Locust Projects presents ‘Made by Dusk’ installation

Miami-based artist Mette Tommerup, in front of one of the gilded canvases that are part of the “Made by Dusk” installation at Locust Projects. (Photo courtesy of Pedro Wazzan)

Mette Tommerup’s large-scale installation at Miami’s Locust Projects isn’t meant to merely exist. Her installations evolve through the visitors who interact with them, the space they are in, and the process that was used to create them, from inception to completion.

“Made by Dusk” is the last of a trilogy of installations that follow the pilgrimage of 40-by-12-foot canvases created in natural environments. Originally scheduled to be on display through Jan. 23, it has now been extended until Feb. 13.

The canvases in “Made by Dusk,” perched on the gallery walls, show video projections of the Miami-based artist on the roof of the Locust Projects building throwing canvases off the sides and pulling canvases back up onto the roof.

“You are surrounded by videos of what it would be like to be on top of the building,” she says. “It is supposed to take you away.”

The projections – which videographer Pedro Wazzan shot from above at twilight, using a camera on a drone – document Tommerup’s process: how she “liberates” her canvases before they enter into a gallery space.

“For the first time, I was able to document pulling up all of the work onto the roof of the building and then, consequently, tossing the work down,” she says.

“Why would I want to toss the canvas? The idea was to expose the work to the natural element of the time of the show: dusk. Floating it through the air, and the canvas being exposed to the night sky.”

The canvases in “Made by Dusk” went through a process of applied acrylic paint in gold and gray.

Mette Tommerup liberates one of the “Made by Dusk” canvases, as she tosses it off the side of the Locust Projects building at dusk. (Photo courtesy of Pedro Wazzan)

“Sometimes I use bundles of canvas and the canvases become the brush and I dip them in paint and then drag them, almost like dragging a body,” she says.

She puts the canvases through a number of paces in order to subject them to the elements. For “Dusk,” the canvases were put outside at twilight to soak in the timing, or she would do the handling of the canvases at that time.

This has been Tommerup’s process for all of the pieces in her three-year trilogy, which touches on the elements of water, earth and air.

The first installment, 2018’s “Ocean Loop,” showed at the Emerson Dorsch Gallery in Little Haiti. The artist strung small oil paintings of the sea and submerged them in the ocean. Some broke free and disappeared, and the ones she reeled in were discolored and tattered by saltwater.

“I’m interested in thinking of the paintings themselves as if they have their own agency,” she says. “They are independent of me, and they are breathing and alive – off on an adventure out of the blue.”

The following year’s “Love, Ur,” which also showed at Emerson Dorsch, focused on the Earth. Tommerup buried the canvases. She crushed them into the ground, immersing them to create whatever the environment would “paint” on the canvas. After they made their way into the exhibition space, visitors were encouraged to drape themselves in the canvases or roll around in them, if they pleased.

Tommerup says she admires the work of the late 1960s and early ’70s – obviously influenced by the Fluxus artists of that time, a group of avant-gardes whose art was meant to be social and participatory rather than something to be viewed.

“I’m really interested about ideas that were brought forth in that time period that have to do with the dematerialization of the art object – what happens when you strip away everything down to only the idea behind the object,” she says.

The stepping-off point for “Made by Dusk” is Locust Projects’ emphasis on strong female artists for its 2020-2021 exhibition season, in conjunction with 2020 marking the centennial of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.

A video projection shows the artist working the canvas in “Made by Dusk.” (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

“I am from a culture where women traditionally have been a lot more liberated and empowered than women in other places in the world, including the States for sure,” says Tommerup, who is originally from a small coastal town in Denmark. (She came to the United States to attend college in western Pennsylvania, then made her way to New York before settling in Miami in the 1990s.)

For “Made by Dusk,” she was inspired by Freya, the Nordic goddess of love, beauty and transformation who cried tears of gold. Tommerup wants the conversation that evolves from “Made by Dusk” and the influence of Freya to be “fueled by this otherworldly force, this divine entity. I needed something in the supernatural to work around for this project,” she confides.

“I wanted to bring in from another dimension a liberated, free-spirited entity.”

While the installation was in the works before the COVID-19 pandemic, its gilded and womblike atmosphere has added a place of refuge during a time of forced pause due to the coronavirus. “Made by Dusk” invites viewers to pause, but on their own terms.

The entrance to the exhibition is inspired by divine rays, a bit like a halo, ushering visitors into a space that at once is ancient but also post-modern. There are wooden benches suspended from the ceiling, and visitors are invited to sit and hover in time and space, bathed in golden light.

