Adrian Fernandez lives and works in New York City. He was born in Cuba where he studied art at studied visual arts at the San Alejandro Fine Arts Academy (2004) and at the Superior Institute of Arts (2010) in Havana. Early in his career he began to experiment with photographic media, in which he has developed much of his art, expanding his practice in recent years to three-dimensional installation and sculpture works.

Fernández has exhibited in group and solo shows in Cuba, United States, Mexico, Panama, France, Germany, Norway, Belgium and Switzerland. His work can be found in the collections of The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, 21C Museum Hotels, Perez Art Museum Miami, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana.

This exhibition marks a revisit to one of the first projects that brought Fernandez attention and acclaim and remains significant both in his works and in his handling of the subjects.

For To be or to pretend (and other photographic series), he brings together different spaces and elements that he regards as keys in the understanding of the social and aesthetic differences in Cuba’s society. The images in his series To be or to pretend are still lives using objects from the homes of the bourgeoisie of Havana. Treasured antique vases and containers hold plastic fruits and fake flowers – a very Cuban design element. Each container is centered on a colorful and graphic backdrop, each in its way a continuation of the flora and fruits they surround.