Reception: February 2nd |  5-7pm

Jack Fischer Gallery is pleased to present luna a solo exhibition by Mexican artist Patricia Lagarde.

Almost two thousand years ago, Luciano de Samósata described the first expedition to the moon. He imagined that a ship dragged by a storm, rose and navigated through space for seven days and on the eighth arrived at a round and bright island, the moon.

The journey to the moon has been conceived, dreamed and described for centuries by authors such as Cyrano de Bergeraç, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne and many others. They have narrated stories influenced by myths and folk tales, imagining what the moon is like; who inhabits it, what they eat, how they watch us from a distance.

... "That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”. These were the words said by Neil Armstrong as he walked on the surface of the moon fifty years ago. Since then, traces of twelve men and six flags, in addition to hundreds of other artifacts have remained as an indelible trace on this hardly conquered gray land.

But beyond that historical moment, this exhibition explores the mystery, the "hidden" side of the moon, the poetics of that star that regulates the tides and allows fertility on earth, the original myths and about the time that unceasingly passes by.

Lagarde's work addresses themes of memory and its construction. The interminable collections of objects centered on memories. Her ongoing methodology explores different approaches and materials such as: artist books, installation, photographic display, boxes, and film. By using what might be considered antique photographic techniques, such as the ambrotype, ferrotypes, and cyanotypes, the artist imparts mundane objects with a fascinating yet obscure history. These works begin to suggest a cultural background that we can only guess at as we are led in an endearing journey of a certain time period or memory.

Born in Mexico in 1960, Patricia Lagarde is an artist with a unique sensitivity and inclination towards the artist's book. Her photographs and author books are part of the public collections at Stanford University Library, The Paul Getty Foundation, The University of California, Berkeley, Alumnos 47 Foundation, MH Documentation Center, Museo Archivo de la Fotografia, Universidad Autonoma de Queretaro and as well as various private collections. She has exhibited her work in numerous galleries and museums, both in Mexico and abroad, such as at the Centro de la Imagen, Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART), and Museo de Arte Carillo Gil in Mexico City, Mexico; Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Natural History in New York, NY; Ocurrance Gallery, Montreal, Canada; Lowicka Cultural Center, Warsaw, Poland; Hong Kong Cultural Center, China; CODEX International Book Fair, Richmond, CA, among others.