Miami Book Fair Celebrates 40 Years as a Beacon For Authors, Readers

The popular street fair is one of the highlights of the Miami Book Fair with vendors selling books galore. The Miami Book Fair opens Sunday, Nov. 12 and runs through Sunday, Nov. 19 with the street fair Friday, Nov. 17 through Sunday, Nov. 19. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

A September study released by the PEN America Foundation, a Washington, D.C., based organization that stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States, tracked over 3,000 book bans nationally in public schools and libraries. It found that 40 percent of the bans were happening in the state of Florida.

As special interest groups and legislatures statewide work to restrict book access under the guise of parental choice, books themselves have become, not for the first time, battleground of the current cultural wars, objects of division.

Against this backdrop,  one of Miami’s most enduring cultural institutions instead sees books as a way to bring the community together. For 40 years, Miami Book Fair has served as a celebration of all things literary, using books not as a way to divide but as a way for people to unite and find common ground across all spectrums.  What began in 1984 as a two-day festival, has grown into an eight-day triumph of the written word.

A fairgoer checks out books for sale at the Miami Book Fair, street fair, at Wolfson Campus on Nov. 19, 2022. (Photo courtesy of the Miami Book Fair)

Lisette Mendez, director of programs for Miami Book Fair, says she began attending the festival in its early days as a teenager, finding a welcoming home within its vibrant community, one that allowed her a feeling of belonging.

“We just want to create a space where everyone feels like there’s something that appeals to them, there’s something that they can connect to,”  says Mendez, who adds that she believes the Book Fair is a way to bring people together.   “Whether it’s because you come to the street fair or you’re in the music area, listening to the live music or eating food or just walking around and buying some stuff, taking your kids to Children’s Alley, belonging is such an important part of it.”

Mitchell Kaplan, co-founder and current chair of the board for the Miami Book Fair,  agrees. “We have such a diverse community with so many interests that seem to be at odds with one another. However, when we come to the book fair and we look and we see people communicating with one another, empathizing with one another, you know, the power of books and the power of convening people who love books. Books, their writers, their readers, publishers. It’s a great antidote to what’s going on right now.”

Kicking off on Sunday, Nov. 12 with a free Block Party featuring Grammy Award-winning DJ/producer Louie Vega, more than  500 authors will be present at this year’s fair discussing books ranging from heartfelt biographies, nonfiction books exploring the current cultural zeitgeist to fiction and poetry of every variety.

Author headliners include actors Jada Pinkett Smith, Kerry Washington, Henry Winkler, singer Joan Baez, and Washington, D.C., whistlerblower Cassidy Hutchinson to name a few.

Jada Pinkett Smith presents her memoir “Worthy at the Miami Book Fair at 5:39 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12. The ticket event for $42 includes the book. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)

The Off the Shelf program has spoken-word, improv, and live musical performances by Afrobeta, Sol and the Tribu along with others. This year, the family-friendly Children’s Alley offers percussion workshops, a hands-on robotic academy and a stage adaptation of Neil Goldberg’s picture book “POMP, SNOW & CIRQUEumstance.”

The nightly Lost Chapter Lounge allows book lovers to gather in fellowship over cocktails and bites along with deejay sets, and the Street Fair gives fairgoers the chance to browse exhibitor areas and purchase books.

Eschewing a particular theme, Miami Book Fair is intentionally expansive in its representation of authors and topics, offering attendees options to connect with stories ranging from dystopian fantasy like “Touched” by Walter Mosely, or horror with “The Wishing Pool and Other Stories” by Tananarive Due. Author David Brooks will speak to his Book Fair audience giving tips from “How to Know a Person,” on how to communicate more deeply with one another.   Essayist Ross Gay will read from and discuss his latest work “The Book of (More) Delights,” and attendees can take a deep dive into the animals of, and stories about the Sunshine State with authors Kirsten Hines and Jacki Levine.

Children’s Alley during the 2022 Miami Book Fair at Wolfson Campus. (Photo courtesy of the Miami Book Fair)

Says Mendez, “It’s through those written works that we really chronicle our times. And I think books, more than any other art form  . . . really help us understand where we are in the world at any point. You know, whether it’s the stories that put the present times into context historically or the historical books that place us in a different time and in different situations that can teach or illuminate or just entertain.”

The fair also offers programming in Spanish and Creole, and will live stream some events and author talks, eliminating as many barriers as possible for the community to participate in the fair.

Beyond the eight days of the festival, Miami Book Fair has also grown to offer year-round programming for bibliophiles and aspiring authors, something Kaplan is thrilled to have seen of the fair’s evolution.

Mitchell Kaplan, co-founder and board chair of Miami Dade College’s Miami Book Fair. (Photo courtesy of Books & Books)

When asked what he envisions for the next 40 years of the festival, Kaplan shares, “I don’t think books are going by the wayside. And I think that as long as people have stories to tell, they will tell them. The Book Fair each year is different based on the stories that people have to tell through their books. So  . . . it’ll be really different in 2063 because who knows what those stories will be like. I still think that people need empathy. And the empathy that everyone gets through books, there’ll still be a hunger for that. And I don’t think that’s going anywhere.”

WHAT: Miami Dade College’s Miami Book Fair

WHERE: Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami

WHEN:   Saturday, Nov. 12 through Sunday, Nov. 19. Various times for author events; street fair 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday, Nov. 17, Saturday, Nov. 18 and Sunday, Nov. 19.

COST:   Various events are free with RSVP, Street Fair admission is free on Friday, then Saturday and Sunday, $8 in advance, $10 at the gate. Author events range in price, some admission prices include copies of books.

INFORMATION:  miamibookfair.com

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. 

Glass artist John Miller takes a bite out of diner culture in Lowe Museum’s ‘Order Up!’

“Order Up! The Pop Art of John Miller,” 35 pieces of oversized glass sculptures of food, drink and more, is at  The University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum through Jan. 14, 2024. Shown is “Suckers,” 2022-23,  mold blown glass with wood, dimensions variable. (Photo courtesy of Mario Clarke, copyright John Miller) 

Artist John Miller says everything in his life, both past and present, connects to his work. The fruits, or shall we say, fast foods of his labor will be on display in an exhibition of his giant glass creations, “Order Up! The Pop Art of John Miller” opening Thursday, Oct. 26 at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami.

His voice over the phone matches the playfulness of the oversized glass art, which for this exhibition focuses on diner-culture foods – a hamburger that’s two and a half feet in diameter, a milkshake that stands several feet high, for example.

Inspiration, he says, comes in all forms.

“Blue Plate Special,” 2021. Blown and hot sculpted glass, 18 x 13 x 16 inches overall. (Photo courtesy of Mario Clarke, copyright John Miller)

“It’s ‘the art as life approach,’ ” says Miller, who stepped out of class where he is an assistant professor and head of the glass department at Illinois State University, to talk about the display of 35 of his pieces, which will be in the museum’s Steven and Dorothea Green Galleries through Jan. 14, 2024. The solo exhibition was curated by Caitlin Swindell, curator of collections and exhibitions at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami.

Miller’s storied family history, he says, comes through in his work. From his great-grandmother, Helen, a bootlegger during the Prohibition Era, who John says “blasted out from Bradford, Pa., to go to New York to party and dance and sing” to his motorcycle racing father whose New Haven, Conn., auto shop was next door to a diner, growing up in a blue-collar world left an imprint.

“Going out to lunch with my dad to the diner, the gathering of people there and the cultural aspect of it coupled with the dramatic kind of footprint that the era of the diner left – there’s definitely nostalgia rolling around in there with my personal experiences,” he says.

And while the work is big on whimsy, it’s not a small feat. Miller, 56, admits it’s physically demanding and difficult to do. “The larger the work gets, the more difficult it is to make, but as the scale increases, it’s more humorous to the viewer,” he says. “It’s striking a balance between the intensity of the creative process and then the installation or object that the viewer gets to spend time with.”

