Special Event: The Denver Art Museum Presents Carla Fernández
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) presents the first exhibition to fully explore the career of Mexican artist and fashion designer Carla Fernández, founder of the eponymous fashion brand in May 2022. The acclaimed Mexico City-based fashion brand, Carla Fernández, established in 2000, is a couture house that aims to bring new meaning to the luxury world as an agent of social and ethical change and innovation. Carla Fernández Casa de Moda: A Mexican Fashion Manifesto will premiere May 1 and will run through Sept. 5, 2022, in the Martin Building’s Level 6 Textile Art and Fashion galleries. The exhibition will be included in general museum admission.
Carla Fernández (l)
Taller Flora mobile laboratory—Carla Fernández’s traveling studio—meets with Indigenous communities throughout Mexico at the invitation of artisan cooperatives that create handmade textiles and crafts. Over time, Fernández has learned and witnessed how these master artisans draw upon oral history and transmission of techniques. She collaborates with the artisans in the creative and production processes, creating contemporary designs for the global market
Carla Fernández Casa de Moda explores how the design house links ancient and contemporary techniques. Mexican artist, architect, sculptor and activist Pedro Reyes designed the gallery for the exhibition using sculpture, architecture, video and photography.
“There are strong and clear connections between the past, present and future of the immensely rich and complex cultural heritage of Mexico,” said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM. “Carla Fernández and her husband, artist Pedro Reyes, are both represented in the museum’s permanent collection. We are proud to be able to support a collaboration between the two with Carla’s fashion and Pedro’s gallery design for this special exhibition.”
“This is the first exhibition that fully presents Carla Fernandez’s entire career trajectory, which emphasizes the collaboration between the fashion house and the master artisans,” said Florence Müller, Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art and Fashion at the DAM. “The concepts and ideas proposed in Carla’s designs and creations are contemporary and edgy, with warm and thoughtful touches. She works with ancient patterns which are based on the use of squares and rectangles to create contemporary designs demonstrating—as Fernández says—that tradition is not static.”
Carla Fernández Casa de Moda is segmented into eight sections, based on key components of Carla Fernandez’s career and the themes of her creativity and inspiration. Jane Burke, Curatorial Fellow, and Courtney Pierce, Curatorial Assistant, worked alongside Carla Fernández and her team to create and conceptualize the presentation alongside Cristina Rangel and Pedro Reyes.
Photo of Carla Fernández by and © of Ben Lamberty. Image courtesy Carla Fernández.
Model wearing Chicomecoatl Plumas Tunic, Marina Collection, Spring— Summer 2022.Photo by and © of Fabiola Zamora, courtesy GH Management/ Federica Rigoletti. Image courtesy Carla Fernández.