“With their feet slightly off the ground, the participant can locate an equilibrium that is empowering, disorienting and a place of contemplation,” Tommerup says. “The goal is to encourage a sense of liberation and restoration in this troubling time.”

These participatory elements of the exhibition are an essential part of the experience, she says.

During Miami Art Week, the first activation, “Liminal,” was viewed from Locust Projects’ parking lot. Starting at twilight, the performance included video projections of the massive canvases cascading down the side of the building. Blocks of dry ice were placed at the base, and attendees were encouraged to make a symbolic offering to Freya by dripping honey onto the dry ice.

“This created a hazy fog that captured the light and gave this cast of a warm, golden glow,” she says.

The intent went deeper than surface view: “While making the offering, they could contemplate their own wishes and desires.”

The public can view the exhibit from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, by appointment or according to walk-in capacity.

During Miami Art Week, “Luminal” invited participants to drip honey on dry ice during an activation of “Made by Dusk” at Locust Projects. (Photo courtesy of WorldRedEye)

Two additional activations were planned for January. For the Jan. 9 activation, “Ethereal,” groups of 10 were ushered, in 30-minute increments, into a space where delicate flakes of gold leaf float around. Visitors were encouraged to try to catch the weightless sheets to create a collaborative work of art.

The idea was for the gold to accumulate throughout the space as the day progressed, adding another element to the exhibition as visitors stirred up the leaves, making them dance lightly in the air before falling again, according to the Locust Projects website.

Like the liberation of her canvases, activations such as “Ethereal” are designed to let visitors feel free.

“This offers an intuitive response to engage with the piece. There are no instructions,” she says. “I’ve seen first-hand that people will just dive in.”

As part of the constant evolution of the exhibition and of Tommerup’s wish to “surrender the work to another artist,” she wants people to regularly interact with the space, something that has become difficult because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To that end, she has invited multimedia artist Danié Gómez-Ortigoza to present “To a ‘God.dess Unknown,'” from 7 to 8 p.m. Jan. 13. The performance piece, to be streamed, will explore “the process by which divinity unfolds itself from the universal to the individual in an otherworldly space and is dedicated to Freya,” according to a description by Gómez-Ortigoza. Instructions on how to join the event will be forthcoming on the Locust Projects website.

WHAT: Mette Tommerup’s “Made by Dusk”

WHEN: Through Feb. 13. Public hours of exhibition are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, by appointment and walk-in capacity.

WHERE: Locust Projects, 3852 N. Miami Ave., Miami

COST: Free

INFORMATION: 305-576-8570; Locustprojects.org

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Collector Jorge M. Pérez on his most recent art obsession and the exhibit at El Espacio 23

The exhibition, “Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection,” features “Nation of Refugees” (2017) by Christopher Myers. (Photo courtesy of El Espacio 23)

“I’ve always seen art as a way to better understand my culture and roots,” says art collector Jorge M. Pérez, who was born in Argentina to Cuban-exiled parents.

While the bulk of the South Florida real-estate developer’s vast art collection has been focused on Latin American and Caribbean works, Pérez discovered what he calls “an unexpected kinship” to African art and art of the African Diaspora.

“While I didn’t always experience a direct connection to African and African Diaspora art, that all changed once I traveled to the continent myself,” he says.

Pérez says he found many similarities to the works produced by Latin American and Caribbean artists: “Among these parallels were questions of political and social oppression, colonialism and identity, all of which were deeply embedded in many of my favorite pieces from Cuba and numerous other Latin regions.”

You can see 100 of his pieces in an exhibition titled, “Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection,” at his 1-year-old private museum, El Espacio 23 in the Allapattah neighborhood of Miami-Dade County.

The art is exceptional – and the curator behind “Witness” is, too. Zimbabwean-born Tandazani Dhlakama is assistant curator at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa. Open since 2017, it is the first major contemporary art museum in Africa.

“I met Tandazani during one of my many visits to Zeitz MOCAA, the largest museum of contemporary African art in the world. Shortly after meeting, we found we had a common passion for using art to celebrate and, more importantly, understand identities and cultures from around the world,” Pérez says.

Art collector Jorge M. Pérez says he has traveled to Africa multiple times and has developed ties to many of the local galleries and artists. (Photo courtesy of Nick Garcia Photography )

Dhlakama worked alongside Pérez’s full-time curators, Patricia M. Hanna and Anelys Alvarez, albeit from a distance because of COVID-19.

