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Biography

MARIA FERNANDA CARDOSO
[1963, Colombia]

Sydney-based artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso, born in Bogotá, Colombia, blends nature, art, science, and technology to transform unconventional materials into awe-inspiring installations, sculptures, performances, and videos. Her beautiful work invites us to experience the wonders of nature.

One of her most fabled projects is The Cardoso Flea Circus (1994-2000), a performance piece featuring real live fleas. Over the course of a six-year period, Cardoso trained fleas to perform surprising feats such as walking on tightropes, pulling chariots, jumping through hoops, and dancing the tango.

In 2000, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City commissioned her to create a major new installation featuring 36,000 plastic lilies along a 125-foot-long wall. The permanent beauty of the plastic flowers, which imitated the architecture of old cemeteries in Colombia, expressed a mourning for lives lost during the rampant violence suffered in her country of birth. She represented Colombia at La Biennale di Venezia in 2003, exhibiting a large installation of starfish woven together into a submarine landscape called Woven Water. In that same year she had a major solo show, Zoomorphia, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney.

Throughout her career, Cardoso has continued to explore nature and its links to culture and science. In 2012, she completed her PhD at the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) at The University of Sydney. Her research on the aesthetics of reproductive morphology—likely to be one of the more unusual studies to be presented in the hallowed halls of academia—culminated in the Museum of Copulatory Organs (MoCO). She has used a variety of means to explore our complex and awe-inspiring world: employing microscopes to capture the sex organs of invertebrates and plants; shearing and dying sheepskins to create murals; arranging preserved frogs into abstract patterns; filming the mating rituals of Australian peacock spiders; and using emu feathers to create avant-garde capes and hats. Cardoso has lived and worked in Sydney since 1997.

She is a recipient of the prestigious Creative Australia Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her work has been shown in selected exhibitions such as Museum of Copulatory Organs (MoCO), Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2012); New Media/New Materials: Highlights in

Contemporary Art from The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Cincinnati, Ohio, USA (2007); Cardoso Flea Circus, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Texas, USA (Installation) (2000); Puntos de Vista. Zeitgenössische Kunst aus der Daros-Latinamerica Collection, Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich, Switzerland (2007);Cardoso Flea Circus, live performances and exhibition, The Exploratorium, San Francisco, California, USA (1995); Naked Flora, Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, JamFactory, Adelaide, Australia (2018); Aliento: Arte de Colombia, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Bochum, Germany (2013); Versiones del Sur: 5 propuestas en torno al arte en Latinoamerica, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, Spain (2000); Transcontinental, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), California, USA (1999); Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA (2015); Modern Starts: People, Places, Things, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, New York, USA (1999); and Cardoso Flea Circus, New Museum, New York City, New York, USA (Video installation) (1998).

Recently, the Tate / MCA Joint Acquisitions Program acquired early works Corn Coil and Corn Drawings (1989) by the artist, as well as recent works On the Origins of Art I-II and Actual Size I and II (2016). Over the last two decades, the Tate Modern also acquired the Cardoso Flea Circus Tent and Video (1996) and Woven Water (2003). Cardoso's work also is included in the following collections: Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA; Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC), Caracas, Venezuela and New York City, New York, USA; The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá (MAC), Colombia; Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO), Colombia; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney, Australia; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), California, USA; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; National Gallery of Victoria (NCV), Melbourne, Australia; Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Florida, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), California, USA; and Tate Modern, London, England, UK.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2023
Fierce Maternity, Sullivan + Strumpf, Sydney, Australia

2022
Ripples and Droplets, Online Show with Sullivan + Strumpf, Sydney, Australia
Gumnut Spheres, Frankston Arts Centre, Australia

2021
Gumnuts and Sandstone, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney, Australia

2018
On the Origins of Art, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
Timeline, Apología a lo perecedero, Casas Riegner Gallery, Bogotá, Colombia
The Art Of Seduction, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Naked Flora, Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, The Jam Factory, Adelaide, Australia

2013
Undressing a Flower, William Wright Artist Projects, Sydney, Australia
Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Organos Intromitentes, Galeria Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia
Maria Fernanda Cardoso, Colección de Arte del Banco de La República, Touring to the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, Medellín, Bucaramanga, and Cúcuta, Colombia

2012
Museum of Copulatory Organs (MoCO), 18th Biennale of Sydney, Australia

2011
María Fernanda Cardoso: It’s Not Size That Matters It Is Shape, ARC One Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Masters of Disguise, Freemantle Arts Centre, Australia