“Chomp,” 2008. Blown glass, 5 ½ x 14 ½ inches.(Photo courtesy of Mario Clarke, copyright John Miller)

He admits he was disenchanted with what was going on when he was studying for a degree in fine arts at the University of Illinois. Then he discovered Claes Oldenburg, the Swedish-born American Pop-art sculptor, best known for his giant soft sculptures of everyday objects.

“I was able to step out of the 1990s dark conceptual, almost downer artwork that was prominent. It was that era with the Seattle music scene, drug addiction, psychological issues,” he recalls. Then he saw Oldenburg’s work. “I’m like, wait a minute, this guy is making work that makes people laugh. I was drawn to him and the giant scale he was creating.”

He found himself not so interested in the angst-ridden influences that were fueling the practices of many of his classmates, but more toward what sparked joy in him.

John Miller at work at Illinois State University. (Photo courtesy of Draper Matthews

“He wanted to mine a lighter vein of life and human existence, which is the everyday stuff,” says Jill Deupi, Ph.D., the beaux arts director and chief curator of the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum.

“John is very quick to acknowledge that he is following in the footsteps of the fathers and mothers of pop art,” she says. “He is not just making his work for giggles. He’s a serious artist. There’s something very intentional on his part – he doesn’t want to plumb the depths of human despair.”

The chief curator says it’s precisely the right time for the “Order Up!” show.

“It’s quite different for us in terms of the material or the way glass is used. It just felt right coming out of COVID and now Ukraine and Israel and everything that’s going on to offer to the community, this salve for the soul through this art,” says Deupi.

Miller’s show ties into the devotion to glass art that became part of the museum’s oeuvre when, in 2008, a donation of $1.7 million to the Lowe from glass-collecting couple Myrna and Sheldon Palley helped establish the Palley Pavilion for Contemporary Glass and Studio Arts, which now houses a $3.5 million glass collection; much of the work is from the Palleys highly valued personal collection.

“Sloppy American,” 2022. Blown glass and hot sculpted glass, 11 x 13 x 13 inches. (Photo courtesy of Mario Clarke, copyright John Miller)

“The 3,000-square foot extension is not only a unique asset – there are other museums with glass wings or glass focus – but there are very few academic institutions that do,” says Deupi.

The Kendall couple didn’t set out to be trailblazers as glass art collectors. Sheldon Palley says their passion began when they would visit craft fairs as a family outing in the 1970s. Myrna Palley, who turned her love of glass collecting into a lasting legacy for the university, died in 2020.

“We were collectors for 30 or 40 years,” says Sheldon.

He’s speaking from the kitchen of his home where, he says, he’s looking at one of Miller’s pieces that the couple bought at SOFA, The Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design fair in Chicago, years ago.

“It’s a hamburger with lettuce and tomatoes, French fries, and a Coke. We’ve had it for some time,” he says, noting that Myrna purchased the piece before Miller was well known. “She had a fantastic eye and we would find a lot of artists very early in their careers and he was one of them. I love his work. It’s something that’s different – using glass in a manner that not too many people have done as a pop art medium.”

Hot out of the glass shop, “M-n-S Palley Chip Co. est. 1956.,” 2023, delivered to the Palley Pavilion. Hot sculpted glass with steel, 7 x 30 x 15 inches overall. (Photo courtesy of the Lowe Museum)

Although he says that his glass art buying days ended with Myrna’s passing, there’s one more piece that he wants to add to the Palley Pavilion collection: Miller’s “M-n-S Palley Chip Co., est. 1956” a glass sculpture of a bag of chips, a work Miller made in honor of the influential couple. The meaning behind the established date of the chip company on the bag is a tribute to the year the couple was married.

“That’s it – that’s the piece we are buying from the show and we will be donating it to the Lowe,” says Sheldon.

Twelve glass sliders will be at businesses throughout Coral Gables as part of the “Where’s the Burger?” scavenger hunt. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

For those who may want a shot at owning their own piece of glass diner lore, the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce was invited by the museum to have businesses in the city be part of a scavenger hunt called, “Where’s the Burger?”

A dozen of Miller’s small glass hamburger sliders will be positioned at businesses throughout the city for the run of the show. Treasure hunters who locate one are encouraged to take a selfie with the slider and post it to the museum’s Instagram page (a QR code near the work offers more information). The sliders are valued at $175 and signed by the artist. The secret sauce? Find as many of John’s burgers as possible around town, which increases the chances of winning.

WHAT: “Order Up! The Pop Art of John Miller”

WHERE: University of Miami Lowe Art Museum, 1301 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables

WHEN: Opens Thursday, Oct. 26. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday through Jan. 14, 2024.

COST: Free 

INFORMATION: (305) 284-3535 or lowe.miami.edu

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. 

Fabric and color unveiled in Yolanda Sánchez ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ at Deering

Yolanda Sánchez, “The Winds of Homecoming,” (detail) 2023, part of the exhibition of the artist’s work at Deering Estate, “All the Light We Cannot See” through Sunday, Nov. 12.  (Photo courtesy of Ana María Carrano)

An “awakening to beauty'” is how Yolanda Sánchez describes her work “All the Light We Cannot See” at the Deering Estate.

Three installations with semi-transparent fabric panels invite viewers to experience color and the presence of light.

An artist talk with Sánchez and curator Adriana Herrera is set for 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 22. The exhibition is on view through Sunday, Nov. 12.

Drawing from her background as a clinical psychologist, Sánchez underscores the impact of beauty on our lives. She believes that what we absorb, observe, and perceive plays a role in shaping our behavior and values.

Yolanda Sánchez in her studio. The artist’s first solo exhibition devoted to her fiber art is in the Deering Estate Great Hall Gallery. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Portnoy.)

She articulates her creative mission as a form of social engagement, a way to influence behavior positively by infusing the world with the transformative power of beauty. In her words, “I have this idea about how to affect behavior, and it’s the way that I’m socially engaged by creating work that brings beauty to the world.”

The exhibition’s name was inspired by Anthony Doerr’s book, “All the Light We Cannot See,” according to the artist, and, that much like our restricted perception of the electromagnetic spectrum, we can only observe a small portion of the environment, emphasizing the hidden elements in our world.

The main installation consists of 36 panels made of silk-organza fabric spanning 25 feet in length. The fabrics are so lightweight that they move as the viewer walks, creating an awareness of motion and the flow of air within the room, as if the artwork itself were breathing.

“Yolanda Sanchez: All the Light We Cannot See” curated by Adriana Herrera. The exhibition runs until Nov. 12 in the Deering Estate Great Hall Gallery. (Photo by Daniel Portnoy)

Colors multiply and transform with each subsequent layer, and as the viewer progresses, they perceive how colors intensify or fade depending on the dialogue with the other fabrics. According to Herrera, Sánchez’s artwork “through beauty unites the visible and the invisible.”

Although the forms in the composition of her textiles recall Piet Mondrian’s geometric paintings, Sánchez’s work is inspired by a Korean tradition, bojagi, a technique that geometrically joins fabric scraps, similar to the patchwork in American quilts, and is associated with good fortune. The curator points out that the artist transcends the two-dimensional form of traditional bojagi and expands it in this installation to paint in space.

The artist says she learned the technique from the Korean artist and teacher, Chunghie Lee. “My bojagi journey is one that has opened up many possibilities for me, both artistically and personally. Bojagi has taken me beyond my usual practice of painting. In fact, I consider that I am painting with fabric,” says Sanchez in an essay about the exhibition.

Sánchez, a Cuban-born artist who arrived in the United States as a refugee with her mother in 1960, initially pursued a career in clinical psychology, earning her Ph.D. at Florida State University. But after working as a psychologist, she made the decision to study visual arts at Florida International University and then went on to get an MFA in painting from Yale University School of Art.

The installation in the Deering Estate Great Hall Gallery is a poetic abstraction of vibrant colors in its surroundings. “All the Light We Cannot See,” (detail) 2023. (Photo courtesy of Ana María Carrano)

Her previous works were heavily dedicated to abstract flower paintings. Herrera points out the thread of continuity between the earlier pieces and her current ones, saying that they both originate from the contemplation of the invisible aspects of nature.

