Box (a proposition for ten years) Patricia Fernández

Since 2013, Box (a proposition for ten years) has been exhibited yearly, while accumulating contents—repurposed fragments, writings, drawings, paintings, and sculptural elements. The time-based sculpture has served as a personalized exchange system through which Patricia Fernández has fostered a relationship with Young Chung and the shared space of Commonwealth and Council.

For its final presentation, the contents of Box are placed on top of the sculpture’s daybed, which becomes a vehicle for organizing, stacking, and consolidating. Like a raft or ship, Box symbolizes refuge and life transitions. Included wood carvings both engage in dialogue with and stand in as facsimiles for the work of Fernàndez’s late grandfather, José Luis Carcedo (1923-2023). Selected components from Box are highlighted through placement and repetition: a model of a ship made of bones sits atop the founding compartment of Box while paintings of the “bone ship” reappear throughout the gallery. (The model of Bone Ship, a planned posthumous work, arose from a conversation between Chung and Fernández, as a plan for a sculpture that would be constructed with their bones and those of their friends and allies, after death. This vessel would then carry future descendents to a communal destination.)

Final additions to Box include a painting and objects made of glass, soil, and bone. The painting of “bone ship” is surrounded by stairs, a ladder, and a cup. The number three (represented by hands) appears in multiple forms, representing past, present, and future (or birth, life, and death). Half of an egg is sculpted out of glass fired with bone fragments; its other half is made from compacted soil from Carcedo’s (and his parents’) burial site in Spain. A found bone with a painted face serves as a psychopomp mother, guiding Box and its repository into the afterlife.

Alongside Box, mirroring tower-like boxes with drawers—one made by Carcedo and the other by Fernández—are filled with bones, ceramics, wooden objects, and handmade miniatures. Throughout the exhibition, the contents of the drawers will be rearranged weekly, suggesting chimeric interactions through intuitive play. Repurposed fragments of Carcedo’s unfinished box prompt Fernández to re-envision and re-build, constructing new works which will continue to evolve throughout the run of the exhibition. House, a copy of a wooden doll house Carcedo made for Fernández when she was a child, serves as another blueprint for care and preparation for death.

An accompanying publication, produced in collaboration with Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, will be available at the closing reception on Saturday, March 2nd from 3 to 5pm. The book features an introduction by Andrew McNeely and an essay by Doris Chon. A hand-made artist edition will also be available, and will include an envelope containing carving patterns, a hand-embossed, pressed drawing of Carcedo’s boxes, and an ink drawing inside of a cardboard folder.