Fernando Casasempere

The sea of flowers he presented in the courtyard of Somerset House during the 2012 Olympic Games in London made him and his art famous on the international stage: the Chilean sculptor Fernando Casasempere (*1958 in Santiago, Chile) placed ten thousand ceramic daffodils on the otherwise carefully mowed lawns there. Casasempere molded each one individually out of clay from his homeland, using the spring blossoms to draw attention to the wonders of nature with which humans destructively interfere—in this case, with lawn mowers. Casasempere, who has lived in England since 1997, also employs clay to make far more experimental sculptures, such as seemingly liquid marble columns or vaulted and bulging shapes, through which he repeatedly questions humankind’s treatment of the environment. This richly illustrated catalogue is an impressive presentation of the development of his body of work over the past twenty-five years.