A Mystical Painter Headlines MoCA North Miami’s Spring Season
Written By Douglas Markowitz May 16, 2025 at 4:19 PM
“Philip Smith: Magnetic Fields” is one of two solo exhibitions now on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, through Sunday, Oct. 5. (Photo by Zachary Balbar, courtesy MOCA North Miami)
There’s plenty going on in the mind of Philip Smith, and it shows in his art. The Miami-born painter’s canvases are full of esoteric symbols and mystical imagery gleaned from years of studying ancient cultures, world religions, and the work of historical magicians. Spirals, DNA strands, minerals, magic circles, foliage, human hands – all coexist in a ghostly mélange of images and ideograms.
“These images are meant to basically provoke your imagination,” says Smith, who is currently the subject of a career-spanning retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, which opened Wednesday, April 30 and is on view through Sunday, Oct. 5.
Artist Philip Smith’s paintings are filled with esoteric symbols and ideographs designed to heighten the viewer’s consciousness. (Photo by Oriol Tardas, courtesy MoCA North Miami)
“The idea of looking at my paintings is a bit akin to sitting in a planetarium, where you’re looking up at the stars and they project all these patterns. And you’re told to see those patterns, that this is the Milky Way, but then your mind wanders and you start to see other things. And that’s the idea with my work, really. It’s a portal for the imagination.”
Smith’s encounters with the supernatural began during his childhood in Miami. His father Lew Smith, who had been an interior decorator for famous and powerful people such as Walt Disney and Cuban president Carlos Prio Socarras, one day discovered he could speak to the dead and heal the sick. He became a faith healer, and the difficulties this placed on then-teenage Philip, who eventually wrote about the experience in his memoir “Walking Through Walls,” put him on his own spiritual quest. He tried drugs. He joined, and later left, the Church of Scientology. And finally, he moved to New York to become an artist, and from there he developed the image-dense visual language in his paintings.
“As a kid, I wanted to be an archeologist, so I was looking at, obviously, Sumerian and Egyptian and Indian temples,” he says. “I wanted to sort of create a pictographic language, also a slightly cinematic language. Because I think we respond to that experientially and also cerebrally more than words,” he says.
Smith explains that words have to be learned, whereas images are immediate.
Philip Smith’s father was an interior decorator turned faith healer; living with him deeply influenced the artist to make his own turn towards the spiritual. (Photo by Oriol Tardas, courtesy MoCA North Miami)
“When you speak to mediums or psychics, they get their information visually. It’s imprinted. They see things as they’re talking to you. And so all those components go into making up this visual language,” he says.
Smith’s work managed to get noticed by the critic Douglas Crimp, who put him in a soon-to-be-influential show at Artists Space in downtown Manhattan called “Pictures.” It included several artists, including Robert Longo and Sherrie Levine, who would later be part of the so-called “the Pictures Generation,” a group of artists who were deeply influenced by the culture of mass media that was present at the time. Smith describes the art scene of that time as vastly different from today’s more professionalized art ecosystem, full of passionate people that did what they did not for money, but because they felt a calling.
“I didn’t understand what kids learn with their MFA today, how to network, how to write emails, how to get curators into your studio. I thought my job was just to make art, and the art world was very small and very personal. You kind of met everybody.”
Philip Smith lived and worked in New York for many years and was a part of the influential “Pictures Generation,” but was born and raised in South Florida and now lives in Miami. (Photo by Oriol Tardas, courtesy MoCA North Miami)
He says he was friendly with the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns.
“(Warhol) would call me every Saturday at the studio and chat. I interviewed Jasper Johns for Interview (magazine), and I would walk over to Bob Rauschenberg’s house at four o’clock in the morning and sit there and drink with him. It was a very different world. And it was more a world where you kind of made it up as you went along. None of us knew what we were doing, but we all knew we were doing something different.”
Still, he always wanted to come back to Miami, the place he considers his true home. After nearly three decades in New York, in 2019, he returned to South Florida and has staged several shows since then, mostly with the Little River-based gallery PRIMARY. The MoCA show, his first solo museum exhibition in Miami for several decades and one that incorporates work from “Pictures” to now, is something of a culmination for him.
“I’ve always wanted to do a major show in Miami, because it’s the city that I really love,” he says. “I had to leave Miami as a young artist, because there was no opportunity. There were no real museums, no galleries, no collectors. There was nothing here. So that’s why I went to New York.”
Installation view of “Philip Smith: Magnetic Fields” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. The show is on view through Sunday, Oct. 5. (Photo by Zachary Balber, courtesy of MOCA, North Miami)
Smith mentions the progression of Miami’s art museums.
“Whether it’s the Rubell Museum, or Marty Margulies, or Art Basel – it’s an extraordinary transformation that I don’t know, that people appreciate, how it went from the desert to Tribeca in a generation or two.”
For the artist, the retrospective at MoCA is important on many levels.
“It’s a very meaningful show to me, because I feel it’s giving back to Miami as a Miami person, and I’m not coming in as a New Yorker saying ‘see how great I am.’ I’m coming in and saying, ‘I want to share with you what my life’s been about.’”
Smith’s status as a Miami-born artist who spent much of his career in New York complements that of MoCA’s other spring show, a New York-born artist who spent much of her life in South Florida. Vickie Pierre worked for Miami art institutions, including at the former Miami Art Museum (now PAMM) and as registrar at MoCA NoMi. But alongside that career, she also made art herself, and now her work is on view in the show “The Maiden is the Warrior.”
“The Maiden is The Warrior” is the first solo exhibition by Brooklyn-born, South Florida-based artist Vickie Pierre. (Photo by Zachary Balbar, courtesy MOCA North Miami)
The exhibition zeros in on the artist’s “Poupées in the Bush” series, featuring amorphous black blobs with clearly defined feminine features, somewhere between figures and abstract forms. Some have fingers, horns, and other protrusions appended to their bodies. Others wear rings or are surrounded by floral assemblages. Reflecting the duality of womanhood as in the title of the show, the Poupées are meant to have a bit of softness as well as ferocity, according to curator Adeze Wilford.
“The thrust of our show is really about the duality of their forms. Like they can equally be these, very soft, reclining figures, kind of droopy and globular but also very, almost Rubenesque in how they’re conceived of. But then there are some that have these very fierce bearings,” says Wilford.
Though the two shows are quite distinct, Wilford, who is curating her final show for MoCA after moving to the Memphis Art Museum in January, hopes viewers will be able to envelop themselves in each.
Vickie Pierre’s “The Maiden is the Warrior” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. The exhibition zeros in on the artist’s “Poupées in the Bush” series, featuring amorphous black blobs with clearly defined feminine features. (Photo by Zachary Balbar, courtesy MOCA North Miami)
“The way that I conceive of solo presentations is really that the artists are inviting you into their world, into how their brain is working, and so they’re very different people, and we can see how things are unfolding for them both.”
WHAT: “Philip Smith: Magnetic Fields” and “Vickie Pierre: The Maiden is the Warrior”
WHERE: Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 770 NE 125th St., North Miami
WHEN: Noon to 7 p.m. Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Through Sunday, Oct. 5.
COST: $10 for general admission; $5 for seniors, students with ID, ages 12 to 17, and disabled visitors; free for museum members, children under 12 years old, North Miami residents and city employees, veterans, and caregivers of disabled visitors.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
A Bowie-Themed Art Installation at Locust Projects is About More than Music
Written By Douglas Markowitz May 9, 2025 at 1:38 PM
“Blackstar 16/25/60” is the third in a trilogy of art installations by Tomas Vu inspired by David Bowie currently on exhibition at Locust Projects in Little River through Saturday, July 19. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)
Few artists can claim as much cultural influence as David Bowie.
The legendary rock star constantly reinvented himself across a career that spanned decades and personas. He was Ziggy Stardust, the Martian that gave glam rock to the world with songs like “Starman” and “Moonage Daydream.” Then he became the Thin White Duke and redefined blue-eyed soul on the LP “Station to Station.” After that came the experimental Berlin period that produced “Low” and “Heroes,” the ‘80s pop era of “Let’s Dance” and “Modern Love,” and he even tried drum and bass in the ‘90s.
Artist Tomas Vu listened to David Bowie throughout his childhood in wartime Vietnam and his adolescence in El Paso, Texas, drawing on his memories in his art. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy Locust Projects)
These endless shifts in style and persona are part of what make Bowie so indelible to Tomas Vu, one of the countless artists that gets inspiration from the Starman. “He’s always been on that edge,” says Vu. “He’s never really quite fit in, but he’s always someone who was pushing the envelope. And I love that about Bowie. He’s constantly shifting and changing.”
That idea of constant transformation is why Vu has made Bowie’s work the subject of a trilogy of multimedia art exhibitions, the third and final of which is currently on view through Saturday, July 19 at Locust Projects in Little River. “Blackstar 16/25/60” attempts to manifest a utopian vision based on the rocker’s final project, released just two days before he died of cancer in January of 2016, from which it takes its name. Incorporating music, video, and architectural elements, the show reflects Bowie’s own ability to synthesize disparate elements of culture and create his own world, time after time.
“He’s fashion, he’s music, he’s art,” says Vu. “And every group claims him, by the way. Nonconformists, Wall Street guys – my last show in Brooklyn, we had a group of straight-up Wall Street guys hanging out the whole time in there because they love Bowie.”
Video projections pair footage of Bowie with Japanese butoh dance (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy Locust Projects)
That polyglot mentality is present in “Blackstar 16/25/60.” Video projections pair footage of Bowie with Japanese butoh dance. A geodesic dome, representing the modernist ideals of its inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, contains a record player with Bowie’s works and reading material such as the manifesto of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, contrasting visions of technological innovation and the future, as it was and could be.
