Fernando Prats

Born 1967 in Buenos Aires (Argentina), he lives and works in Chile and Barcelona.  

A singular memorialist

After obtaining a BA in art the University of Chile, Fernando Prats crossed the Atlantic for Spain. There he studied painting at the Scola Massana and was awarded a Master’s degree at the University of Barcelona, his home town since 1990. As prolific as he is multitalented (photography, poetry, design, music, video), Prats is a man of many parts, and also the art director of the Estudi Prats graphic design studio and of the contemporary cultural magazine Y Sin Embargo. Whatever the medium of expression, he take a particular interest in text and its visual representation.

His installation Gran Sur comprises a photograph on which we can make out an installation with neons deep in some polar landscape, and the real-life neons that we find in the piece on display, as both citation and reference. What we are being shown is a report on a concrete piece of work done in Antarctica. This surprising montage of letters in fluorescent tubing made by the artist in the Frozen South refers to a classified advertisement published by the British explorer Ernest Shackleton who, in 1911, was preparing a trans-Antarctic expedition on his boat The Endurance: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.” The expedition, which took place from 1914 to 1917, was indeed extremely perilous: the ship was adrift for months, became trapped in the ice and eventually crushed by it in November 1915. The crew were forced to camp on the ice. Shackleton and five of his men decided to risk everything and strike out in a lifeboat to look for help. The crew was finally saved in August 1916, thanks to the heroism of this brave captain, after an adventure worthy of the Shackleton motto: “By endurance we conquer.”
Fernando Prats carried out the equivalent of a commemorative expedition for the centenary of Shackleton’s advert. After sailing down on a Chilean military icebreaker, the Almirante Viel, he carried out his project on Elephant Island, the very place where the Endurance was immobilised. In 2007 the artist wrote: “Sir Ernest Shackleton's decision to embark on the journey is similar to any artistic idea whose end is to discover and reveal what has never been shown before.”  

His work is shown frequently in Spain and internationally – he was recently at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Paris (spring 2012) and is held in numerous collections: Fundación Caixa de Manresa (Catalonia), Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums, Cologne, Diözesanmuseum in Würzburg, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago de Chile. In 2011 the artist represented Chile at the Venice Biennale.