“I believe there is a form of prayer that is the prayer of looking at the beauty of nature. In both her abstract flower paintings and these textile geometric works, there is a reference to nature and its beauty, which serves as the threshold to something transcendent,” says Herrera.

The installation offers a poetic abstraction of vibrant colors among its surroundings within the 450 acres and eight native ecosystems of the historic Deering Estate, encompassing 450 acres and eight native ecosystems, the colors within Sánchez’s pieces capturing the essence of South Florida’s tropical flora.

“In both my painting and in my textile work, I’m not literally translating what I see or my environment, it’s a metaphorical interpretation,” says Sánchez.

“The Winds of Homecoming,” 2023. Knotted silk organza remnants. Bamboo pole, jute rope. 80 x 120 inches. (Photo courtesy of Ana María Carrano)

In this manner, her fabric panels vividly capture the “pantone” of tropical flora, showcasing colors like the bougainvillea pink-violet, hibiscus red, and the reflective gold of the sun.

“The Deering Estate offers so many different experiences. The movement of the water reflects what’s out there, and then there is the nature experience with the trees and the flowers,” says Sánchez.

The translucency of the fabrics, and their ability to transform with the shifting daylight, has the ephemeral quality of flowers. Herrera highlights how Sánchez’s work forges a connection with nature, “with a space of transcendence that is linked to the contemplation of beauty and a mode of reverence for what exists. And from that perspective, something sacred.”

“Falling in Love Outward,” (detail) 2023. Silk organza remnants, thread. 33 x 24 inches. (Photo courtesy of Ana Maria Carrano)

For Sánchez, light holds profound spiritual significance that goes beyond any particular religious affiliation. She regards light as a transcendent force.

She also draws influence from the works of artists who have explored light, such as James Turrell and Robert Irwin, with a particular appreciation for Turrell’s spiritual approach.

Sánchez expresses her perspective, noting, “without going into specific religions or faiths, light could be God, light represents the higher power. Light for me is everything.”

WHAT: “Yolanda Sánchez: All the Light We Cannot See” curated by Adriana Herrera.

WHEN: 3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 22, artist talk with Yolanda Sánchez and curator Adriana Herrera. Through Nov. 12, 2023. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. 

COST: Attendance for the talk is free with RSVP here. Exhibition included in general admission to Deering Estate: $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $7 for children ages 4 to 14 years of age.

WHERE: Deering Estate, 16701 SW 72 Ave, Palmetto Bay

INFORMATION:  305-680-5219 or deeringestate.org

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.

Review: Flash can’t hide what’s bland about Marquez Art Projects

Flashy clothes, valet parking, lines down the block to get in – driving past the blank-faced building surrounded by auto shops and industrial blight in working-class Allapattah, one would think a new nightclub had opened up. In fact, the destination for Miami’s hoi-polloi on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 23 was a brand-new museum.

A who’s who of Miami art world figures gathered in curiosity at the opening of Marquez Art Projects (MAP), a private museum owned by art collector, real estate developer, and restaurateur John Marquez. A massive line for the tiny bar snaked past a Hernan Bas painting as guests mingled in Prada and Louboutins. Artists like Reginald O’Neal and Kelly Breez, ICA Miami director Alex Gartenfeld, gallerist Anthony Spinello, and even the Rubells themselves were in attendance. Fredric Snitzer, in his own pithy way, put it to me best: “All the players are here.”

I wonder how many of them left as unimpressed as I was. He may be a trustee at ICA Miami, but Marquez, owner of the Michelin-starred Sushi Noz, clearly knows more about entertaining than good art.

A family admires a Loriel Beltran painting at the Marquez Art Projects opening on Saturday, Sept. 23 in Allapattah. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Beltran)

First off, there’s the curation of the space, or rather the lack of it. The MAP space is split into four distinct rooms, and each has a theme that can best be described as loose. A central gallery is dedicated to single-artist presentations, a room to the northeast features contemporary abstraction, and one in the northwest is dominated by local artists. There’s also an outer room snaking around the central gallery with several unexceptional works by celebrity artists: KAWS, George Condo, Rashid Johnson. There is no sculpture, mixed media, or anything besides paintings on display. The only room with wall text or information of any kind is the single-artist space where Cristina de Miguel’s messy, macabre abstractions of bodies split into pieces hang.

It all feels very lazy. Nothing links the Florida room together, for instance, besides the fact that all the works are by Florida artists. An abstract canvas by Loriel Beltran, which could dominate a gallery on its own, sits across from figurative paintings by Bas and Didier William. Thematically, tonally distinct canvases from Alejandro Piñeiro Bello and Bernadette Despujols sit side-by-side. None of it coheres. The abstract gallery is where things really take a dive. The whole space is filled with bland, vapid canvases from artists like Jadé Fadojutimi and Yuan Fang. The space felt like a zombie formalist bouquet, epitomized in the flat floral motifs of Fang’s “Germination” – pretty, but lifeless.

Seeing the space, I find it hard to believe Marquez actually likes art, or at least, he doesn’t like challenging or interesting art. He clearly doesn’t go out of his way to build his collection, which seems composed mostly of artists that are either famous or nearby. In an interview with The Art Newspaper that I find telling, he describes the genesis of his habit: He started collecting art to furnish his condo, and when he started taking it seriously, he bought a print by Banksy, one of the most famous contemporary artists in the world. To me, there’s no indication of vision or purpose anywhere at MAP. It’s all just decoration to him.

John Marquez with ICA Miami director Alex Gartenfeld. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Beltran)

Perhaps this is a bit of a strong reaction to something as ultimately insignificant as a private art collection. Marquez could have done what the majority of collectors do and kept his art to himself, after all. But it’s precisely that point that ultimately turns the institution into an affront. He didn’t keep it to himself and instead decided to plant it somewhere it doesn’t belong, in working-class Allapattah. The black-washed, unmarked, nearly windowless MAP building, which is open by appointment only, sits like a UFO among the surrounding auto shops and warehouses in its immediate vicinity. Nearby on NW 20th St., thrift stores, wholesale fabric and clothing retailers, and Latin restaurants provide a glimpse of a Miami that is rapidly being replaced by flashy, expensive, inhospitable glitz.

That’s also why it matters whether or not the art on display at such a space, or the way in which it’s presented, is of poor quality. I don’t know the degree to which Marquez is aware of the effect that his museum might have on his surroundings. Maybe he doesn’t care at all. Maybe he actually wants to upzone Allapattah. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what his intentions are, because the thoughtlessness and egotism evident in the space renders them moot. The best works in the space would be better situated elsewhere, and the worst are just helping the place take up space and further deplete the area of its working-class character and population.

An area of the new Marquez Art Projects in Allapattah. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

It’s perhaps also useful to consider the impact of the Rubells, whose vast museum just a stone’s throw from MAP still serves as the model every other collector-driven museum in Miami attempts to imitate. But their collection was amassed over decades and still to this day feels intentional and elucidating. There is almost always something on display there that gives one pause, and there are always interesting, potentially challenging perspectives on offer. That takes some of the sting out of their own role in the area’s gentrification, which should not go unremarked upon – shortly after,”immersive” art center Superblue, owned by mega-gallery Pace opened across the street, charging up to $40 to access a handful of installations best suited for selfies. New York’s Museum of Sex and global for-profit photography space Fotografiska have also announced branches opening in the area.

Marquez is not so visionary. His new space demonstrates how few others are willing to put in the same amount of work, to go the extra mile and turn their collection into a genuine civic asset. His museum is of use to one person only: himself. For the rest of us, it’s just another warehouse full of paintings.

WHAT: Marquez Art Projects 

WHEN: Open by appointment only, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

WHERE: 2395 NW 21st Terrace, Miami

COST: Free 

INFORMATION:  305-646-1125 or marquezartprojects.com

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.