“The idea was that I would come a couple of times initially to see the space and for the installation and the opening, but unfortunately because of travel restrictions in both countries, I haven’t been able to,” she says.

Still, while it would have been wonderful to spend time in Miami, she says it didn’t affect her curating of the show.

For Dhlakama, it was a dream come true to select from “such a wide-ranging, interesting and significant collection,” she says. “That was the fun part, for sure.”

When she began to immerse herself in the collection, some narratives began to emerge, Dhlakama says.

“There were stories that were coming from an African perspective that I wanted to highlight. They all speak to this idea of witnessing in different ways,” she explains.

And so was born the name of the show, “Witness.”

The year 2020 certainly was a time to put this perspective into context, she says.

“We have all been witness to many things – some of us have been implicated knowingly or unknowingly and, regardless of what vantage point you are coming from, there’s this idea. You watch another human being murdered in nine minutes,” she says, using as an example the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police, and how the video made anyone who watched it a witness.

Curator Tandazani Dhlakama (Photo courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA)

“But what does something like that mean?” she asks.

“The work that I wanted to put in the show, to a certain extent, helps us make sense or highlights the issues,” adds Dhlakama, emphasizing that the art reflects on more than what’s happening in the present.

“There’s an important continuum around race, displacement, migration. These are not new issues. These are issues that humanity has been grappling with.”

She mentions some of the artists included in “Witness,” such as Frida Orupabo, a Norwegian with Nigerian heritage: “This is why it is subtitled, ‘Afro Perspective,’ as I don’t believe that you can talk about the African continent without talking about the African Diaspora.”

The African Diaspora refers to the many communities of people of African descent dispersed throughout the world as a result of historic movements, much of it from forced migrations due to slavery.

Sunday Service, Beaufort West Prison, 2006, Mikhael Subotzky (Photo courtesy of El Espacio 23)

“We tried to make sure that there were representations from the geopolitical space – the African Diaspora, i.e. anyone or anything that is rooted on the African continent even loosely related. A curator I looked up to once said, ‘Africa is a utopia, so why do we limit it to a physical land mass?’ ”

El Espacio 23’s artist-in-residence, Masimba Hwati, of Zimbabwe, produced a new site-specific piece for “Witness,” which explores Black identity in 1960s America.

“Of course, you can’t talk about Africa without thinking about race, and even that is complex. There are white Africans,” she says, with representation in the show by the works of multidisciplinary artist Mikhael Subotzky, a white South African born in Cape Town.

There’s also a piece by Cuban artist Carlos Martiel, “Mediterráneo,” which addresses human migrations and, in this work, the issues of Europe’s commitment and accountability for African migration.

One of the most prominent Cuban artists, KCHO (Alexis Leiva Machado), is part of Pérez’s collection, and his works will be on display at the exhibit. KCHO grew up on the small island of Isla de Pinos, Cuba, and lives and works in Havana. His subject matter is the portrayal of migration, specifically those seeking refuge by risking their lives in perilous voyages at sea.

“You can’t talk about Latin America without talking about Africa,” says Dhlakama, which circles back to Pérez’s idea about connection.

Pérez’s first trip to Africa in 2013 introduced him to the art and piqued his curiosity.

“Eventually that curiosity grew into more of an obsession,” he confides.

El Espacio 23 Artist-In-Residence Masimba Hwati at Harare Polytechnic, Zimbabwe, South Africa, 2012 (Photo courtesy of Baynham Goredema, baynham@xealos.com)

Pérez says he has traveled to Africa fives time since and has developed ties to many of the local galleries and artists, “to better understand trends, and identify young up-and-comers and more.”

He also recently pledged $2.5 million worth of the African art he’s been collecting to the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), which has more than 40 of the works on display through July 1, 2021.

“Miami, in particular, stands to benefit greatly from this recent emphasis on art from African and African Diaspora artists,” says Pérez. “Many of these works serve as a window into a seemingly foreign world, one not often shown in film and television, while also highlighting the undeniable similarities between African, Latin American and Caribbean cultures, as well as the outlooks of their people.”

WHAT: “Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection”

WHEN: On display through 2021

WHERE: El Espacio 23, 2270 NW 23rd St., Miami

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: During the COVID-19 pandemic, viewings will be available by appointment only, from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. In accordance with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Miami-Dade County guidelines, face coverings are required for all visitors and staff, and hand-sanitizing stations are placed throughout all galleries. Social distancing of at least 6 feet is strictly enforced. 

COST: Free

INFORMATION: To reserve a time, and for more information about guided tours, visit Elespacio23.com or email info@elespacio23.com.  