Throughout the show’s run, the dome will serve as a stage for screenings, live music, workshops, listening sessions, and other activities aimed at engaging the community. Additionally, the artist welcomes anyone to enter the space and use it as a backdrop for their own artistic activities.
Lorie Mertes, executive director at Locust Projects, says that Vu’s work fits perfectly into expanding a program that the alternative art space hosts monthly.
“With Tomas, who wanted to open up his installation to other artists, we talked about how Locust has become a hub for supporting collaborations across disciplines including experimental, avant-garde music and performances monthly in the Knight DiLL (Digital Innovation Lounge + Lab) to hosting the International Noise Conference supported by two of our staff who are also musicians, which all fed into his interest in seeing creative layering and collaborations in dialogue with Bowie’s legacy in ‘Blackstar.’ ”
Tomas Vu chose to work with Locust Projects in order to make sure “Blackstar” could function as a participatory artwork: “You can do whatever you want with it. You can occupy it, take it over.” (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)
Vu chose to stage the final show in the trilogy at Locust Projects specifically because he felt the artist-run space’s ethos was compatible with his goals for the project, which includes allowing for impromptu, unofficial activations.
“I was very interested in an alternative kind of space, not interested in the ‘white cube.’ I wanted a space with history and that interacts with the community,” he says. “What I’m doing is I’m inviting everyone, anyone who wants to come in and do their intervention to it, they can come in. Like, if you want to come in and start a jam session, we don’t say no. The instruction is like, you can do anything. You can’t destroy the art that’s here, but you can do whatever you want with it. You can occupy it, take it over. And I love that idea. And Locust is the only place that said yes, we can do all that, we want to support those kinds of ideas. In a way that’s part of their mission, you know. So that’s why Locust and why Miami.”
Mertes says that Locust Projects is a place meant for artists to realize ambitious work that might not be possible in a different type of art environment.
“Our space is known as a blank slate for experimentation and for supporting artists in realizing big, bold, ambitious, and sometimes audacious ideas, as part of pushing their practice in ways that museums or galleries can’t or won’t support,” she says. “So long as we continue to have the support to do the vital work that we do for an artist’s practice, we will aim to do just that.”
“Blackstar 16/25/60” features a geodesic dome inspired by the work of R. Buckminster Fuller as well as literature by “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, drawing on contrasting visions of technological innovation. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy Locust Projects)
In Berlin and New York, Vu took on “Space Oddity” and “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” two Bowie projects that hold deep resonance with the artist. Born in Vietnam, these two brief moments of Bowie’s long career relate back to his own life, from boyhood in Saigon amidst the chaos of the American War, to adolescence in El Paso, Texas. He recalls watching the moon landing at a G.I. bar in 1969, the same year “Space Oddity” introduced Bowie to the world.
“It takes me back to the sweetest moment of my life, in a way, even though this was during the war” he recalls.
Once in the states, it was Bowie’s starring role in “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” as an alien searching our planet for something to heal his own dying world, that resonated with the recent immigrant. “That movie in particular resonated because of the dislocation, the loss of home,” he says. Having recently arrived in El Paso with his mother, his six siblings and his American GI stepfather, he experienced culture shock, hostility from neighbors and classmates, and struggled to acclimate.
Tomas Vu empathized with the alien Bowie of “The Man Who Fell To Earth” as an immigrant in Texas: “That movie in particular resonated because of the dislocation, the loss of home.” (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy Locust Projects)
“We had to go around telling people that we were Chinese,” he recalls. “Most of these kids, their father or brother were probably killed or wounded in the war. And so they saw us as the enemy. You had to tell them you were anything but Vietnamese. And quite frankly, these kids didn’t know any better – ‘You guys all look the same.’”
Vu turned to drawing as a way to express himself in that difficult environment.
“I was in the classroom, I just sat there and drew all these great battle scenes of the war, or Bruce Lee doing his kicks and fighting or using nunchuks. And that’s how I was able to get the kids to really like me. I knew the power of the image in that way.”
WHAT: Tomas Vu: Blackstar 16/25/60
WHERE: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St., Miami
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday through Saturday, July 19
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Little Haiti Book Fest Keeps It Core But Reflects On Top-Of-Mind Issues
Written By Jonel Juste April 17, 2025 at 8:09 PM
At last year’s Little Haiti Book Festival, journalists Elizabeth Guerin, Patrick Eliancy, and Jean Saint-Vil discussed the power of journalism in shaping Haiti’s global narrative. This year, the conversations will focus on gentrification and immigration. The festival is Sunday, May 4 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
Miami’s Little Haiti is known for the vibrancy of its pastel murals and the rhythmic sounds of music filling the air. On Sunday, May 4, during Haitian Heritage Month, a quieter expression of Haitian identity will take center stage: the written word. This year, the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex will offer more than books; tightly woven into event programming are themes of community displacement and immigration instability.
Founded in 2014 by Jean-Marie Willer Denis—better known as Jean Mapou, owner of the bookstore Libreri Mapou—the book festival began after the Haitian poet and playwright took a trip to Haiti, where he discovered a book fair called “Livres en folie’ (Book Madness).” He got the idea to replicate the initiative in Miami under the Haitian Creole moniker “Foli Liv nan Ti Ayiti (Book Madness in Little Haiti)” and the English designation “Little Haiti Book Fair.”
More than 30 authors will gather at the Little Haiti Cultural Center and the Caribbean Marketplace (Mache Ayisyen) to showcase and sign their books. Above, author Ayida Solé presents her Haitian cuisine recipe book “I Can Cook” during last year’s festival. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
“At the time, I was serving on the board of the Miami Book Fair International, and as I compared the two fairs—the one in Haiti and the one in Miami—I saw room for improvement. For example, I noticed that the Miami Book Fair could feature more Haitian authors to become truly international,” says Mapou.
At his urging, Mapou says, the Miami Book Fair added a section called ReadCaribbean that featured Caribbean and Haitian authors. Still, he believed a dedicated Haitian book fair was necessary. With the support of Sosyete Koukouy (Firefly Society), a cultural organization devoted to preserving Haitian culture in the United States, he launched his own.
“After three years, in 2017, Miami Book Fair joined us and supported us in terms of logistics, and we decided to rename it ‘Little Haiti Book Festival’ because of the festive aspect of it and because it was more than a book fair.”
The festival has grown in scope, attracting both local and diaspora authors and expanding its footprint through workshops, dance, music, and panel discussions. This year’s edition reflects deeper anxieties about gentrification and immigration uncertainty.
A festivalgoer browses books amid artworks at Libreri Mapou, Jean Mapou’s bookstore located next to the Caribbean Marketplace. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
“Little Haiti is shrinking more and more and we’re becoming a small neighborhood sandwiched between the big developers’ projects,” says Mapou. The concern over gentrification isn’t new, but it’s becoming more urgent. Luxury condos and high-end developments have accelerated property value hikes, slowly displacing the very community that gives Little Haiti its name.
This year, a panel titled “The Future of Little Haiti” at noon on Sunday, May 4, is to tackle these tensions head-on. Organized in collaboration with the Miami Book Fair, the conversation explores how the neighborhood might preserve its character amid redevelopment.
“Community members will examine what preservation, policy, and place-making really mean,” says Michele Jessica (“M.J. Fievre”) Logan, coordinator of ReadCaribbean and a representative of Miami Book Fair. “It’s less about adding for the sake of novelty and more about staying rooted while evolving.”
There’s not a singular theme for this year’s book festival, but if one idea should thread this year’s programming together, it would be the concept of “dwelling,” according to Logan. “Dwelling, not only in a physical space, like Little Haiti, but in memory, in language, in cultural identity. How do we inhabit spaces that are constantly shifting? How do we carry tradition forward without making it rigid?”
At left, Michele Jessica (“M.J. Fievre”) Logan, coordinator of ReadCaribbean and Miami Book Fair representative. At right, Haitian poet, playwright, and owner of the bookstore Libreri Mapou, Jean-Marie Willer Denis—better known as Jean Mapou, —helped launch the Little Haiti Book Festival in 2014. (Photos courtesy of Jean Mapou. Miami Book Fair)
Alongside gentrification, immigration policy looms over the event. The festival will respond with a panel titled “Retounen Lakay (Going Back Home): Protected Status, Policy Shifts, And Deportation” featuring legal experts such as Ariol Eugene, Paul Christian Namphy, and Ira Kurzban, known for decades of advocacy on Haitian immigration issues.
“There is panic in Haiti and panic in the U.S.,” says Mapou. “So, we invited experts who will talk about the consequences of the mass deportations on Haiti and the U.S., and their consequences on our social lives.”
The author of “Happy, Okay,” a collection of poems about anxiety, depression, hope and survival, Logan says that poetry, dance and a mural project, in addition to the panel discussions, will all circle back to the same questions.
Despite some heavy topics, the atmosphere at the festival will remain lively and intergenerational, with an emphasis on youth programming.
“Children are not an afterthought at this festival—they are its pulse,” says Logan.
Mapou echoed the sentiment. “The children’s section is very important to us because our generation is gradually fading, and we want to pass on our culture to the new generation so that it doesn’t disappear.”
To that end, Children’s Alley will feature activities that blend tradition and learning: puzzles teaching about Haitian landmarks, traditional games being revived, and art projects inspired by cultural symbols like the turtle—a metaphor for migration and endurance—brought to life by Solanges Vivens, LHD, and artist Asser Saint-Val.
The festival puts an emphasis on children’s activities. This May, Children’s Alley will feature activities that blend tradition and learning. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
While international authors from Haiti are likely to remain largely absent—due to ongoing violence and limited air travel—U.S.-based authors will step in to fill the gap. Attendees can expect new or returning titles from writers such as Kiki Wainwright, Lyonel Gerdes, Irsa Vieux, Isabelle Camille, Pascal Millien, Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel, Michèle Jeanmarie, Lola Passe, Keneisha Harding, and Annick Duvivier.