2010
Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Garden of Insects, Galeria Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia
Emu Wear at the Rodman Centre for the Arts, Brock University, Ontario, Canada
María Fernanda Cardoso: Fashion and Mimesis, Rodman Centre for the Arts Brock University, Ontario, Canada
María Fernanda Cardoso: Fashion and Mimesis, Definitely Superior Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Canada

2009
Emu Wear, GRANTPIRRIE Gallery, Sydney, Australia

2008
Mimicry, Berenice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, FL, USA
María Fernanda Cardoso, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Fashion and Mimesis, Definitely Superior Gallery, Thunder Bay, Canada (Performance)
Emu Wear, Berenice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, FL, USA (Performance)
Emu Wear, Casula Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia (Performance)

2007
María Fernanda Cardoso: Emu, Galeria Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia

2006
María Fernanda Cardoso: Death Becomes Her, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, NY, USA
Emu Next 5km, GRANTPIRRIE Gallery, Sydney, Australia
María Fernanda Cardoso, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA

2004
María Fernanda Cardoso, GRANTPIRRIE Gallery, Sydney, Australia
María Fernanda Cardoso: 20 años, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia
Cara de Buseta (Bus Face), Galeria Diners, Bogotá, Colombia

2003
Cara de Buseta (Bus Face), Casas-Riegner, Miami, FL, USA
Zoomorphia: María Fernanda Cardoso, Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, Australia
Biogeometrias / Biogeometries, Latin collector, New York, NY, USA
María Fernanda Cardoso, Galeria Diners, Bogotá, Colombia 
Sheep, Artspace Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Sheep, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C., USA

2002
Dibujo de Mariposas / Butterfly Drawings, Galería Casas-Riegner, Miami, FL, USA
Dibujos de Mariposas / Butterfly Drawings, Galería Diners, Bogotá, Colombia 

2000
Cardoso Flea Circus, live performances, Sydney Opera House, Sydney Festival 2000, Australia
Cardoso Flea Circus, live performances, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
Cardoso Flea Circus, Contemporary Arts Museum (CAMH), Houston, TX, USA (Installation)
Esculturas/Sculptures, Galería Sala Alternativa, Caracas, Venezuela
Cardoso Flea Circus Live, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland (Performance)
Cardoso Flea Circus Live, Sydney Opera House, Sydney Festival, Australia (Performance)

1998
Cardoso Flea Circus, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY, USA (Video installation)
Cardoso Flea Circus, live performances, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Quartier D’ete Festival, Paris, France
Cardoso Flea Circus, live performances, Awesome International Children’s Festival, Perth, Australia

1997
Cardoso Flea Circus, live performance and exhibition, Arts Festival, Atlanta, GA, USA

1996
Cardoso Flea Circus, The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FMW), Philadelphia, PA, USA

1995
Love Down Under, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Cardoso Flea Circus, live performances and exhibition, San Francisco Exploratorium, CA, USA
Cardoso Flea Circus live performance, The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FMW), Philadelphia, PA, USA
Cardoso Flea Circus Live, San Francisco Exploratorium, CA, USA

1994
Submarine Landscape, Capp Street Project, San Francisco, CA, USA
Woven Water, Ruth Bloom Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA
María Fernanda Cardoso: Recent Sculptures, MIT List Visual Art Center, Cambridge, MA, USA
María Fernanda Cardoso, Orange County, CA, USA
Gold, Nohra Haime Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1993
Cemetery, Chapman University, San Francisco Artspace, CA, USA
Gold, Nohra Haime Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Botuto Guarura / Gourds, Sala Alternativa, Caracas, Venezuela
El Marmol Americano / American Marble, Ruth Bloom Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA

1992
Calabazas / Gourds Recent Sculptures, San Francisco Art Space, CA, USA
Botuto Guarura (Gourds), Sala Alternativa, Caracas, Venezuela
El Marmol Americano (American Marble), Ruth Bloom Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA

1991
Obra Reciente / Recent Work, Galeria Garces y Velasquez, Bogotá, Colombia

1987
Nuevos Nombres / New Names, Casa de La Moneda, Bogotá, Colombia

Selected Public Collections

Artbank, Australia

Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia

Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, FL, USA

Colección de Arte Banco de la Republica, Bogotá, Colombia

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela

Daros Latinamerica, Zürich, Switzerland

Gold Coast Art Gallery, Gold Coast, Australia         

Miami Art Museum, FL, USA

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Bogotá, Colombia

Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Colombia

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA, USA

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, Cooks Hill, Australia

Pérez Art Museum, Miami Beach, FL, USA

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA

Tamworth Regional Art Gallery, Tamworth NSW, Australia

Tate Modern, London, UK

The Arts Centre Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise, Australia

The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM), Philadelphia, PA, USA

The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX, USA

The Space Collection, Irvine, CA, USA