BRENDAN FERNANDES “The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim: Found in Translation.” THE GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM – February 11 – May 01, 2011

BRENDAN FERNANDES
“The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim: Found in Translation”
Group Show, featuring Paul Chan, Patty Chang, Keren Cytter, Brendan Fernandes, Sharon Hayes, Carlos Motta, Lisa Oppenheim, Jenny Perlin, and Sharif Waked
February 11 – May 01, 2011
SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street)
New York, NY 10128-0173
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york

Found in Translation brings together recent works by eleven artists, including Brendan Fernandes, Patty Chang, Sharon Hayes, Steve McQueen, Lisa Oppenheim, and Sharif Waked, who look to translation as both a model and a metaphor to critically comment on the past and to produce richly imagined possibilities for the present. For these artists, converting a text from one language to another exposes a discursive field in which the terms of identity—class, race, religion, sexuality—are negotiated, and meaning is generated.

About Brendan’s piece, “Foe“:
“Foe” represents video footage of me receiving lessons where I have hired an acting coach to teach me the “accents” of my cultural backgrounds. I am not interested in the authenticity of these accents but in the idea of being taught to speak in these voices. The text that I have learnt is taken from a book with the same titled as my piece. This book, a sequel to “Robinson Crusoe” was written by J. M. Coetzee. In this book, Friday (the savage) has been mutilated; his tongue has been removed and he cannot speak. For this work I have memorized the specific passage where Crusoe explains this to another.

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