More than 30 authors will be present at the Little Haiti Cultural Center and the Caribbean Marketplace (Mache Ayisyen) to showcase and sign their books. Among the authors feature first-time participants debuting children’s books, poetry collections, and bilingual storytelling rooted in Haitian traditions.
“These authors represent a vibrant cross-section of Haitian and Haitian-American voices, many of whom are self-published or running independent presses. Their books appear in English, French, and Haitian Creole, reflecting the multilingual nature of our festival and community,” says Logan.
Throughout the day, workshops will offer creative outlets in dance, poetry, and drama. One will feature playwright Florence Jean-Louis Dupuy, who is known in Haiti for her Creole adaptation of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” Another will be an ekphrastic poetry workshop, where participants will write poems inspired by visual art.
Throughout the day, workshops will offer creative outlets in dance, poetry, and drama. One will feature playwright Florence Jean-Louis Dupuy, who is known in Haiti for her Creole adaptation of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” (Photo courtesy of Florence Jean-Louis Dupuy)
Dupuy, whose contributions to Haitian theater span decades, will co-lead at the festival an interactive theater workshop. “Those who participate in the workshop can expect to have fun, to come out of themselves, to overcome their shyness and to be introduced to the theatrical discipline,” she says.
Amid the celebration, this year’s festival will include tributes to recently deceased Haitian literary figures such as authors Frankétienne, Anthony Phelps, Max Manigat, and Alphonse Férère. “We’ve lost some of the finest voices in Haitian literature,” says Mapou, author of “DPM Kannte – The Plight of the Haitian Refugees.”
The Little Haiti Book Festival has evolved over the years. It grew from humble beginnings—when organizers borrowed folding chairs, passed around plates of food,—into a staple of the Haitian literary community that, as Mapou notes, has brought greater exposure to the Little Haiti neighborhood thanks to its association to the Miami Book Fair.
Beyond cultural pride, the festival also brings tangible benefits, says Mapou.
“Economically, the annual book festival helps a lot in terms of book sales. Some writers sell books for more than $700. The festival has a tangible impact among Haitian authors. They find a place to present their books to the Haitian community instead of putting them in places where no one cares.”
A cultural dance team performs in the courtyard of the Little Haiti Cultural Center during last year’s festival. More than just a book fair, the Little Haiti Book Festival is a celebration of diverse cultural expressions, including music and dance. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
Logan highlights that the festival is not just a platform but a way of connecting.
“The festival is a bridge—between Little Haiti and the diaspora, between past and future, between Miami and the world.” She adds, “We want stories to be remembered, rituals to be honored, and emerging voices to have room to grow. We aren’t exporting culture, we’re extending it.”
WHAT: Little Haiti Book Festival 2025
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday, May 4.
WHERE: Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 212 NE 59th Terrace, Miami
ICA Miami Showcases Pioneering Female Artists This Spring
Written By Douglas Markowitz April 15, 2025 at 5:28 PM
A comprehensive retrospective on Colombian-born Olga de Amaral’s work opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, on Thursday, May 1. Photo is an exhibition view at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, where the show just closed in March before it heads to Miami. (Photo by Marc Domage)
At the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, the future is female – at least as far as its upcoming season goes. The art museum in the Design District, which recently announced a major expansion, will stage exhibitions on two pioneering female artists starting in May.
First up on Thursday, May 1 is a comprehensive retrospective of Colombian-born Olga de Amaral’s work. The show is traveling to Miami from Paris, where it debuted at the prestigious Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain last fall, and will delve into six decades of work from the fiber and textile artist.
“Olga de Amaral is someone who really revolutionized weaving and textile art,” says curator Stephanie Seidel. “At first (she) made more fabrics and designs for architecture and interiors, but then developed an independent language of tapestries out of that.”
“Bruma D1,” 2018 Linen, gesso, acrylic, Japanese paper, and wood 220 × 90 × 200 cm. Olga de Amaral. Casa Amaral, Bogotá. (Photo courtesy of Lisson Gallery)
Though the show is meant to span de Amaral’s entire career, Seidel says the inclusion of two recent series of works is quite exciting. The Estelas (“stelae”), sculptures covered in gold leaf, are meant to evoke ancient Mesoamerican landmarks, while the Brumas (“mists”) are a sort of three-dimensional deconstruction of a traditional tapestry, suspending stings of colorful fabric from the ceiling and create patterns that shift depending on viewpoint. The show also includes important large-scale works, one of which has a local connection. Coraza en morados, from 1977, was commissioned by Miami’s Art in Public Places program and displayed in Miami International Airport.
“We’re excited to bring this show here in light of this connection, and obviously this influence of Latin America that is very present in a city like Miami,” says Seidel. “It’s exciting to showcase her work here. And there’s other loans from local collections included in the show that were not part of the Paris show.”
Olga de Amaral, Casa Amaral, Bogotá, Colombia, 2013. (Photo by Diego Amaral, courtesy of ICA, Miami)
De Amaral studied architecture in Bogotá before studying at the Cranbrook School in Michigan, where she absorbed influences from the Saarinen family and other modernists. This background allowed her to create fiber and textile art with a sculptural, three-dimensional presence. Her work gained her recognition in the art world; she became the first Latin American woman to show at the Lausanne Tapestry Biennial in 1967, and two years later was part of a major group show of textile artists at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The architectural theme is also present in the exhibition design, a “forest” inspired by the views from the ICA’s third floor galleries that also references de Amaral’s work. The design was headed up by Paris-based Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, whose resume includes the famed Stone Garden residential tower in Beirut and, most recently, the Bahrain Pavilion at the Osaka Expo 2025.
“Núcleo 1,” 2015. Linen, gesso, acrylic, and Japanese paper, 130 × 180 cm. Olga de Amaral. Casa Amaral, Bogotá. (Photo by Diego Amaral/courtesy of ICA, Miami)
Another all-encompassing show opening on Saturday, May 10 is dedicated to the late Mildred Thompson, a pioneering yet underseen African-American artist who worked in a variety of mediums. A born-and-raised Floridian originally from Jacksonville, Thompson began her art studies at Howard University and from there embarked on a career full of exploration. Her work explores a broad range of interests, everything from the microbiology of the human body to the infinite cosmos.
Mildred Thompson, “Radiation Explorations 6,” 1994. Oil on canvas Overall: 97 ½ x 143 ⅝ inches; three panels. The Mildred Thompson Estate. (Photo courtesy of Galerie Lelong & Co. )
“I think there’s just this incredible curiosity and understanding of these abstract phenomena,” says Seidel. “Some paintings, they could be like a super crazy microscopic view of an atom, and then others feel like you’re looking into the vastness of space. But to come up with a language to capture this is really kind of what connects all of it.”
That breadth of topics is also reflected in the range of mediums Thompson worked in. Much of the show will consist of paintings, from her Music of the Spheres series which celebrates the planets to the Wood Pictures made from salvaged materials that recall architectural facades. But the show also includes music by Thompson. An original electronic music composition called “Cosmos Calling,” which Seidel calls “a journey through the soundscape of space inspired by the NASA Voyager recordings,” will be played in the galleries.
Though the shows were not planned to be interlinked, Seidel believes visitors will find connections between the female artists.
Mildred Thompson, “Music of the Spheres: Mars,” 1996. Oil on wood. Overall: 96 x 144 inches; three panels. The Mildred Thompson Estate. (Photo courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.)
“I think there’s always interesting dialogues,” she says. “Olga and Mildred, they’re all roughly a similar generation, which I think is interesting because it shows extremely diverse approaches to making art, which is super exciting for me. So it’s rather like opening up, for lack of a better word, the kaleidoscope of all these options to explore and offering just a very broad view of what contemporary art can be.”
WHAT: “Olga de Amaral” and “Mildred Thompson: Frequencies”
WHERE: Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, 61 NE 41st St., Miami
WHEN: “Olga de Amaral” opens Thursday, May 1. “Mildred Thompson: Frequencies” opens Saturday, May 10. Both through Sunday, Oct. 12.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
A Poem Will Find You During O, Miami’s 14th Annual Poetry Festival
Written By Carolina del Busto March 25, 2025 at 1:19 PM
April is National Poetry Month and time for O, Miami, where poetry will be around every corner of the city and county. (Photo courtesy of O, Miami)
“Poetry is a revolutionary force for good,” says poet Rio Cortez. The New York-based writer will be in Miami as part of the annual O, Miami Poetry Festival that takes place all month long in April.
O, Miami overtakes the city during national poetry month with events spanning Tuesday, April 1 to Wednesday, April 30. Cortez will be in town to read her poetry on Friday, April 4 at the Cleat Miami on Key Biscayne. The Afro-Latina poet will be reading alongside Z. Yasmin Waheed, and Romeo Origun.
“I like to feed off of the energy of the other poets,” says Cortez. This will be the poet’s second time participating with O, Miami.
“A lot of the poetry that I write is based on place and really devotion and obsession of place, geographic location, landscape poetry. And so, I think that being outside (during the reading) will activate that theme in my work in a special way.”
The best part about poetry is that it can pop up anywhere, including embroidery. (Photo by Vanessa Diaz)
Cortez has yet to decide on what she’ll be reciting, but the Utah native says she may be inspired by the magic of Miami to write something new to introduce at the night of the reading. The writer describes her love of poetry as “language at its most potent and most powerful. I’ve always gone to poetry at different times in my life to seek solace or inspiration or comfort or joy.”
The goal of the O, Miami Poetry Festival has always been to get a poem in front of every single person in Miami in the month of April — this might even include a poem that’s made to look like a parking ticket placed on your windshield. Don’t fret, it’s all part of their “Poetry Parking Tickets” by Christina Frigo.