At Locust Projects, Jen Clay explores mental health with video game artistry

Miami-based artist Jen Clay invites viewers to explore a forest of quilted tree-monsters through both a sensory inclusive, immersive installation and video game animation in “Eyes of the Skin” at Locust Projects through Nov. 4. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

Are video games art? The question has obsessed the public for years, and in 2023 it’s leaning toward “yes.” Gamers and designers have continuously advocated for interactive media as artistically valid, and recent years have seen even more diversity and expansive ideas within the game design community. Innovative recent games include narrative-driven indie RPGs like “Disco Elysium” and tragic adventures like “The Last of Us Part 2,” one could say the latter game even beat its Hollywood remake in ambition.

Critics like Roger Ebert once scorned the form, declaring “no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.” But soon after he said that the Smithsonian held its exhibition “The Art of Video Games,” featuring everything from “Space Invaders” and “Super Mario Brothers” to “Metal Gear Solid” and “Myst.” Major newspapers employ video game critics, such as Gene Park at the Washington Post. One has to wonder if Ebert had been able to experience the breathtaking open worlds of “Elden Ring” or “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kindgom,” would he have changed his tune?

All of these arguments don’t seem to matter to Jen Clay, a South Florida artist using video games as a medium for her art. Her previous work was in fabric, which she used to make sculptures and wearable art. But trying out game design gave her a new vehicle for her ideas.

Jen Clay works in a wide range of media, from quilted wall hangings to interactive and multimedia performances. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“I’m definitely not a video game player,” Clay, who grew up in North Carolina and earned an MFA from the University of Florida, says. “(But) I want that intimate experience, where it’s almost like in ‘The Neverending Story’ where the book starts to talk to Sebastian. It’s kind of spooky, when I was little I was like ‘Whoa!’ But that’s what I want, where it feels like it’s talking directly to you. I love that, and a video game can do that.”

Clay decided a game would be a perfect way to explore mental illness, using the interactive medium as a way to let neurotypical people experience what it feels like to deal with depression. The resulting work, which is on view at Locust Projects through Nov. 4, is introspective and dark.

Jen Clay, “Eyes Of The Skin,” screenshot of game play. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

In “Eyes of the Skin,” players are placed in a deep, gloomy forest made up of Clay’s soft-sculptures, encountering monstrous characters along the path. Text-based prompts give them a series of choices as they navigate the forest; depending on what they choose, they could escape the forest or stay within it. Some endings even have the player turn into one of the monsters. The text messages are careful to avoid shaming the player – instead of “Game Over,” players stuck in the forest are told it’s okay and to try again.

The virtual monsters and settings, made from scrap fabric sourced from donations and thrift stores among other sources and digitally scanned into the game, draw inspiration from “creature” movies such as “Sweetheart,” “The Blob,” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Clay finds supernatural or cosmic horror films where humans are faced with confronting or changing into an alien form of life to be a potent metaphor for the depersonalization experienced by the mentally unwell.

Jen Clay’s video game at Locust Projects is the first video game made entirely of animated quilts. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

“I want it to be the nicest reprieve for people that experience it, you know? And it’s almost like role-playing to be like, ‘Oh, that’s just a thought,’ like when you have even suicidal thoughts, a therapist may tell you ‘Oh, it’s just a thought,’ and it takes away that shame of it. But I also want to create something that’s inviting, yet disorienting for people that haven’t experienced it so they can kind of feel that ambiguity. Like, how do I show that estrangement from yourself when you have mental health issues, where you yourself are also an alien?”

In terms of genre, “Eyes of the Skin” could be considered a visual novel (VN), a genre that originated in Japan and favors narrative and player choices over action and points systems. Investigative VNs like the “Ace Attorney” series and horror stories like “Doki Doki Literature Club” populate the genre, but it’s best known for dating sims, some quirkier than others. Clay cites one in particular: “Hato Boyfriend,” an absurdist take on the genre where potential romantic suitors are all pigeons.

Clay, who had no previous experience developing video games, says her husband, New World School of the Arts professor of digital art Samuel Lopez de Victoria, was especially encouraging in getting her to try making a game. “He’s obsessed with video games. He really wants everyone to make a video game.”

Jen Clay’s “Eyes of the Skin” is an installation and video game in which viewers navigate a forest. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

She used digital tools such as TyranoBuilder, a game development engine specifically designed for visual novels, as well as animation software like Final Cut, to build the game, learning how to use them with YouTube tutorials. As part of the programming around “Eyes of the Skin,” Locust Projects will host a game development workshop on Tuesday, Oct.24 from 7 to 10 p.m., in Locust Project’s Digital Innovation Lounge where Lopez De Victoria, will teach participants how to make their own games with TyranoBuilder. She’s hoping her husband’s workshop will help to demystify the medium as a creative tool for others in the same way it did for her.

“I see it now, that everybody can make a video game, can kind of create a more curated narrative for the players.”

WHAT: “Jen Clay: Eyes of the Skin”

 WHEN:  Exhibition open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Through Nov. 4. The public is also invited to visit the artist during open studio hours at Locust Projects every Wednesday and Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m. through Nov. 2. A performance entitled “The Chase,” inspired by Scooby doo monster chase scenes, will feature a live soundscape by Elise Anderson from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21. 

 WHERE: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St., Miami

COST: Free

 INFORMATION: 305-576-8570 or locustprojects.org

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.

Wolfsonian’s ‘Big World’ Skews the View of Landscapes

“The City,” 1936, Virginia Berresford (American, 1904–1995) New York City, Oil on canvas, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection at Wolfsonian-FIU is part of the exhibition “The Big World: Alternative Landscapes in the Modern Era” at the Wolfsonian-FIU through Sunday, June 2, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Wolfsonian-FIU)

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “landscape painting?” Perhaps it’s a pastoral scene from the English countryside, something by John Constable or Thomas Gainsborough. Maybe it’s a scene from the American West, a Monument Valley picture worthy of a John Ford cowboy classic. Or maybe it’s one of Claude Monet’s iconic impressionist works.

All of these are conventions that the Wolfsonian-FIU in Miami Beach wants to dispel in the design-focused museum’s latest exhibition. “The Big World: Alternative Landscapes in the Modern Era” is about changing our ideas around one of the most well-known genres of art. But instead of gardens and farmland, we see cityscapes and industrial scenes, workers laboring on farms and in factories, and even scenes of war and turmoil.

Painting, “Agro Pontino Redento (The Pontine Marshes Redeemed),” 1940
Antonio Federico Leonardi (Italian, 1901–1977) Genoa, Italy. Oil on canvas. The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection at Wolfsonian–Florida International University. (Photo courtesy of Wolfsonian-FIU)

“Our collection really contains a lot of materials relating to urbanization, to industrialization, to the expansion of the built landscape,” says Lea Nickless, who curated the show with the Wolfsonian’s chief curator Silvia Barisione.

“The Big World” opens on Thursday, Sept. 21 and runs through June 2, 2024.

The two conceived of the show as a way to make do with limited space and resources while the museum building remains only partially open due to renovation. They drew from the institution’s existing collection, featuring art and objects dating from 1850 to 1950, and its idiosyncrasies were a factor in determining the show’s concept and focus. Mitchell “Mickey” Wolfson, Jr., the museum’s founder, didn’t collect popular genres like impressionism, the “big revolution in landscape painting,” according to Barisione, which was defined by “plein air” pictures of outdoor scenes. What the museum could draw on were movements like futurism and Art Deco that emphasized the way the world was being changed by human activity.

“It’s really kind of interesting to see artists and designers really responding to these changes with, almost kind of elation in a lot of cases,” says Nickless. “I think it’s ironic, in a way. You’re looking back and seeing how these visions are being used.”

Painting, “Transparent Sierra City,” c. 1930 Rinaldo Cuneo (American, 1877–1939) San Francisco, California. Oil on canvas. The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection at Wolfsonian-FIU. (Photo courtesy of Wolfsonian-FIU)

The show is split into three sections in roughly chronological order, which takes into account the move from the agrarian and rural to the industrial and urban. “The Natural World” is the start with traditional scenes of mountains, forests, and farmland. Soon, in “The Built Environment,” industry begins to take over, and the wild landscapes are replaced with factories, skyscrapers, and cityscapes. Barisione in particular refers to one painting, one by Norman Wilkinson showing a power station with massive smokestacks rising above a riverbank.

