The Cleveland Museum of Art Commissions New Site-Specific Work by Teresita Fernández

Cleveland (October 22, 2026)—The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) announced today the acquisition of Soil Horizon(Cleveland), a site-specific commissioned work by acclaimed artist Teresita Fernández, whose work is characterized by an expansive rethinking of what constitutes landscape. Comprising two large-scale glazed ceramic wall murals, the work will be installed in the Jane and Jon Outcalt Family Concourse, connecting the museum’s Horace Kelley Art Foundation North Lobby with the Ames Family Atrium, beginning in February 2027. 

The commission completes the transformation of the CMA’s Horace Kelley Art Foundation North Lobby and adjoining spaces, undertaken in 2024 to enhance the visitor experience while respecting the distinctive architecture of Marcel Breuer. The concourse was envisioned as a space where a new work of art would welcome visitors, provide a memorable artistic experience, and help transition them from the everyday world into the encyclopedic collections of the museum’s galleries. In its place at the CMA’s entrance, Soil Horizon(Cleveland) will be the first artwork that visitors encounter.  

“Soil Horizon(Cleveland) reflects Teresita Fernández’s remarkable ability to respond to site, place, and architecture through her artwork,” said Nadiah Rivera Fellah, the CMA curator of contemporary art. “The work’s imagery is inspired by landscapes and vistas native to Ohio, and by the museum’s collection, while its luminous, ethereal quality offers a compelling counterpoint to the weight and heaviness of Breuer’s architecture.” 

Soil Horizon(Cleveland) consists of thousands of tiny square ceramic tesserae that glimmer and transform as visitors move through the two floor-to-ceiling panels. The work’s title refers to a geological term describing the horizontal layers that make up the earth, from bedrock to the topmost layer of soil. As Fernández states: “Each layer, or ‘horizon,’ has its own characteristics and like a portrait of a place, demarcates the chronology of the land it constitutes while metaphorically suggesting what is buried, what is in transition, and what is yet to emerge.”  

Fernández has spent over three decades unraveling the intimacies between matter, human beings, and locations. Through monumental public art, site-specific sculptural installations, film, and works on paper that are materially and historically driven, Fernández’s work questions and expands conventional notions of site and landscape.  

In conjunction with the unveiling of Soil Horizon(Cleveland) in February 2027, the CMA hosts the following artist lecture:  

The Fran and Warren Rupp Contemporary Artists Lecture: Teresita Fernández 

Friday, February 19, 2027 

6:00–7:00 p.m. (reception to follow) 

Gartner Auditorium, Suzanne and Paul Westlake Performing Arts Center 

Free; Ticket Required  

Join artist Teresita Fernández as she discusses the concept and creation of her new site-specific commission Soil Horizon(Cleveland), to be installed in the Jane and Jon Outcalt Family Concourse in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Horace Kelley Foundation North Lobby.  

About Teresita Fernández 

Teresita Fernández’s work is characterized by an expansive rethinking of what constitutes landscape: from the subterranean to the cosmic, from national borders to the more exclusive psychic landscapes we carry within. Her luminous, sculptural works poetically challenge ideas about land and landscape by amplifying the powerful, emotional connection in how we imagine place, and by extension, one another. Fernández exposes the complex narratives that stem from distorted, colonial histories, elaborating on these themes in subtle ways that insist on intertwining beauty, the sociopolitical, the intimate, and the immense. Imagining the landscape with reciprocal sentience, Fernández has said, “you look at the landscape, but the landscape also looks back at you.”  

Fernández is a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the recipient of numerous awards, including a Creative Capital Award; Guggenheim Fellowship; the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award; an American Academy of Rome Fellowship (AFAAR); and a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist’s Grant in Visual Arts, among others. Her works have been exhibited and collected both nationally and internationally including: the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA); Whitney Museum of American Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Menil Collection; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; SITE Santa Fe; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; MASS MoCA; and Castello di Rivoli, Italy, among others. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. 

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About the Cleveland Museum of Art 

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 68,000 artworks and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship, and performing arts and is a leader in digital innovation. One of the foremost encyclopedic art museums in the United States, the CMA is recognized for its award-winning open access program—which provides free digital access to images and information about works in the museum’s collection—and is free of charge to all. The museum is located in the University Circle neighborhood with two satellite locations on Cleveland’s west side: the Community Arts Center and Transformer Station. 

The museum is supported in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture and made possible in part by the Ohio Arts Council (OAC), which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts. The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. For more information about the museum and its holdings, programs, and events, call 888-CMA-0033 or visit cma.org.