While the hope of reaching all of Miami-Dade is a lofty one, it’s one that organizers continue to take seriously over a decade later.
Founded by poet P. Scott Cunningham in 2010, O, Miami celebrates its 14th anniversary this year with two new leading ladies. In 2024, Cunningham stepped down from his longtime role to relocate to Illinois. In his place, Melody Santiago Cummings and Caroline Cabrera were tasked with picking up the reins. The pair were appointed Executive Director and Artistic Director, respectively, in July of last year.
Melody Santiago Cummings, left, is O, Miami’s executive director and has been part of initiative for more than a decade. Poet Caroline Cabrera, right, is artistic director of O’Miami. This is their first year leading O’Miami. (Photo by Chantal Lawrie)
Cummings has been with the non-profit organization since 2013 and Cabrera joined the team full time in 2020. This, they say, gave them a strong advantage.
“We understand the landscape, the language, and we come with tons of institutional knowledge,” says Cummings of her new role. “It is certainly exhilarating to be able to influence, lead, and work together.”
This year’s festival will be the duo’s first in their new positions and already it has a robust schedule of events.
Cabrera excitedly lists a few new happenings that are part of the 40-event lineup: “We have a planetarium show with student poems this year; we have a poetry workshop in a graveyard, which is a first for us and very exciting; we have an original dance; and the performance of an original music composition by Nu Deco Ensemble.”
The organization will also be launching a new initiative titled “Soy de Todas Partes (I am of all places)”, which centers around Miami’s multicultural roots and the modern immigrant experience of South Florida. “It’s an effort to put 100 poems in public spaces between now and however long it takes. “Soy de Todas Partes” is really just a celebration of the majority-minority culture that we have in Miami,” adds Cabrera.
O, Miami wants to get poetry in front of everyone in Miami — even if that means taking over the famous Colony Theater marquee in Miami Beach with an original poem. (Photo by Chantal Lawrie)
While there are plenty of festival events to choose from, both Cabrera and Cummings agree that the free-to-attend Thursday, April 17 variety show, “Where Mangoes Drop,” is the ultimate representation of what O, Miami has to offer. The event will feature performances by students in the Sunroom program, whileNu Deco Ensemble will perform an original composition. It’s a variety show that brings together poets, musicians, and artists — all the facets that make up O, Miami.
“The variety show is a new expression of O, Miami that highlights our year-round work and also spotlights how this is an organization led by artists,” says Cummings.
“We’ll show vignettes of talent from musical performances to traditional performances, and then also invite all of our collaborators, past and current, to have tabling activities… it has a slice of what O, Miami represents and is a true variety show in every sense of the word.”
There’s also the celebration of the ten-year anniversary of the popular ZipOdes, which are poems submitted that honor Miami’s unique neighborhoods and their corresponding zip codes. As part of the milestone anniversary, O, Miami is working on compiling and publishing an anthology book for ZipOdes that organizers expect will be available later this year.
The celebration of ZipOdes will once again take place at Vizcaya Museum & Gardens this year. (Photo by Chantal Lawrie)
“To me it almost feels unbelievable that we’ve had ten years of an entire city reciprocating in this work through poetry,” comments Cummings. Her favorite part of ZipOdes is how it attracts all sorts of people from the community, not just poets.
“A lot of the people that submit a ZipOde would never on a day-to-day basis refer to themselves as a poet.”
WHAT: 14th Annual O, Miami Poetry Festival
WHERE: Various locations throughout Miami
WHEN: Tuesday, April 1 through Wednesday, April. 30.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Miami Zine Fair Celebrates The Art of Indie Publishing
Written By Douglas Markowitz March 25, 2025 at 10:57 AM
The Miami Zine Fair, a platform for a unique type of artmaking, will be held at the Paradise Plaza event space in the Miami Design District on Saturday, April 19 with nearly 100 vendors. (Photo by Francisco Moraga/courtesy Exile Projects)
Philip Lique, an artist and designer based in South Florida, remembers the first time he attended the Miami Zine Fair. Originally from Connecticut, he says the independent publishing convention was “the first real community event that I got involved in” when he moved to Florida about a decade ago.
“Everyone is there really for the same reason, and it’s because they like making zines, and they like alternative publications and alternative publishing and independent publishing and things of that nature,” he says. Lique has volunteered at previous editions of the fair, but at this year’s edition on Saturday, April 19, he’ll offer zines that include creative deconstructions of Marvel comics and graphic design. The ability to share his artistic expression and learn from others is what draws him back each time.
This year’s Zine Fair commemorates the 10th anniversary of Exile Projects, which hosts the fair. Visitors in 2019 had their portraits drawn by a local artist. (Photo by Francisco Moraga/courtesy Exile Projects)
Zines – the term is derived from magazine and refers to independently or self-published print works – have always held importance for alternative and subcultural movements. Black artists self-published “little magazines” during the Harlem Renaissance, and many other communities and political groups have used the form to share information, from science fiction fans to feminists, punks, and feminist punks.
“Just by being around and observing what other people are doing, you’re learning about either the craft of making these books, or these magazines or zines, or whatever you want to classify them as,” says Lique “I feel like I’m learning about what the temperature of culture is, among young people and among others, in a space where I’m learning it firsthand. I’m not observing it via social media. It’s not being sold to me via an advertisement.”
Table of zines and prints by Zoe Lackey. (Photo by Francisco Moraga/courtesy Exile Projects)
The Miami Zine Fair is a platform for this unique type of media, where dozens of zine makers – artists and designers, nonprofits and other organizations – can bring their creative work to the public.
“The great thing about zines is it’s totally open access. Anyone can make a zine,” says Amanda Keeley, founder of Exile Projects and the Miami Zine Fair. “A lot of zines are kind of DIY, but then you also see zines that are absolutely gorgeously designed, and so it’s like the full gamut.”
The fair started as an outgrowth of Exile Books, now Exile Projects, a pop-up artist bookstore Keeley started in 2014 that evolved into a publishing house in Little Haiti. “It was called Exile because we constantly moved. We had no home, and then we would keep shifting locations.” They started the fair while in residence at the YoungArts Foundation in Edgewater in 2015, holding the event outdoors with around 60 vendors in 98-degree heat.
Amanda Keeley founded independent bookstore and publisher Exile Books in 2014 and started the Miami Zine Fair in 2015. (Photo by MB Koeth/courtesy Amanda Keeley)
“We had lots of zine workshops happening in the gallery, and it was cool there. So everyone wanted to be in the workshops,” recalls Keeley.
Despite the heat, the event was successful, setting the groundwork for future fairs. The last edition in 2019 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center attracted 120 exhibitors and over 4,000 visitors, an expansion that felt slightly too rapid for Keeley. After taking a break due to the pandemic, Exile held a few smaller events, such as a 2022 fair focused on food and wellness at the Underline in Brickell.
But people kept asking when the main event would return, says Keeley, and so 2025’s edition, which celebrates Exile’s 10th anniversary, is the zine fair’s big comeback.
Nearly 100 vendors will take over the Paradise Plaza Event Space in the Design District. Additionally, quite a few local organizations have been brought on to assist with organizing and staging events, including Sweat Records, the Miami Paper and Printing Museum, and Radiator Comics. Dale Zine, which hosts several smaller zine fairs every year, will host the afterparty.
The O, Miami Poetry Festival, which runs through April and has been collaborating with the Zine Fair since its foundation, is one of the more prominent partners. They will table at the fair and stage two special projects, a photobook workshop and a “poetic domino game activation” in which the dominos use words and phrases instead of numbers.
Zines and artwork displayed on a table in 2019. (Photo by Francisco Moraga/courtesy Exile Projects)
One debut program comes from the group Black Miami-Dade, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of Miami’s Black history. Founded by journalist Nadege Green, its zines dive into Miami’s Black cultural heritage, and their table will feature a vinyl storytelling experience exploring musicians such as Cab Calloway and Josephine Baker. Keeley was already a fan of the project and reached out to invite them to show their work, only to find that they had already applied.
“They’re making these really beautiful zines that document and archive Black history within Miami,” Keeley says. “I’m really excited to check (them) out.”
Keeley hopes the fair will serve as a means for people to connect with each other and learn more about the culture of independent publishing.
“A really cool thing that’s a tradition in the zine fair, is a lot of times they trade (their zines). So it’s not just buying a zine, it’s also trading, and it’s connecting.”
WHAT: Miami Zine Fair
WHERE: Paradise Plaza event space, Miami Design District, 151 NE 41st St., Miami
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Eduardo Molina’s ‘Holy Maze’ Takes Viewers on a Personal Journey
Written By Miguel Sirgado March 12, 2025 at 8:12 PM
“Sin Fin,” a 2023 piece by Venezuelan artist Eduardo Molina, is part of “Holy Maze,” an exhibition at Arts Connection Foundation in North Miami featuring the artist’s paintings, sculptures, videos, and music. Curated by Cuban-born Félix Suazo, the show opens Saturday, March 15 and runs through Saturday, April 5. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Graffiti and comic books, once considered marginal creative expressions, have evolved into fundamental influences on contemporary art. Artists such as Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Os Gêmeos have brought urban art into museums and auctions, while comics have inspired creators like Roy Lichtenstein and R. Crumb, merging graphic narrative with pictorial aesthetics. At this intersection, Venezuelan artist Eduardo Molina draws references from both worlds, employing a vibrant and expressive visual language that oscillates between the playful and the subversive, reclaiming cult elements as legitimate tools for artistic creation and exploration.
“I grew up in Caracas, where graffiti was always present. In its early days, it mainly consisted of signatures and words on the streets, but by the late 1980s, it became more elaborate, and that’s when I joined the movement,” says Molina, who has been living and working in Miami since 2013. “That experience allowed me to absorb elements of urban art while developing my own visual language. It also sparked my interest in Mexican muralists, particularly Diego Rivera, whose expressiveness, use of color, and dynamic figures deeply impacted me. Street art has always fascinated me.”
