Reminiscence

Fernando Casasempere was born in Santiago, Chile in 1958. He has been based in London since 1997. Casasempere works with ceramics, the traditional material of pottery, and his sculptures explore ideas of landscape and the environment. Conceptually his use ofearth/clay and his concern with nature and ecological issues connects him to artists associated with the Land or Earth Art movement, such as Robert Smithson and Richard Long, but Casasempere works out of a different cultural tradition, being profoundly inspired by the Pre-Columbian art and architecture of Latin America. He is inspired also by the the Chilean landscape and the processes by which that landscape has been exploited. In particular, he has worked with copper tailings (or relave in Spanish), industrial wastematerials produced by copper mining (copper being the principle export of Chile) to make work that address ecological and geological themes, often incorporating the relave into his materials. Casasempere's work calls into question the relationship between art and the environment, between culture and the earth itself from which the sculptures are made. Casasempere’s work has been exhibited internationally since the 1980s and in 2016 he was the first artist to be honoured with a retrospective exhibition occupying the entire Museu Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago. Other recent solo exhibitions include A Death, Parafin, London (2015), Out of Sync, Somerset House, London (2012), Falla Ideologico, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago (2012) and Bricks and Mortar, New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury (2011). Casasempere’s work is in international collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard University Art Museum and the Museu Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago. Casasempere has exhibited public sculpture in London on three previous occasions. In 2008 the Contemporary Art Society commissioned a work for the Economist Plaza. In 2012 his monumental installation of iron and porcelain flowers, Out of Synch, occupied the courtyard of Somerset House, and in 2016 he developed a piece entitled Second Skin for the Frieze Sculpture Park in Regent’s Park