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‘Global/Borderless Caribbean XII: Focus Miami’ to celebrate the arts

Luis Cruz Azaceta’s “Shifting States,” featuring acrylic, charcoal and white pencil on canvas, will be part of the exhibit. (Photo courtesy of Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance)

This time of year, Miami typically welcomes art lovers from around the world. However, because of the pandemic, major art fairs and exhibits such as Art Basel have been canceled.

Still, all hope is not lost. Over the past three months, some museums have reopened to the public and the arts have been making something of a comeback. Within this panorama, the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance (HCAA) is offering “Global/Borderless Caribbean XII: Focus Miami,” a series of exhibitions at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex.

From Dec. 4 through Feb. 28, artists from Miami and the Caribbean will show their works with large-scale, outdoor exhibits as well as through virtual programming.

“We are celebrating 12 years of the ‘Global Caribbean’ series this year, and it will be done on the exterior walls of the Cultural Complex,” said Edouard Duval-Carrié, the renowned Haitian-American visual artist who is the HCAA’s executive director. “We are going to cover the whole building with paintings. With material that will last for at least a year, we will present things in a way that hasn’t been done yet, I hope.”

Among the art displays will be “Local Global,” a gallery exhibit curated by Marie Vickles. The curator-in-residence at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex sees “Local Global” as a celebration of Miami and Miami artists of the African Diaspora, representing the multiplicity of histories, nationalities and ethnicities that define the region and connect it to the Caribbean.

“Many times in Miami, we probably don’t feel as special as we should. Because of COVID-19, we had to think more closely about the local,” she said. “The local has always been a strong focus at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, but this year makes it extra-special because the local is the most special thing you can highlight as a curator, a gallerist and an art community.”

Though it has had a longstanding partnership with the famed Art Basel fair since the beginning, organizers clarify that the “Global/Borderless Caribbean” series is an independent project.

The exhibits will be on-site, with the requirement of facial coverings and social distancing. However, there will also be free virtual programs – including workshops, lectures, fashions shows, live music and more – for people who don’t feel ready to attend physically or those who cannot travel, Vickles said.

Renowned Haitian-American visual artist Edouard Duval-Carrié is executive director of Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance. (Photo courtesy of HCAA)

“There are many ways to engage with the program, either physically or virtually. People can expect to be introduced to new artists that perhaps they are not aware of, connect to established artists of the African Diaspora they may not know have a local connection to Miami,” she said.

Participating artists include Tessa Mars, Joscelyn Gardner, Carl Juste, Sandro Garcia, Vickie Pierre, Francisco Maso, Vanessa Charlot, Yanira Collado, Marcus Blake, Charo Oquet and Asser Saint-Val.

Auxiliary programming on the campus and neighboring vicinity of the Little Haiti Cultural Complex will be provided by arts organizations IPC ArtSpace and Art Beat Miami. IPC ArtSpace, curated by Carl Juste, seeks to nurture connections and intersections between Haitian and Latin American artists and their communities. Meanwhile, Art Beat Miami is an annual satellite art fair presented by Little Haiti Optimist Club and Welcome to Little Haiti.

Organizers said the 2020 event is dedicated to the memory of Nigerian curator Bisi Silva, whose lifework and words are the inspiration for the “Local Global” exhibition.

Celebrating the arts during this time is important because “it speaks to everything we are going through, especially at this moment,” Vickles said. “It can help us work out all these issues that we face as humans interacting with one another, whether at an internal level, at a community level, or a political level.”

“Art is essential,” added Duval-Carrié. “As human beings, one of our common denominators is that we love and do art.”

WHAT: “Global/Borderless Caribbean XII: Focus Miami”

WHEN: On display from Dec. 4 through Feb. 28 

WHERE: Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 212 NE 59th Terrace, Miami; visitors to the physical location must RSVP at bit.ly/littlehaitiartweek.

COST: Free

INFORMATION: Email rsvplittlehaiti@gmail.com; visit Haitianculturalartsalliance.org or Littlehaiticulturalcenter.com

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MOCA North Miami makes its ‘Eternal Return’

At the center of the “The Eternal Return and The Obsidian Heart” exhibition is a life-sized carousel that circles endlessly in a performance of fantasy and delirium. (Photo courtesy of MOCA North Miami)

The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami reopened its doors to the public with an exhibition whose title fits with the moment: “The Eternal Return and The Obsidian Heart.”