“I see them as the new monuments in the landscape,” says Nickless.

The show also does away with the idea that a proper landscape has to be a flat, two-dimensional image. Plenty of other objects feature in the show, demonstrating the genre’s use in applied arts and design. The biggest and most impressive of them all is a Baldwin baby grand piano created for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, carved ornately from mahogany by Clement J. Barnhorn and featuring side panels painted by Joseph Henry Gest. There are a few ceramics, including a George Schreiber vase depicting Manhattan skyscrapers and an ornate Wedgwood vase with a Chinoiserie dragon-and-temple motif.

Piano, American Art Piano, 1904. For the 1904 St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition Joseph Henry Gest (American, 1859–1935), painter Clement J. Barnhorn (American, 1857–1935), sculptor Baldwin Piano Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, manufacturer Mahogany, paint, metal, ivory. The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection at Wolfsonian-FIU. (Photo courtesy of Wolfsonian-FIU)

The Wedgwood take on Oriental themes contrasts well with an object of actual Asian origin, one with a much darker subtext: An ornately painted black kimono from Imperial Japan depicting the invasion of Manchuria. Part of the Wolfsonian’s collection of propaganda kimonos, it features a soldier on a white horse waving the Japanese “rising sun” flag, today considered a symbol of the country’s militarist past equated by some with the Nazi swastika. Several other objects in the show feature political undertones, from Works Progress Administration murals to a souvenir plate showing Adolf Hitler’s Bavarian chalet. Nickless says the museum aims to encourage people to explore the intent behind these artworks.

Kimono, Cavalry Officer in China, 1930s Japan. Painted and embroidered silk, metal thread. Gift of Erik Jacobsen at Wolfsonian-FIU. (Photo courtesy of Wolfsonian-FIU)

“That’s another layer that, when you’re looking at each of these images, you kind of have to try and figure out a little bit. Like ‘Okay, what was the purpose of this image? Was it used to promote an idea? To promote an agenda? Is it the underlying message of a national entity, or of a corporate entity?’”

Painting, “La bataille pour la ville” (“The Battle for the City”), 1944. Raymond Daussy (French, 1918–2010) Paris. Oil on canvas. The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection at Wolfsonian–Florida International University. (Photo courtesy of Wolfsonian-FIU)

It’s the show’s third part, “The Battle for the Land,” which perhaps feels the most prescient to our era. Artists begin to contend with the dark side of industry and progress, the continent-spanning wars that dominated the early 20th century. Artists like Raymond Daussy depict cities in ruins; others show the effects of human progress on the surrounding landscape. One by Virginia Beresford shows a man looking upon a gnarled, dead tree in the midst of a barren field; skyscrapers rising in the distance behind it.

“Our founder Mickey Wolfson was always looking at the iconography of the defoliated tree,” says Nickless, “how it’s almost a symbol of degradation of the land.”

WHAT: “The Big World: Alternative Landscapes in the Modern Era”

 WHEN: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday. Opens Thursday, Sept. 21 through Sunday, June 2, 2024.

 WHERE: The Wolfsonian-FIU, 1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach

 COST: $12 for adults; $8 for students with ID, seniors, and children ages 6 to 18. Free for Florida residents; students, faculty, and staff of the State University System of Florida; children under six; disabled visitors and caregivers; and museum members.

 INFORMATION: 305-531-1001 or  wolfsonian.org

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.

Meet the purveyors of Miami’s printmakers row

Ingrid Schindall moved her IS Projects from Fort Lauderdale to Miami’s Little River-Little Haiti neighborhood not far from Tom Virgin’s Extra Virgin Press. (Photo courtesy of Brooke Frank)

Finding workspace can be a challenge for South Florida artists, especially when one’s practice requires an etching press, book-making equipment or letterpress. But Miami is in luck. Settled into the Little River-Little Haiti area are two exciting options: Tom Virgin, local artist, art teacher, professor and master printmaker, runs Extra Virgin Press on NW 2nd Avenue, where he works with fellow artists, writers, poets and the community. IS Projects, formerly in Fort Lauderdale, is nestled on NW 73rd Street, in a capacious space where artist-owner Ingrid Shindall offers a suite of printmaking, workshop and book arts opportunities to local artists, artisans and to the book-making and print-curious.

Both shops have letterpresses and join a few other letterpress shops in the area. Yet outside of university settings, it’s difficult to find the kind of operations that Virgin and Shindall oversee.

One of the most engaging aspects of printmaking is the materiality of the medium: the thickness and feel of the paper; the smell of the inks, the hand and arm movements when cutting woodblocks or turning the press wheel.

Virgin’s studio is all about actual and metaphorical light. Rays from a skylight illuminate the well-ordered space where woodcut prints adorn the walls. His two letterpress machines are placed diagonally in order to optimize the space. Flat files and drying racks are against the walls and a mellow wood cabinet sits close to his desk.

Miami printmaker Tom Virgin at Red Dragonfly Press at the Anderson Center at Tower View in Red Wing, Minn. (Photo courtesy of Scott King/Red Dragonfly Press)

“I always wanted to make art,” says Virgin, who grew up in Michigan, where his art odyssey began with the study of painting and printmaking. He then moved to South Florida where he earned a BFA from Florida Atlantic University and an MFA with a printmaking focus at the University of Miami. Afterward, Virgin taught at area schools, universities and colleges, while crafting a career as a fine artist. He is represented in private and public collections, and has won numerous awards and grants. He opened his current shop in 2017, in a building close to and owned by the Emerson Dorsch gallery principals, longtime supporters of Virgin and his vision.

“There is a huge community that makes this place exist, and that has made this little letterpress into a small community press,” Virgin said. Groups, like O Miami Poetry Festival, and Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator come to Virgin, and he often also donates his time, energy and his artwork. He is deeply invested in collaborations with other artists, writers and poets on art books – sumptuous volumes with thick creamy papers, combining words and images. “I am a bookworm, and a lot of what I’ve been doing has been books,” he said, noting that he also teaches book arts, including how to print, sew and bind them. “Books have been part of my practice for a long time.”

Still, his print work is unmistakable, with wry humor and masterful use of deep and shallow space. Hanging on the wall is “13 Views of Mount Hood: Through Downtown,”  homage to storied Japanese master printmakers Hokusai and Hiroshige, which conjure thoughts of nature and the civilization built upon it.

“13 Views of Mount Hood: Through Downtown,” 2010, woodcut print on Okawara, by Tom Virgin, one in a series of 13 prints that were made in an artists residency at Oregon College of Art and Craft as an homage to Hokusai and Hiroshige, heroes of print. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Only four miles away, IS Projects has a dedicated book-making area that Gutenberg might envy. Schindall moved to Miami from her Fort Lauderdale space when her rental building was slated for demolition. Reaching out to friends and colleagues, she came upon Matthew Vander Werff and Ashley Melisse Abess, principals of MVW Partners, which had assembled a group of properties in the Little River area. The Miami-based real estate firm’s focus is on urban culture which honors the neighborhood and attracts interesting and diverse tenants in the arts, retail and restaurant spaces.

“IS Projects was a natural fit for the neighborhood as Ingrid offers so much to the community from an education, gallery and fine art perspective,” MVW commented by email. “Historically we have rented studio spaces to local artists and current tenants include Dalé Zine, Bill Brady, Kelly Breeze and Brian Butler.”

In 2021, AJ Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in MVW Partners’ Little River portfolio. Local talent is a priority for both parties, according to MVW, who also said that Schindall was connected to MVW Partners via current tenants and friends of the neighborhood.

“It was very Cinderella the way it all came together,” says Schindall. Over a month, she and her team moved several letterpresses, including a behemoth Heidelberg, screen printing equipment, and a papercutter large enough to hold a seance on. The doors opened in June of 2022.