Eduardo Molina draws inspiration from graffiti and comics using a vibrant and expressive visual language that balances playfulness and subversion. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Titled “Holy Maze,” Molina embarks on an immersive journey that combines painting, sculpture, video, and music to explore philosophical concerns about spirituality and introspection. Curated by Cuban-born Félix Suazo, the exhibition is at the Arts Connection Foundation (ACF), is a nonprofit organization that supports the development of new proposals from artists and researchers in South Florida. It opens Saturday, March 15 and runs through Saturday, April 5.
The exhibition features work created over a decade that not only reflect Molina’s street art influences but also his practice of Buddhism, meditation, and his personal migration journey from Venezuela to the United States.
“The guiding thread of my work in recent years is the result of both a spiritual and artistic journey. I have been practicing Buddhism for a long time, and that discipline has profoundly influenced my perception of life and art,” explains Molina. The artist began his drawing studies at the Cristóbal Rojas School of Arts in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1983 and 1984 before moving to Spain, where he earned a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Salamanca, specializing in painting, in 1991.
Eduardo Molina describes that the guiding thread of his work in recent years is the result of both a spiritual and artistic journey. Pictured: “Señales” (2023). (Photo courtesy of the artist)
“That’s why I strive to highlight contrasts in my work: the present self and its inner dialogue, breathing, the here and now. Essentially, it is a balance between the impulsive act of painting and introspection,” he adds.
For the artist—who also adapted Zen Buddhist stories to create a comic titled “Historias de la nada” (Stories of nothingness)—the exhibition’s “symbolic labyrinth” invites reflection on the journey of the soul and personal transformation. “Life is a labyrinth we begin navigating from birth to death. Along the way, we go through different stages, and with each one, we are reborn. For me, that constant cycle of change is fundamental in my imagery—closures and new beginnings. For many Venezuelans who have emigrated, each stage is like a death and rebirth, an opportunity to rebuild ourselves and keep moving forward,” explains Molina.
Suazo, who earned a master’s degree in Museology from the University of Valladolid, Spain, and works as an art advisor in Miami, asserts that the selected works provide a comprehensive representation of Molina’s artistic trajectory.
“I strive to highlight contrasts in my work—the present self and its inner dialogue, breathing, the here and now. Essentially, it is a balance between the impulsive act of painting and introspection,” says Eduardo Molina. Pictured: “Perla” (2025), by Molina. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
“Eduardo Molina is, essentially, a multimedia artist who has worked with various platforms throughout his career. For this exhibition, he has anchored his work in pictorial discourse—75 percent of the pieces are paintings—while integrating installation, video, and sound. The video, in particular, functions as a device that mirrors the logic of thought, while the sound accompanies the exhibition not merely as music but as an extension of the sensory experience.”
According to Suazo, the exhibition serves as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. “Together with the artist, we selected key moments that suggest a beginning, a development, and a climax without resorting to a literal narrative.”
The curator says that the format allows the viewer to explore the exhibition in a personal way.
“We aimed for it to be a reflection of the artist’s temporal and artistic evolution in a distinct time and space. Our challenge was to structure this transition in the best way possible, creating a marked yet flexible path where the pieces communicate with each other without being constrained by a linear structure.”
For this reason, the works are not arranged in chronological order but according to their impact within the exhibition space. “We sought to ensure that each piece enhanced the exhibition’s central idea and that its placement maximized the viewer’s experience,” adds Suazo.
Sound also plays a fundamental role in the exhibition. Molina and Suazo collaborated with the sound collective Primal Ensemble—composed of Beto Molina, Francisco Cabrujas, and Andrés Michelena—whose work is based on a spiritual exploration of sound. Primal Ensembles’ “soundscapes” are created through improvisation with flutes, ceremonial drums, keyboards, and percussion, aiming to induce heightened states of consciousness. “Their music will be integrated into the exhibition, both as part of the artworks and through live performances, including a special concert during the show,” says the curator.
According to the exhibition curator, Félix Suazo, the exhibition serves as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Pictured: “Aliado” (2024) by Eduardo Molina. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Molina’s studio is located in a quiet, almost rural area in southwest Miami, far from the noise of the city. The peaceful environment influences both his artistic process and the atmosphere of the exhibition. “The show aims to translate his studio—his private ‘chapel’—into the public gallery space. It condenses over 15 years of artistic evolution into an experience that, in just over an hour, allows viewers to journey alongside the artist through his creative and spiritual process,” says Suazo.
Viewers will immerse themselves in a symbolic and mythological universe filled with creatures, signs, writings, mentors, archangels, and the artist’s personal references, says the curator. “All of this blends into an iconography that, while urban in aesthetic, is imbued with the chromatic exuberance of his rural surroundings,” says Suazo.
Suazo emphasizes the significance of an essential element in the exhibition – a labyrinth.
“The labyrinth is both physical and symbolic. It reminds us that the path from one point to another is never a straight line but a series of challenges, doors to open, and corridors to navigate. Molina’s work invites us to embrace this journey as one of self-discovery.”
WHAT:“Holy Maze” by Eduardo Molina
WHEN: 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Opens Saturday, March 15 through Saturday, April 5.
WHERE: Arts Connection Foundation, 676 NW 23rd St., North Miami
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story atwww.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum Chronicles ‘This Woman’s Work’
Written By Jonel Juste March 12, 2025 at 5:57 PM
A new exhibition “This Woman’s Work: The Power of a Woman’s Touch” honors Black women in the judiciary and law enforcement in South Florida at The Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum in Overtown. Above, the precinct housed a courtroom where Black judges presided over cases involving Black defendants (Photo courtesy of Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum)
Black policing in Miami was not always as integrated as it is today. Black officers were once marginalized. The Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum proposes to tell the story and imprint it into collective memory through its various exhibits, such as the recent “This Woman’s Work: The Power of A Woman’s Touch,” an exhibition honoring Black women in the judiciary and law enforcement in South Florida.
Scheduled to open on Friday, March 14 in the midst of Women’s History Month, the exhibit features an array of plates crafted from glass, mixed media print, and fabric, each representing the profound impact of the women being honored.
Set to debut on Friday, March 14, 2025, the new exhibition consists of 100 plates using glass, mixed media print, and fabric to showcase the profound impact of the first Black female police officers and justices in Miami (Photo courtesy of Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum)
Curated by Chief Anita Najiy, the exhibit “reflects the idea that the contributions and influence of women, especially Black women, are essential in shaping systems of justice, law enforcement, and the world at large.” “It symbolizes the nurturing, transformative, and often overlooked work of women in leadership and change-making roles. It emphasizes the subtle yet profound impact they have in their respective fields,” she says.
The exhibition is designed to be both educational and immersive. Each plate tells a story, capturing the struggles and triumphs of Black women in policing and justice who have broken barriers in their careers.
“This exhibition is about more than just history,” says Najiy. “It’s about ensuring that young Black girls can see themselves in these roles and understand the power of their presence in the legal system.”
“This Woman’s Work: The Power of a Woman’s Touch” will be on display at the Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum through Friday, April 4.
The museum is housed in a historic building that once served as both a police precinct and a courthouse exclusively for Black officers and citizens.
Built in 1950, during the Jim Crow era, the precinct, located in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami, was a direct response to the segregation that prohibited Black officers from working alongside their white counterparts. It remained operational until 1963, just before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated greater integration.
The City of Miami dissolved the precinct in 1963 sending its 79 Black officers to work at the main police headquarters.
The Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum proposes to tell the story and imprint it into collective memory through its various exhibits (Photo courtesy of Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum)
“After its closure,” says Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant, director of the museum, “the building housed a few random tenants but soon became dormant, desolate, and a dilapidated eyesore for a generation of community members who were unaware of its history.”
The building was set for demolition, but an early 2000s effort by retired City of Miami police officers, led by Dr. Robert Ingram and Chief Clarence Dickson—the city’s first Black police chief—successfully preserved it.
According to Cribbs-Lorrant, the effort to preserve the building as a museum began when Lt. Otis Davis, inspired by visits to several museums and a growing passion for history, recommended to the Miami-Dade County Commission that the facility be designated as a cultural institution preserving collective memory “Today, the museum stands as a testament to the past, preserving history and sharing the stories of yesteryears in a way that deepens visitors’ connection to this important institution.”
Guests to the museum can explore original holding cells, courtrooms, and historical artifacts that depict the realities of policing and justice in segregated Miami. The museum also features a replica of the bicycles that Black officers were given; they were not initially provided with police cars—cars were not available to them until several years later.
The curatorial idea emerged as a profound initiative by Chief Anita Najiy, the inaugural female Assistant Chief of the City of Miami Police Department, left. At right is Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant, the director of the museum. (Photo courtesy of Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum)
“It is my desire that visitors will be able to see themselves in the officers and within the communities that these patrolmen were deputized to serve,” says Cribbs-Lorrant. “The answer to many of our current challenges when it comes to law enforcement can be easily answered just by looking at how this Precinct and Courthouse navigated the community. This Precinct and Courthouse is a pioneering example of what we now know today as ‘community policing practices.’”
The Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum tells the story of the first Black police officers in Miami but also the first Black judges.
The precinct housed a courtroom where Black judges presided over cases involving Black defendants. “Judge Lawson E. Thomas was the first Black attorney to present a case in Miami’s municipal court before a white judge, a groundbreaking moment in a time when this was prohibited,” recalls Cribbs-Lorrant. “He also became the first Black judge in the post-Reconstruction South, presiding over what was described as the country’s only court established purely along racial lines.”
