history of art, architecture and design converge and mutually enrich each other; particularities of photography as a "portrait of objects" -a path that can sometimes be associated with the commercial, advertising and presentation of a product to the market-; and a precise, highly capable technical display that informs both the conception and the creation, printing and installation of images.” (…) Fernández cuts and separates segments of the historical continuum, and in fact interrupts it. He abstracts these segments, presents them with an uncertain scale, on enigmatic backgrounds that suggest the architectural as invisible presence. He leaves in the hands of others (or of time) the evidence of artisanal invoicing, and opts for a frank manipulation, for a meticulous construction of the image, as a way towards the definitive representation. Camera in hand, it goes directly to the past -which, in fact, is also a today, it is its now-, and there it captures, rescues, that precise image that redeems these artifacts, worthy of a record, of a place in the archive. If these images exalt any mysticism, or if they lead the spectators to the evocation of religious feelings, this would, in my opinion, be a secondary consequence, a collateral feeling derived, at least in part, from the encounter in the gallery between the subjectivities of the audience and the artist. A result, above all, of the way in which Adrian manipulates the technical elements (light, colour, frame, scale...) typical of his form of expression, to imbue these figures with a theatricality without doubt effective. The links with the history of art appear in a different and perhaps more promising way in this set of photographs. I think about the historical relations between photography and sculpture, and the role played by the former in the knowledge, study and understanding of the latter, especially from the traditional academic perspective. It is not by taste that it has been affirmed that "[i]n the history of sculpture, photography acts as a mode of critical intervention" 1. Trained himself in Cuban academies, and familiar with the history of Western art, Adrián seems to incorporate, in his recent work, some of the essential notions (dark backgrounds; the dosage and softness of contrasts; the primary focus on light to create a sense of intimacy, capturing the volumes and, at the same time, accentuating drama) established by the pioneers in the field of sculpture photography-Adolphe Braun, Edward J. Moore, and Clarence Kennedy, among them-from the nineteenth century onwards. 1 Mary Bergstein,"Lonely Aphrodites: On the Documentary Photography of Sculpture", The Art Bulletin, Vol. 74. No. 3 (September 1992): 475.