Tom Virgin, “Seaoats (Uniola paniculata),” Diptych Relief print on Chinese paper with gold leaf, (Photo courtesy of the artist)

It’s been a journey for Schindall. A Delray Beach native, she studied art with a focus on printmaking at The Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and had several residencies, including an apprenticeship in South Africa at David Krut Arts Resource before deciding to return to South Florida.

A contemporary artist whose main medium is prints and books, she explores both. One small area of the space is reserved for her work. On the wall is one of her recent works that deals with an issue close to her heart: the ocean.

Titled “Best Laid Plans,” folds of found water management surveys, with the ocean imagery screen-printed on top, cascade downward, toward a poem written by Schindall. It’s somewhere between a print and an artists’ book.

“My current work is exploring the material language of the book as a signifier or authority – that is where the book structure comes from: The imagery and the message, there are a lot of different ways it can be interpreted,” she says.

“Best Laid Plans” references Ingrid Schindall’s concerns and thoughts about the ocean. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

The surface of the ocean has multiple meanings for Schindall. It is meditative and gives rise to ideas of self-reflection. And, as global warming accelerates, the ocean is increasingly an urgent environmental focus.

Schindall is not afraid to push the traditional boundaries of her craft, while repurposing discarded materials, like the old blueprints.

“I’ve been playing around with the idea of printmaking as a practice of tool making that makes particular marks,” she says. “I love making tools, I love making things that can do other things.” That fascination comes naturally. As a child, much of her after-school time was spent with her grandmother, Signy Schindall, who ran a business buying and selling antique dolls. Many afternoons were spent restringing miniature arms and legs, she recalls.

The range of offerings at IS is broad. Along with lessons there are classes, and the space can be rented for private events. There are residencies and internships, while Schindall and her team work with other artists on special editions of prints and books.

Ingrid Schindall and Amanda Linares next to type cabinets at IS Projects (Photo courtesy of Johnny Zhang)

Both Virgin and Schindall provide a range of traditional commercial services, such as creating posters, business cards, invitations and signage. Schindall’s commercial business is named Nocturnal Press.

The printmakers have positioned themselves in an ever-expanding artists community that will eventually be home to Oolite Arts, which evolved from Art Center South Florida. Oolite will move from its Lincoln Road space in Miami Beach to a new 26,850 feet campus on NW 72nd Street, where it will offer artist studios, residency and community programs, and art classes.

WHAT: Extra Virgin Press

WHEN:  9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment

WHERE: 5920 NW Second Avenue, Miami

INFORMATION: 786-385-3838 or extravirginpress.com

 WHAT:  IS Projects

WHEN: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m., Tuesday through Friday: by appointment Saturday and Sunday

 WHERE: 290 NW 73rd Street, Miami

INFORMATION: 305-646-1065 or isprojectsfl.com

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.

Ernest Withers’ Exhibit Captures Legacy in Photos of Black History

Women with signs denouncing segregation photographed by Ernest Withers during the Civil Rights Movement are part of a free exhibition in Opa-locka at The Arts and Recreation Center through Thursday, Aug. 31. (Photo courtesy of Ten North Group)

History can be erased or obscured if nothing is done to prevent it. This is particularly true for Black history. And this is where Ernest Withers’ photography steps in.

“It provides historical truth and visual proof that African-American history and its culture are important,” says Rosalind Withers, Ernest’s daughter and director of the Withers Collection Museum & Gallery in Memphis.

Now in its final week, through Thursday, Aug. 31, Withers’ photography is on display at The Arts and Recreation Center (The ARC), in Opa-locka, in an exhibition titled “Flash Points: The Photography of Ernest C. Withers.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., left, and Rev. Ralph Abernathy riding the first desegregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, on Dec. 21, 1956. (Courtesy of Ten North Group)

Curated by Ten North Group, in partnership with Rosalind Withers, the exhibit showcases 41 original photographs by Memphis-born African-American photojournalist, Ernest C. Withers, who extensively documented pivotal moments of the Civil Rights Movement.

Born in 1922, he died at the age of 85 in October 2007 in Memphis. The exhibition is representative of his 60-year career and features striking images from the nation’s Civil Rights battles, including the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56; the Poor People’s campaign; Tent City in Fayette County, Tennessee; the Memphis sanitation strike; and the 1955 Sumner, Mississippi, murder trial of Emmett Till.

“These images reflect people and communities at the precipice and center of change. We see people actively working towards resisting oppression. Working towards self-preservation in a world that has discarded, discounted, and devalued them,” says Joel Diaz, director of the Ten North Arts Foundation and the co-curator of “Flash Points.”

Highlighting how Withers’ work shaped the visual narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, Diaz says that Withers’ images capture the intimate portraits of the Southern landscape during the Civil Rights era. Many of the moments are documented in large part because of Withers’ photography, he adds.

“In Flash Points,” Diaz continues, “the images–presented alongside one another–provide a chronology of the events that ushered forward new experiences for Black Southern people. The black and white film photographs hold emotive sensitives, tensions, and commemorations- that together offer a visual language of the era.”

The exhibit focuses on historical moments that ignited actions and ultimately influenced outcomes within the Civil Rights Movement. It features images of Tent City in Fayette County, Tenn., which was the result of voter registration/suppression efforts in the city that led to the evictions of many of Fayette County’s Black residents.

“Flash Points” also features images of the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the Memphis Thirteen, a group of 13 African American first graders who integrated Memphis schools in 1961. The exhibit also showcases photographs depicting the aftermath of 14-year-old Emmett Till’s murder in 1955. He was kidnapped, tortured and lynched, his body dumped from the Tallahatchie River Bridge in Mississippi. Withers stood as one of the few photographers to visually record the trial proceedings.

The “Flash Points: The Photography of Ernest C. Withers” exhibit is happening in a particular context for Black history in Florida.

Rosalind Withers at the opening of “Flash Points The Photography of Ernest C. Withers,” at the The Arts and Recreation Center (The ARC), Opa-Locka. (Photo courtesy Ten North Group)

“Currently, the Florida state governor has made it clear that African-American history and culture should not be taught in any educational platform to the constituents of his state. He feels that African-American history is not significant,” says Rosalind Withers, the famous photographer’s daughter. “That’s not the case. This exhibit is clearly to exemplify the importance of letting the public know that this history exists, that this is not just African-American history, it is American history.”

In February of 2011, Rosalind Withers established the Withers Collection Museum & Gallery with the purpose of safeguarding her father’s pictorial legacy.

Rosalind goes on to explain the importance of imagery and how it can change the course of history, even today, citing the example of the George Floyd video that went viral two years ago and sparked protests around the world.

“Imagery,” she explains, “is profoundly important. It is something that is etched in people’s minds. And when you get that etched in people’s minds, it’s not something that is erased. It’s something that is retained. And the world in which we live in today, that world lives on imagery.”

For Rosalind Withers, hosting the exhibition in Miami, particularly in a state where these events might not be widely acknowledged as significant, holds immense importance. “Sharing these images becomes crucial as visual representation aids people in retaining the memory of these pivotal events that shaped the trajectory of history,” she says.

Ernest Withers’ lens not only documented the Civil Rights Movement but also immortalized legendary figures in the realms of entertainment and sports. Within the music industry, he captured artists who were then striving to establish themselves, including Al Green, Tina Turner, B. B. King, and Isaac Hayes. His portfolio extended to the world of sports, encompassing shots of Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Charley Pride, and the players of the Negro league baseball.

Photographer Ernest C. Withers. (Photo courtesy of The Withers Collection Museum and Gallery)

While the Flash Points exhibition features only 41 images from Ernest Withers’ body of work, it’s important to note that the collection of the Civil Rights Movement photographer is quite extensive since it spans over six decades.

Rosalind Withers, entrusted with the guardianship of her father’s legacy, shares that the collection encompasses a minimum of 1.8 million images. Only a fraction of these images, specifically less than one percent amounting to around 17,000 photographs, have been digitized to date.

“For me personally, when I first got the responsibility as being his trustee, I had to walk into the room where his whole body of work was. And it was just very daunting. You walked in there, it just looked like a mass of material that was just everywhere, and it was endless,” she says.