Following a brief recess, the courthouse welcomed its second Black judge, John Johnson, whose family was among Miami’s earliest Bahamian settlers. “On a given day, these judges could hear up to 80 cases, serving a vital function in the community,” says the museum director.
Dedicated to preserving the history of Miami’s first Black police officers and judges, the Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum has maintained an active role in educating the public through rotating exhibitions with the long-term goal to inspired change, according to Cribbs-Lorant.
On Sept. 1, 1944, history was made when five African-American men were sworn in as the first Black police officers in the City of Miami. These pioneering officers were Ralph White, Moody Hall, Clyde Lee, Edward Kimball, and John Milledge (Photo courtesy of Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum)
Previous exhibitions, such as “Grief Not Guilty: Reclaiming Our Time,” have drawn attention to contemporary justice issues while tying them to the history of segregation.
“This museum exists because people—Black and white—believed in creating something better than the realities of segregation. Their efforts remind us that change is possible when communities come together with a shared vision for justice and equality.”
WHAT: “This Woman’s Work: The Power of A Woman’s Touch”
WHERE: The Black Precinct & Courthouse Museum, 480 NW 11th St, Miami
WHEN: Exhibit debuts with a luncheon from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Friday, March 14 featuring speakers including Trina Harris, CEO of Touching Miami with Love; Stephanie Daniels, former director of the Miami-Dade County Police Department; and Sybrina Fulton, founder of the Trayvon Martin Foundation. The museum’s regular hours are 10 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
COST: $25 luncheon includes exhibition, otherwise general admission is $10, $5 for students and seniors (ages 65 and older), children (ages 6 and younger) admitted free.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Dennis Scholl transforms collected objects into art in his first solo show in the U.S.
Written By Michelle F. Solomon March 12, 2025 at 4:49 PM
As a collector, arts executive and philanthropist, Dennis Scholl gave his support to practicing artists. Now, he’s has his own artistic practice, shown above, working in his Miami Beach studio. His first U.S. solo exhibition opens on Saturday, March 15 at the Piero Atchugarry Gallery in Miami through Saturday, May. 17. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
On the desk in Dennis Scholl’s Miami Beach art studio is one of the collector-turned-artist’s most treasured items. It’s a collection of presidential bottle caps from when Scholl was a boy living in Linden, N.J.
When he was five years old, he began collecting the bottle caps. Every time the milkman came to the house to drop off a two-quart glass bottle of milk, Scholl would keep the cap and put it on the wall. It took him six months to collect them all – Millard Fillmore was particularly elusive.
“I just couldn’t get Millard Filmore. Damn Millard Fillmore,” he says of the 13th president.
A triptych of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination created with newspapers. “This is the one that is my collective memory,” says artist Dennis Scholl. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
Scholl says it was the “sense of completion” he felt when he finally got the coveted last piece of the cap collection. It marked the beginning of a collecting journey that would evolve into an artistic practice.
Now Scholl’s first U.S. solo exhibition, “The Melody Haunts My Reverie,” is opening Saturday, March 15 through Saturday, May 17, at the Piero Atchugarry Gallery in Miami.
Almost a half century of admiring other people’s art as a collector, patron, and community arts leader – he was president and CEO of Miami-based arts incubator Oolite Arts and before that vice president for arts at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation – the former attorney, CPA, and leader in the redevelopment of South Beach and Wynwood, decided it was time to become an artist himself.
But he says he had to do something that made sense to him.
“If I’m going to have an art practice, it has to be authentic. And so, what would be authentic for me? Well, I’ve been collecting for a long time. So, for me, it’s important to be doing something that I learned – taking my skill set as a collector, which I’ve been doing for 47 years and that’s how the practice evolved.”
In 1865, Charles Dickens released a “serial” paperback. The original 19 limited editions make up “Untitled (“Charles Dickens),” 2023. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
What made sense for Scholl was assemblage, putting everyday items together to create something new. His show’s curator Larry Ossei-Mensah explains Scholl’s work as a gathering of ephemeral materials, archival fragments, and objects of cultural significance to “create evocative compositions that merge personal experience with broader cultural histories.”
Nostalgia and collective memory
Scholl describes the solo exhibition as a “meditation on the collective memories we all share.” Ossei-Mensah says the artistic practice is deeply rooted in recollection.
“It is his ability to identify these things that create an entry point, regardless of whether that is a moment of your generation. His ability to pinpoint (the items) and then assemble them and recontextualize them and then invite the viewer to reflect on the idea of ‘What do these things mean?’ What do these moments mean?’ You don’t look at Dennis’s work and not feel something, whether it’s a feeling of nostalgia or collective memory.”
Scholl’s own memories bubble up as he stands in front of three large works that are a focal point of “The Melody Haunts My Reverie.” Completed in 2023, the triptych is made up of newspapers from a pivotal moment in American history. From the Kansas City Star to the New York Times circa 1963, the now yellowed newspapers, their front pages with bold headlines, are arranged in a dodecagon, a 12-sided figure that is a recurring motif in the artist’s work.” The first is “Untitled (Assassination),” the second is “Untitled (Oswald),” the third, “Untitled (Mourning).”
It took three years to acquire the pieces that are part of the John F. Kennedy assassination collection. “This is the one that is my collective memory,” says Scholl. “This is the one I think about all the time – that the Kennedy assassination was the last time I felt innocent.”
It took three years to acquire the pieces that make up the John F. Kennedy assassination collection. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
He wants his viewer to be taken on the same journey from a work that may speak to their memory, which he refers to as gateways to lost moments.
“If I can find the right objects and infuse those objects with the power that they have, I can take you somewhere that you didn’t expect to go.” In each of the works, there is also something else that adds to the narrative. In the middle of the first Kennedy piece is a teletype from a news wire service that announces the breaking news, a collection of Jack Kerouac books has the author’s original obituary photo, and a 1972 Olympic torch is included in a work about the Munich massacre during the 1972 terrorist attack on Israeli Olympic team members.
“Untitled (’72 Munich Olympics)”, 2023, acquired objects and graphite, features ephemera from the games, an original Olympic torch, and a copy of the front page of the New York Daily News. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
While it’s the final result that the viewer sees, it’s also the process of getting there that is just as integral as the work itself.
“When I decide I’m going to make a new work, I don’t go searching for something.” He looks at around 30,000 objects a month on auction sites. “I might identify maybe 10 things a month that I think could make good pieces but then I have to bid on them. And you don’t get them most of the time. But when I get one or two, that becomes the work. What makes it all happen is that it’s kind of the thrill of the chase.”
The title of the exhibition is a lyric from American composer Hoagy Carmichael’s 1927 “Stardust.” It’s one of the songs on Scholl’s Top 20 jazz playlist shared on Spotify and the soundtrack to “The Memory Haunts My Reverie,” which he says he plays while working, and while creating the current exhibition – Charlie Parker’s “April in Paris,” Miles Davis’s “It Never Entered My Mind,” Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Edith Piaf.
“Making art is what I’m going to do the rest of my life,” says Dennis Scholl, shown surrounded by his work at his Miami Beach studio. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
“We talk a lot about jazz,” says Ossei-Mensah, “and improvisation and how there is a rhythm, a choreography in the show, which allows for it all to work collectively but will also draw the viewer into the pieces individually.
Hometown homecoming
There’s excitement around this first U.S. solo exhibition and especially that it is in Miami, where he has become a native son having moved here with his family at the age of 6.
“I’ve done most of my shows in Europe and I did that because I wanted to be somewhere where frankly, no one knew what I had done before or who I was so I felt like I was getting a fair read of the work,” says the artist. “And it was very well received.”
Scholl has exhibited in Serbia and Croatia, in London and Berlin with upcoming shows in Scotland, Poland and Uruguay. “It’s so interesting to me that people abroad have really dialed into this very American aesthetic and embraced it. ” There are also more U.S. shows planned at Columbia University in New York and at the Art Center of Hollywood.
As a youngster driving with his family from New Jersey to Florida to visit his grandparents, there was always a stop at Thom Gaskins Cypress Knee Museum along U.S. 27. Arranged in Scholl’s “architecture” of a dodecagon is the installation “Untitled (“Cypress Knees),” 2023, acquired objects. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
The owner of the Piero Atchugarry Gallery says it is nothing short of an honor to be hosting Scholl’s first solo exhibition in the United States.
“When I visited his studio in 2023, I was immediately taken by the work,” says Atchugarry. “As an emerging artist, Dennis presents a mature body of work and his approach to art making – rooted in his experience as a collector and centered on collective memory – is truly unique . . . This exhibition is not only a significant milestone for Dennis but also for the Miami art community.”
When asked about artists who may influence his practice, Scholl mentions Félix González-Torres, a conceptual artist born in Cuba who died in Miami. González-Torres’s use of everyday objects was meant to invite physical as well as intellectual engagement from his viewer.
“Untitled (Kerouac Library)”, 2023, with the author’s obituary photo. (Photo by Michael R. Lopez)
“I would say that for me, not because he’s doing the same thing, but because he’s mining emotional content and taking you to a place. He’s someone I think about a lot when I’m making work,” says Scholl.
Ossei-Mensah says the recall of González-Torres in Scholl’s work is probably the most relevant. “If you’re thinking about just taking these mundane items and the repetition and the arrangement and the potential accessibility to these things, that resonates.”
(WATCH: ARTSPEAK Video Archive: Dennis Scholl: “How did you educate yourself about art?”)
Scholl says he’s devoting full time to his art practice and producing and directing film documentaries – he’s made almost 90 films in 15 years and won numerous regional Emmy awards. “I’ll continue to make films as I have for the past 15 years. I’ll be involved in arts patronage, and I have a big art collection to give away at some point. I’ll make art as I have for about a decade now. Making art is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.”
WHAT: Dennis Scholl solo exhibition “The Melody Haunts My Reverie,” curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah
WHERE: Piero Atchugarry Gallery, 5520 NE 4th Ave., Miami
WHEN: Opening reception, 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, March 15. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday -Saturday. Through May 17, 2025.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Haitian Art from the Heartland to Miami’s Little Haiti
Written By Jonel Juste February 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM
“Untitled” by Richard Nesly is one of 16 featured works in the public art exhibition “Global Borderless Caribbean XVI: Haiti in the Heartland” at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex. (Photo courtesy of Waterloo Center for the Arts)
Haitian art has journeyed from Iowa to the walls of Miami’s Little Haiti.
Titled “Global Borderless Caribbean XVI: Haiti in the Heartland,” the public art exhibition, is a collaboration of the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance, the Waterloo Center for the Arts in Waterloo, Iowa, and the “Haitian Arts: A Digital Crossroads” (HADC) project.
It also received support from Haitian artist Edouard Duval-Carrié, photographer Carl Juste, and curator Marie Vickles.
The exhibition at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex through Saturday, April 19, features reproductions rather than original artworks. “We didn’t display the original artworks because they would be exposed to the elements,” explains Fayola Nicaisse, one of the curators and the chairperson for the Miami-based Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance. “Instead, we used high-resolution images, which were enlarged for the exhibit. We printed these images, ensuring the collection could be shared without risking damage to the original pieces.”
“Saut-D’eau” by Gerard Valcin (Photo courtesy of the Waterloo Center for the Arts)
This is the first time the digitized artwork has been presented in this format. They originally came from a significant Haitian art collection at the Waterloo Center for the Arts.
“The Waterloo Center for the Arts Haitian Art collection started in 1977 by a generous donation by Waterloo residents Dr. and Mrs. F. Harold Reuling,” says Chawne Paige, executive director of the arts center. “This collection has since grown to over 2,000 works and is the largest public collection of Haitian art in the United States, if not the world, outside of Haiti itself.”
For the Miami exhibit, 16 digitized artworks pulled from the collection have been selected and showcased on the walls of the Little Haiti Cultural Complex. Paige reflects on the significance of the pieces being shown in an open space,
“Having murals commissioned or displaying art in public spaces removes the potential barriers to seeing the artwork that would require entrance into the galleries of a museum or in our cases that travel expense to come to the Midwest to see these works.”
From left, Fayola Nicaisse, one of the curators of the exhibition and chairperson of the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance (Photo courtesy of Ebène), Chawne Paige, executive director of the Waterloo Center for the Arts in Iowa, which houses a significant collection of more than 2000 Haitian artworks (Photo by Chawne Paige), and Dr. Petrouchka Moïse who played a big part in digitizing the Haitian artworks. (Photo courtesy of Petrouchka Moïse)
The selection process for the exhibition was a collaborative effort between the different organizers. It involved reviewing thousands of pieces from the Waterloo Center’s collection and selecting those that best represented Haitian heritage.
“Our aim was to highlight the lush diversity of aesthetics, art forms, and mediums found in Haitian Art all the while being intentional about the representation of artists across the genders. Master artists alongside artists in the Haitian diaspora and their respective protégé make up WCA’s collection,” says Paige.
Nicaisse, who spearheaded the outdoor exhibit project, shared that she wanted to showcase a different genre of Haitian art.
“When people think of Caribbean art, they often picture scenic landscapes or beach paintings, but rarely fine art.”
Nicaisse’s vision was to create a space where Haitian art could take center stage, particularly in Little Haiti, a neighborhood that serves as a cultural hub for the Haitian diaspora. “When you visit Little Havana, you experience Cuban culture, its food, music, and traditions. The same should apply to Little Haiti,” she contends.
“Les Villes Imaginaires” (Imaginary Cities) by Préfête Duffaut (Photo courtesy of Waterloo Center for the Arts)
The exhibition’s title, “Haiti in the Heartland,” reflects the connection between Haiti and Iowa, where the Waterloo Center for the Arts houses its extensive collection. “The title was chosen by Dr. Petrouchka Moïse, who played a large part in digitizing the artworks,” says Nicaisse.
Moïse, assistant professor at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, is co-lead of the HADC project with Dr. Fredo Rivera, assistant professor of Art History at Grinnell College. During the pandemic, Moïse close to 2,000 art objects from the Waterloo Center were digitized. “Throughout the project we have partnered with several cultural leaders, institutes and scholars to crowdsource the information needed.
Moïse talks about the importance of the HADC project. “(It) will be a benefit to Haitian artists and the global community by giving access to the works of other great Haitian artists that don the walls of institutions and centers across the Diaspora. Viewers will have the ability of learning of the various artforms and techniques that make up Haitian visual culture.”
As a cultural institution holding Haitian art and heritage in the American Midwest, the Waterloo Center had an obligation, according to Paige.
“Any institution that has holdings of cultural objects that are not reflective of its constituent communities has a responsibility to share these cultural items with the public,” he says. “For the Waterloo Center for the Arts, it is an opportunity to broaden the world view of Midwesterners, while also instilling an appreciation of diversity and the global community.”
“Peacock in Tree” by Rigaud Benoit (Photo courtesy of the Waterloo Center for the Arts)
The exhibition at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex also serves as a platform for educating the public about Haitian culture and history. For Nicaisse and Paige, the exhibition’s broader goal is not only to showcase art but to combat the misrepresentations and stereotypes that often surround Haiti.
Nicaisse recalled how, when she first arrived in the United States, there was a stigma attached to being Haitian. “I was even advised not to disclose my heritage,” she says. “That experience fueled my determination to educate others about who we are.”
Paige spoke of the erasure of Haiti’s accomplishments, especially in the context of American history. “The oppression and erasure of Haiti’s accomplishments long before freedoms were provided to Blacks in America is a nuance of American History that truly needs to be unpacked, yet alone be reflected on by the public,” he explains. “The American History I was taught as a Black man is very problematic, skewed, simplified and omits large swaths of the narrative of the millions of Africans brought to the Americas.”
“Untitled” by Paul Lalibert (Photo courtesy of the Waterloo Center for the Arts)
By bringing these artwork replicas to Little Haiti, the organizers hope to inspire a deeper appreciation for Haiti’s contributions to the global cultural landscape.
“Haiti has an incredibly rich culture. While the nation has faced hardships, every downfall presents an opportunity for renewal. This exhibition is part of a broader effort to educate people about our heritage,” says Nicaisse.
WHAT: “Global Borderless Caribbean XVI: Haiti in the Heartland”
WHERE: Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 212 NE 59th Terrace, Miami
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Influential UM Art Professor’s Exhibit At the Lowe Is A Beaded Wonder
Written By Michelle F. Solomon February 10, 2025 at 5:35 PM
“Untitled (Crazy Quilt),” glass beads and thread on canvas, is one of the largest works at 64X116″, in “Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads” now on exhibit at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)
Artist and teacher Gerald “Jerry” Winter had an eye for detail – in his art and in his teaching. A professor of art on the faculty at the University of Miami, his influence in the arts community of Miami is vast and deeply felt.
While he worked in many artistic media throughout his career — including painting, sculpture, and serigraphs, the discovery of a treasure trove of his beadwork led to an exhibition now at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum. Intricate attention to the smallest of elements come together to create compositions rich in visual storytelling.
Portrait of Gerald Winter in his South Miami studio. (Photo by Julia Muench)
“Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads” is at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum through Saturday, Feb. 15. The Lowe Art Museum is the first art museum to publicly display what Jill Deupi, J.D., Ph.D., Beaux Arts director and chief curator at the museum describes as a “very personal body of complex imagery executed entirely in beads.”
It had been the beadwork that was the focus of his practice spending long hours at a loom in his South Miami studio a few blocks from his home before he passed away at the age of 86 in 2023.
There are 16 pieces on display at the Lowe — works that recall outsider art, Native and Indigenous art, and references to art history periods and movements.
One strikingly intricate work features 13 different vignettes, which is Winter’s interpretation in beads of a 16th-century Franco-Flemish Gothic millefleurs tapestry. The original tapestry that Winter most likely based the piece is in the permanent collection at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif., and is displayed in The Billard Room.
“You can tell he is really well versed in both Eastern, Western and Indigenous art history; you see a lot of those references in the work,” says Melissa Diaz, the curator of “A Life In Beads,” and assistant director, collection and exhibition services, at the Lowe Art Museum. “You can see that he is trained because the compositions are very sophisticated and you see those influences coming in,” says Diaz.
“Untitled (Modeled After the Bayeaux Tapestry),” glass beads and thread on canvas with wood spool, approximately 86 panels at 240 square inches each (dimensions approximate), 144 feet long. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)
One of the largest works is “Crazy Quilt,” 64″ X 116″, which appears to be textile patchwork, but at a closer look is made of thousands of beads.
“He had many works that looked at textiles or fashion or clothing,” says Diaz, who says that the show is arranged by themes – meditations on historical artworks, inspirations from his love of travel, and abstract compositions. His process would be to work from scale drawings and then translate the drawings to the loom bead by bead.
The masterpiece of “Life in Beads” is a 144-foot beadwork “roll,” completed in 2009. Modeled after the 1066 Bayeux Tapestry at the Bayeux Museum in France, there are 86 panels at 240 square inches each, with part of the long beadwork tapestry unraveled onto a table at the Lowe. They come from a large wooden spool, which Winter painted on both sides. One of the 86 panels is a self-portrait of the artist.
“Every element is handcrafted. We didn’t have the space to display it in its entirety,” says Diaz about how and why the work is positioned on the table. “But it is my hope, and I have shared this with his family, that the next display should be of the full 144 feet completely unspooled because it’s just an amazing project,” says Diaz.
One of Winter’s two daughters, Laura Escardo (Julia Muench, his other daughter, is an artist based in New Jersey), recalls entering the artist’s studio after her father’s death and discovering at least 50 pieces that she had never seen before.