Rosalind Withers concludes that photography is important because it is proof that history happened, and it can’t be erased. Citing the account of the Black Wall Street massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she said there was an attempt to bury history in this case. And it was successful for some time. The massacre began during Memorial Day weekend in 1921 in Tulsa. It wasn’t until 1996, that the Oklahoma legislature authorized a formal investigation into the events.

Emmett Till’s uncle, Moses Wright and his friend in Mississippi, circa 1955. (Photo courtesy of The Withers Collection Museum and Gallery)

“But guess what? There were some photographs that were found, and those photographs helped to bring that story to life. And that’s the beauty of this body of work. You can say that our history is not important, but when we have proof of our history, you can’t erase it.”

“Flash Points: The Photography of Ernest C. Withers” is a traveling exhibition that has been showcased in various American cities, such as Memphis, Tenn., Jackson, Miss., and New York, New York. It has also been displayed internationally, including in countries like Brazil and England. In Miami, the exhibit opened on Saturday, June 17, and closes on Friday, Aug. 31.

 WHAT: “Flash Points: The Photography of Ernest C. Withers” 

WHEN: Through Thursday, Aug. 31

WHERE: The Arts and Recreation Center (The ARC), 675 Ali Baba Ave,, Opa-locka

COST: Free

INFORMATION: 305-687-3545 or  olcdc.org/flash-points

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.

Live Arts Miami Blends Art, Immersive Installations and Tech at Superblue

“Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together, Transcending” (Photo courtesy of Superblue Miami)

Calling it a testament to the “power of collaboration” and “the transformation nature of art,” Kathryn Garcia, executive director of Live Arts Miami, says a partnership between the organization and experimental art hub, Superblue Miami in Allapattah, is meant to be an adventure, both for the artists and the audience.

The experience, which will fuse live arts and immersive installations and technology takes place at various times on Saturday, Aug. 12 and Sunday, Aug. 13 and on Saturday, Aug. 19 and Sunday, Aug. 20.

Garcia says it is a new kind of art experience that combines dance and world music in an immersive art setting.

“I think it’s good practice to get ‘out of your box’ as often as you can. Trying something new, experimenting – it takes you on a journey outside of the familiar which can lead you to some really beautiful places if you are open to the adventure,” says Garcia.

Live Arts Miami is part of Miami-Dade College’s Cultural Affairs division.

The series begins on Saturday, Aug. 12 with a performance by choreographer Mike Tyus, along with collaborator Luca Renzi. Tyus has worked with Cirque du Soleil and joined Pilobolus Dance Dance Theater in 2013 as well as is one of the founding members of Jacob Jonas The Company. His work combines circus theater, acrobatics, ballet and Greco-Roman wrestling, originating from techniques and styles from his experience.

The Live Arts Miami-Superblue experience is set against the backdrop of Superblue’s “Pulse Topology” exhibit, an installation created by Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer known for his participatory installations. Consisting of 3,000 suspended light bulbs, Lozano-Hemmer’s works are activated by participants’ real-time biometric data such as their heartbeats, breaths, voices or fingerprints.

“Pulse Topology,” an installation by Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. (Photo courtesy of Superblue Miami)

According to Shantelle Rodriguez, Director of Experiential Art Centers at Superblue, which opened in Allapatah in 2021, the space invites visitors to participate actively in completing the artwork, adding an engaging dimension to the overall artistic encounter.

Rodriguez says the exhibitions are constantly evolving and meant to offer visitors a myriad of perspectives in the center’s four rooms. “We often say there are four rooms and 1,000 ways to experience them.”

She says that with the addition of Live Arts Miami, the works will activate in a new way . . . “taking audiences on journey, blurring the lines between performer and spectator, and creating an intimate and transformative encounter with these works.”

There is potential, she says, in integrating Live Arts’ performances with their exhibitions.

“The combination of the immersive installations with added elements of music and dance will be a feast for the senses,” says Garcia.

“Universe of Water Particles and Flowers and People.” (Photo courtesy of Superblue Miami)

Tyus says he is excited to experience what Lozano-Hemmer has created. “I imagine that it will be the perfect setting for the work as our heartbeat will elevate throughout the performance and will constantly affect the way the lights pulse. Aesthetically speaking it will transport the audience into another world – one of light movement and sound.”

The following weekend, Tyrus will return to the avant-garde art hub with an ensemble of Miami-based dancers. Within the vast teamLab 3D exhibition titled “Between Life and Non-Life,” they will interlace intricate patterns and mesmerizing formations. Each performance will be tailored to complement the specific exhibition and its sensory activations, announce the organizers.

“Between Life and Non-Life” features several works by the interdisciplinary collective of artists, programmers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects fascinated by humans’ engagement with the natural world. In the interconnected digital works, users are meant to see, in real-time, their impact on nature, whether that be changing the spray of a digital waterfall or stepping on rendered flowers that wither and die.

Tyus says that his ambition is  to explore novel avenues of movement creation, “and find unique ways to tumble, ripple, push, fall, and fly through space, using our extensive partnering background to combine human bodies in a way that ignites curiosity and wonder.”

The series will also feature a concert by Jobarteh, who comes from a lineage of West African Griots. A virtuoso on the kora, a traditional West African string instrument, and with a soul-stirring voice, she will also perform in the settings of the “Pulse Topology” installation.

“I hope we’ve been able to create something extraordinary, a one-of-a-kind experience that audiences will remember, one that will transport them out of the ordinary into something spectacular,” says Garcia.

WHAT: Live Arts Miami at Superblue

WHERE: Superblue Miami, 1101 N.W. 23rd St., Miami.

WHEN: Mike Tyus Dance in “Pulse Topology” exhibit: noon, 2, 4 and 6 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 12 and Sunday, Aug. 13. Also, 1, 3 and 5 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 19 and Sunday, Aug. 20; Mike Tyus and Company Group Dance in teamLab exhibit, noon, 2, 4 and 6 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 19 and Sunday, Aug. 20. Sona Jobarteh Concert: 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 19.

COST:  For Mike Tyus show, tickets start at $39 for adults , and $32 for children (ages 3-12) at superblue.com 

For Sona Jobarteh, tickets start at $50 at liveartsmiami.org and eventbrite.com

INFORMATION: 786-697-3405 or superblue.com

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 artburstmiami.com.

The Vibration and Color of Jesús Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez at Coral Gables Museum

In Carlos Cruz-Diez’s physichromies, the colors of the stripes are perceived differently according to the angle at which they are observed. “Physicromie 2203,” mixed media (1987), is part of the exhibition of Cruz-Diez’s and Jesús Rafael Soto’s work at the Coral Gables Museum. (Photo courtesy of Ana María Carrano)

They were both born in Venezuela in 1923. Each moved to Paris where they would live and eventually die. Both explored color, light, movement, optical illusions, and interaction with the viewer. They developed monumental works into architecture and are internationally recognized as masters of kinetic art.

Two museums in Venezuela bear their names: the Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art in Ciudad Bolívar and the Carlos Cruz-Diez Museum of Stamp and Design in Caracas.

On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jesús Rafael Soto (June 5, 1923 – Jan. 14, 2005) and Carlos Cruz-Diez (Aug. 17, 1923 – July 27, 2019), the Coral Gables Museum organized the exhibition “Masters that Transformed the City” as a tribute to them.

In the center of the room of the exhibition at the Coral Gables Museum, “Masters that Changed the City,” is the “Penetrable azul de Valencia” (1999) by Jesús Soto. Wood and PVC tubes. (Photo courtesy of Ana María Carrano)

“We decided to hold the exhibition because these artists have worked on art linked to the city and architecture, which aligns with the museum’s focus,” says curator Yuni Villalonga. The exhibition showcases the “most important stages and significant explorations” of these creators, adds Adriana Meneses, member of the board of directors of the Coral Gables Museum.

In the center of the exhibition hall, is “Penetrable azul de Valencia,” created by Soto in 1999. The artwork is a semi-transparent blue volume formed by the repetition of flexible PVC tubes hanging vertically from a rectangular platform. Upon entering the installation, your body moves the blue fibers, generating optical vibrations. In this way, motion becomes visible.

Soto began developing this type of installation in the mid-1960s and created over 30 “penetrables.” He presented the first one in 1967 at the Denise René Gallery in Paris, accompanied by a performance by the dancer Sonia Sanoja, dressed in a mesh of vertical stripes that seemed to vibrate when viewed through the rods of the installation.

In Soto’s pieces, a poetic space is created between the viewer and the artwork. As the perception of vibration is triggered by movement, a subtle fragment of the atmosphere seems to transform before our eyes.

This optical experience occurs in all the artist’s works selected for the exhibition. It is a vibration that is present in all stages of his work (whether from the ’60s or the ’90s) and through the materials used to construct them, which range from nylon, wood, metal, plaster, to plexiglass.

“Gran Tríptico Amarillo” (1968), by Jesús Soto. (Photo courtesy by Ana María Carrano)

In my case, I had the opportunity to interview Carlos Cruz-Diez in 1998 at his home in Caracas. It was an assignment for the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. “Every work of art should provoke astonishment,” he told me.

Cruz-Diez explained to me that in his structures, “color is revealed through concealment. It goes from a monochrome situation –through many processes of perception, psychology of vision, light– to another monochrome situation. The fact that you can perceive that this color is there, that it appears and disappears, that you can look at it, provokes that principle (of astonishment).”

That’s why, to fully appreciate his “physichromies” – pieces filled with stripes of colors– one needs to walk through them and discover how the hues change with each step. How they blend to show an ambiguous reality with colors that do not exist in the artwork but are only revealed through movement.

“Transcromía Cilíndrica Miami, París” (2012) by Carlos Cruz-Diez. Acrylic and aluminum. (Photo courtesy of Ana María Carrano)

“My work is humanity itself. Color, line, represents a cell of humanity,” I recall hearing him say. “I represent a cell that, when multiplied, is the essence of humanity.”

Around Soto’s blue penetrable, the other pieces by both artists are displayed, six of each in total, as well as an educational panel with documentary videos. Which, although the exhibition’s name refers to the changes these masters brought to cities around the world, the few references about the influence of their works is only found within the documentaries.

Villalonga, however, asserts that among the efforts made by the Coral Gables Museum for the exhibition was the restoration of the pedestrian crosswalks designed by Cruz-Diez for the city of Coral Gables and, which were implemented in late 2017. “The experience will begin from the outside. It was something we wanted, to bring the exhibition a bit closer to the city,” says Villalonga, emphasizing that Cruz-Diez was a scholar of color theories.

Pedestrian crosswalk (2017) by Carlos Cruz-Diez. Coral Gables City Hall, Le Jeune Rd. and Coral Way. (Photo courtesy of Ana María Carrano)

Located just a few blocks from the museum, on the streets Le Jeune, Biltmore Way, Aragon, Salzedo, and Coral Way, the crosswalks are integrated artworks within the urban landscape, displaying the creator’s chromatic scheme.

The curator adds that Soto and Cruz-Diez were artists who were observing the laws of nature and the universe. Villalonga also points out that among their fundamental contributions are the “perception of color and movement, volume, and viewer participation.”

“It’s a joyful exhibition, one that will leave you with a smile,” says Meneses, “not only because of the color and energy that the pieces transmit but also because it allows you to enjoy and play. I believe that’s what it will convey, and the audience will leave content, eager to come back.”

WHAT: Masters that Changed the City: A Tribute to Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz Diez on their Centennial.

 WHERE: Coral Gables Museum, 285 Aragon Ave, Coral Gables

 WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Through Oct. 22, 2023

 COST: $12, $8 students and seniors, and $5 children aged 7 to 12. Military personnel and children up to 6 years old can enter for free.

 INFO: coralgablesmuseum.org and 305-603-8067

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.

Traditional Rituals and Current Violations Meet in Jee Park’s Dimensions Variable Show

Jee Park’s “Chrystie Street,” which references the murder of 35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee, is part of the artist’s exhibition “Close to Home” opening at Dimensions Variable on Saturday, July 29. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

In Korea, when someone dies and is prepared for burial, family members dress the departed in a garment called a suui. Made of hemp, it is part of a tradition that artist Jee Park knew she wanted to contemplate and explore in her art.

The practice is a key part of Park’s exhibit “Close to Home,” which opens Saturday, July 29 at Dimensions Variable. The show brings into conversation the suui custom with the violent attacks against Asian-Americans in the United States over the last several years. Using fabric, wood, paint and other media, Park’s work asks what is left when a life is taken, especially when it is snatched away by a deranged gunman or hate-filled attacker.

“That could be my aunt, a friend, or me.”

Jee Park in her Allapatah studio. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Her work particularly references the 2021 shooting of eight people, six of whom were Asian American women, at Atlanta-area spas. “That incident shook me to the core,” says Park.

It wasn’t the only outrage that affected her. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino and others of Asian background or descent were targeted during the pandemic and beyond. They include the 2022 murder of 35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee, who was followed and stabbed to death in her own home, on Chrystie Street in New York’s Chinatown. “Chrystie Street” is the title of one of Park’s Dimensions Variable installations.

Park grew up in Seoul, and went to an art-focused high school, then attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City. The relocation wasn’t easy, especially in the beginning.  “I think I understood 50 percent of what was going on in the classroom.” She began exploring beyond the medium of painting, eventually moving into fiber and a melding of surface and frame. “At the same time I was more free – it’s very structured in Korea.”

She later earned her master’s degree at NYU. Park moved to South Florida with her partner and fellow artist Clara Varas in 2000. During a visit to her Allapattah studio, where she was preparing work for the upcoming show, Park explains how she began exploring ideas around grief, remembrance and anxiety after the death of her father five years ago. “Those feelings intensified during the pandemic,” she says, and grew more insistent because of the gun violence epidemic that has roiled the United States over the last few years.

Installation view detail, Jee Park, 2023. Elements in her work reference everyday life. “Close to Home” opens at Dimensions Variable on Saturday, July 29. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“Chrystie Street,” combines a variety of fabrics – muslin, gingham and pieces of clothing – attached to a wooden frame. There are fragments of lingerie, the arm of a T-shirt and a hand-crafted sock similar to that used in the suui dressing. In the front of her studio, Park has a pair of Singer sewing machines where she transforms with fabric the memory of lives, now flattened, stretched and deconstructed.

The work “reminds me they may be wearing something, working every day, not knowing their lives are going to be cut short,” Park said. “I wanted to capture the everyday lives, and that we never know when they are going to be taken away by some crazy hate crime.” Swaths of gingham bring to mind picnics, and pretty domestic aprons. A box stuffed with a pillow speaks to the confinement experienced during the pandemic.

Park has garnered recognition as an Oolite Arts’ Ellies Creative Award winner, and has been shown in a number of galleries, particularly in South Florida and New York. Frances Trombly and Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova co-founded Dimensions Variable in 2009, after deciding to create a project space where they could welcome other artists. They have known Park for some time, meeting her first through her partner, Varas, who has also had a show at Dimensions Variable.

From left, Holding, Folding, and Opening, 2023, Installation view, Dimensions Variable. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Rodriguez-Casanova notes that he and Trombly use elements, including fabric and found objects that are in harmony with Park’s work.

“Her work speaks to both me and my partner,” says Rodriguez-Casanova, who added that Park’s creations have a soft and subtle feel. “It is really using a very light palette with infusions of color,” he says, adding that Park’s work “is very personal to her,” bringing up issues of loss and grief, relatable to many people.

WHAT: Close to Home, Jee Park solo project at Dimensions Variable,

WHEN: Opening reception, Saturday, July 29, 6 to 9 p.m. runs through September 2023. Open Thursday and Friday, noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment.

WHERE: Dimensions Variable, 101 NW 79th St., Miami

INFORMATION: 305-606-0058 or  305-607-5527 and dimensionsvariable.net

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.