“We would talk and he’d show me whatever the newest thing he was doing,” says Escardo, but she wasn’t aware of the vast collection created and collected in his studio. “Most of what is now hanging in the Lowe has never been seen before.” Both sisters were integral in getting the work together for the show at the university.
Michael Spring, a former art student of Gerald “Jerry” Winter, and director emeritus of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, speaks at the opening of “Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads” at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. The work “Crazy Quilt” is next to him. (Photo by Francesco Casale)
Michael Spring, director emeritus of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, who was the director for more than three decades before he retired in 2023, was an art student of Winter’s at the University of Miami. For years he had been hoping for an exhibition of his professor’s work.
Spring says he would often speak to Carol Damian, chair of the Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places Trust and former museum director and curator, and Barbara Young, former head of arts services for the Miami-Dade Public Library System, where Winter’s last public exhibition was shown. “I would talk to them about the idea,” he recalls. However, the professor didn’t have an interest in showing his work.
“I was being respectful of that,” says Spring. “If he didn’t want to exhibit that was his business. But I would ask because I knew Carol was a friend of the family and that Barbara had given Jerry his last show. Carol would tell me, ‘I was talking to him the other day and he’s not really interested,’ ” recalls Spring.
Escardo, who lives in West Miami, says it was on everyone’s ” bucket list” to have a solo show for the artist.
Spring says it was Winter whose impact on him as a student would follow him throughout his career in the arts. “I was kind of struggling with what I was going to do with my life. It’s fairly normal when you are an undergraduate, right?” says Spring.
“Four Panels, The Body: The Legs, The Pelvis, The Ribs, The Face,” 2002-2023, each panel 35X33″. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)
“I took Jerry’s painting class,” he recalls. Spring received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Miami and then went on to earn a master of arts degree in painting from New York University. After encountering Winter, he says, a career in the arts really made sense to him. “After having seen the intellect and the curiosity that Jerry had about the world and life. And I thought, ‘If that is what you can pursue in the arts, then it was clear to me that that would be the path that I would take. He was such an inspirational teacher and his sense of inquisitiveness, not just about art but the world, and that was infectious and affected the rest of my life.”
After learning of Winter’s death, he called Damian and Young. “I said, ‘I wonder what the family’s doing about his work? There must be a ton of it that’s been generated over the decades.’ ” After contacting his daughters, the three went to South Miami to the house Winter shared with his wife, Deborah, and to his studio. “We were just knocked out by the amount of work and the brilliance, at which point we said to Laura and Julie, we’re happy to help you try to get an exhibition for him. And the people at the Lowe were all in and they immediately figured it all out.”
Deupi of the University of Miami says it has been a “privileged opportunity for her and her team to work closely with the artist’s family as well as many of his students and friends” on what she calls “this important project.”
Detail of “Animalia Theater,” glass beads and thread on canvas, 68 X40″. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)
Another memory from Spring’s days at UM was seeing a faculty show at the Lowe that featured his mentor’s work. “Now this is sort of a homecoming for Jerry with the work coming back to where he originally showed. And that seemed like poetry to me,” says Spring.
While she was the head of arts services for the Miami-Dade Public Library System, Young hosted Winter’s last show. “For some reason, he said, ‘yes’ when I asked him to do that last show with me at the library in 2005. There were six large, beaded pieces. It was nice because anyone who came in could see it. It was accessible to all,” she says.
Young says after that she would mention on and off, as the years went by, that he should have another show. “He would sort of say, ‘yes, and then he would say, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ And I thought it would be great for Michael (Spring) to visit him and maybe that would encourage him,” says Young, who lives in the same neighborhood and always delighted in dropping off pumpkin bread to Winter and his wife. “It was such a pleasure to go over there. He had tons of files and I’m sure there were lots of prints and drawings. There must be plenty of treasures he left,” she says.
As a friend and colleague, Damian recalls parties at the Winter home. “There was so much work on the walls, but his wife Debbie would sneak me into a room where he had a lot of the beadwork and even a loom there. So, I knew he was doing this kind of work way, way back, but he never wanted to do anything with it.”
Damian, who is a professor of art history in the Department of Art and Art History at Florida International University and the former director and chief curator at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU, is a specialist in Latin American and Caribbean Art. She is also the chairperson of the Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places Trust. She received her Ph.D. and master’s degree from University of Miami, and was an instructor of art history there for more than a decade.
“Conimbriga Variations,” 1979, glass beads and thread on canvas, 43X43″. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)
“I was on the faculty when Jerry was there. So many of his students will say that they remember that he was so interested in art history and wanted to make sure his students were, so that to me is very telling when it comes to the beadwork in the exhibition. When you see those works they are all about art history. You will recognize with each work something,” says Damian. “It might be a classical piece of architecture, or it might be a mandala, for instance.”
She says she and Spring and Young were “flabbergasted” and “speechless” when they met with Laura and Julie and saw everything that had been unearthed. “I had seen the loom over the years and a small bit of what he was doing but I thought it was maybe a hobby. I never knew of the extent of what he produced. And when you see the works in person, they are so obsessively meticulous – millions and millions of beads.”
For Diaz, Winter’s works fit into a larger context of beadwork and tapestry. “Throughout history, this type of work has been a way of storytelling, of visual narrating. Even before people were literate, they would use these kinds of beadwork tapestries to tell their stories, to share mythologies, and to share narratives,” she says. “They really fall within that realm.”
There is a sense of awe the artist has created with its level of detail and the intricacy through the handiwork, the thousands of beads and the time commitment in creating each piece. And, Diaz says, there’s something more that draws viewers in.
“His work encourages you to keep looking.” She promises “you will see something new and experience something new each time.”
WHAT: “Gerald Winter: A Life In Beads”
WHERE: Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, 1301 Stanford Drive, Miami
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, through Feb. 15.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
At Faena Art, Magnus Sodamin is Miami’s Tropical Impressionist
Written By Douglas Markowitz February 8, 2025 at 6:51 PM
“Magnus Sodamin: Before Sunrise” at Faena Art Project Room in Miami Beach is on display through Wednesday, April 30. (Photo courtesy of Faena Art)
No matter where you are in South Florida, it’s never too far away from the Everglades. Yet it takes someone like painter Magnus Sodamin to capture the famous ecosystem at its peak of beauty.
“Before Sunrise,” an exhibition of the artist’s work at the Faena Art Project Room, showcases the Everglades in glorious detail. In a series of large-scale landscapes, Sodamin beautifully depicts the famously spectacular sunrises and sunsets that regularly set the South Florida skies afire with color.
Magnus Sodamin, “Symphony of the Sun (Florida Bay),” 2024. Oil on hemp, 69 x 89 in. (Photo courtesy of Faena Art)
Landscapes are paired with equally vivid portraits of various local flora and fauna. Spoonbills and ibises point their bills romantically toward the crescent moon. Conch shells rest on richly textured ground. Dragonflies dance above the reeds against a burning sky.
“I think that this kind of this body of work kind of relates to my relationship with Florida Bay and the Everglades,” says Sodamin. “I’ve spent over a decade exploring that whole wilderness, and I’ve grown a personal connection to it.”
Magnus Sodamin, “Sun Shower (American Crocodile),” 2024. Oil on hemp, 69 x 89 in. (Photo courtesy of Faena Art)
There’s a clear art-historical precedent to these luminous paintings, one that even Sodamin is quick to admit. They’re impressionist paintings, reminiscent of Monet, Van Gogh, and their contemporaries, as well as predecessors like J.M.W. Turner. Much like the British artist, Sodamin similarly explores light in his work.
“I do find my language, the way I use the brush, to be kind of in an impressionistic vein. I feel like there’s a lot of movement and layering within my work. There’s density to it. There’s these abstract qualities. When you’re up close you can kind of get lost in just the mark making and the paint, but once you’re far away it comes together in this landscape that has depth.”
Much like the original impressionists, Sodamin spends much time outdoors, frequently venturing into the Everglades and Florida Bay to fish, camp, and paint. Sometimes he’ll go out on the water for 12 hours, losing track of time and allowing himself to enter a meditative state. Even during the sweltering summer months, when humidity can approach 100 percent and temperatures occasionally enter the triple digits, he heads outdoors. That’s when he made most of the work that comprises the show.
Magnus Sodamin, “Ibis,” 2024. Oil on linen, 46 x 36 in. (Photo courtesy of Faena Art)
“You’re sweating out of every pore of your body, (and) to make it through that, I think, shows how much I love to be in that moment. And then the reward is all these things you experience, these sunsets and sunrises, the harmony you find in nature.”
Though he does work in the studio and from photos, much of his practice involves the same kind of plein air painting that the impressionists made a major element of their style. Other than the Everglades, he’s also painted in other famous locations; a paddling trip down the Grand Canyon in 2024 yielded 14 paintings over 21 days.
I think plein air teaches you more than you could ever learn in your studio,” he says. “There’s this kind of all or nothing approach where you just have to capture that moment before it’s gone.”
Artist Magnus Sodamin arrived to Miami in 1998 from New York and often ventures into the Everglades to paint en plein air. (Photo courtesy of Faena Art)
Originally from New York, Sodamin is a longtime Miami transplant. He arrived in the city in 1998 and studied at the New World School of the Arts. Though he’s lived and worked in other regions, including his mother’s native Norway, the landscape of the Everglades keeps drawing him back.
“For me, it’s important to show people that this is what exists here. It’s not that far away. These are environments that have been around for thousands of years, the animals in my paintings have been in this landscape for a long time too, and we’re kind of new here.”
WHAT: “Magnus Sodamin: Before Sunrise”
WHERE: Faena Art Project Room, 3420 Collins Ave., Miami Beach
WHEN: 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Through Wednesday, April 30
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
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