Created by Mexican-born artist Raúl de Nieves, the exhibition originally was scheduled to open in April but had to wait seven months to finally be installed in the museum. It “offers a holistic look at the ways in which Raúl de Nieves rejoins the spiritual with the material in contemporary consumer culture,” says curator Risa Puleo.

The exhibit features a 14-foot-tall by 50-foot-wide installation titled “Basilio,” representing cosmic time with its depictions of planets circling the sun. There’s also a working carousel, referencing the cyclical time of Eternal Return, or “the idea that time is composed of a limited number of events that endlessly recur in different sequences and combinations,” according to the museum.

“Raúl is a very young and very prolific artist,” says the museum’s executive director, Chana Budgazad Sheldon. “His large installations joining the spiritual with the material are quite magical.”

This cosmic representation of time in colorful configurations of planets moving around the sun is part of “The Eternal Return and The Obsidian Heart.” (Photo courtesy of MOCA North Miami)

Born in 1983 in Michoacán, Mexico, and residing today in Brooklyn, the multimedia artist, performer and musician is inspired by childhood memories, growing up in a place where public religious rituals and private devotional acts involved costumes, performances and theatrical components.

“The exhibition is the first to consider the relationship between de Nieves’ sculptural work and his solo and collaborative performances, and in doing so, it also offers a comprehensive view of the artist’s practice,” Puleo says.

Safe reopening in 2020

To welcome back the community, MOCA North Miami had to comply with safety guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The museum requires social distancing and face coverings, among other measures. It has placed signage and hand sanitizer throughout the museum and implemented enhanced cleaning and disinfection protocols.

Typically, a reception accompanies the museum’s vernissages, but not this time.

“There was nothing special, it was just about bringing the art back in the museum [and] opening our doors,” Sheldon says. “We just installed the artworks in a way everyone can socially distance and enjoy the exhibition.”

The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami is enforcing safety guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in order to welcome back its public. (Photo courtesy of Greater Miami and the Beaches)

‘Art on the Plaza’

While closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MOCA North Miami kept busy with an initiative known as “Art on the Plaza.”

From June 15 to Sept. 30, passersby had the opportunity to peruse a large, black-and-white photograph displayed at the museum’s outdoor plaza, accompanied by four simple words: “I Am A Man.” A work by Miami Herald photographer Carl Juste, the image showed Elmore Nickelberry, who was part of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike of 1968, and his son, Terence, with a sign representative of those carried during the 65-day strike.

It was a powerful statement during a time of protests inspired by George Floyd, who was killed in May while being arrested by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

“It was a way for us to bring artwork safely to the public, engage in social conversation, and connect with the community,” Sheldon says. “We had a great response to having art outside.”

This new type of programming, created during the pandemic, is here to stay, Sheldon says: “It is something that we will continue early next year. We will be commissioning local artists to create temporary artwork on MOCA Plaza.”

Executive director Chana Budgazad Sheldon says the museum received positive feedback about its outdoor programming during recent closures. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Bock)

Virtual programming

To keep in touch with the North Miami community, the museum also turned to virtual activities such as exhibitions and conversations with artists.

“We immediately pivoted to online programming, as many museums did,” Sheldon says. “Our teen, youth and family programs went virtual. That’s the way we could stay connected with the community.”

One such program, “Corporal DADE,” was a virtual exhibition exploring Miami-Dade County’s dynamic makeup. It took place from May 29 through Aug. 31, presented by interdisciplinary Miami artists including Aurora Molina, Almaz Wilson, Laura Prada, Lucia Del Sanchez, Mateo Nava, Mateo Serna Zapata, Sonia Báez-Hernández, and Susan Feliciano.

Haitian art exhibit

Up next for the North Miami museum is “Life and Spirituality in Haitian Art,” with art from Haitian painters such as Hector Hyppolite, Jacques-Enguérrand Gourgue, and Célestin Faustin. This exhibit will precede Miami Art Week.

Both this exhibit and “The Eternal Return and The Obsidian Heart” will remain on display through March 2021.

During a time like this, showcasing art is more important than ever. “Museums are able to provide a sense of community. It’s a place to reflect, especially in the time that we are in. To be part of the healing process, the transformation,” Sheldon says.

“It is wonderful to open again and welcome the community back to the museum, and to be surrounded by art again.”

The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, at 770 NE 125th St., is open from noon to 7 p.m. Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. It is closed on Mondays and major holidays. Cost is $10 for general admission; $3 for students and seniors; and free for children younger than 12, MOCA members, North Miami residents, city employees and veterans. For more information, visit Mocanomi.org or call 305-893-6211.

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MDC Museum of Art and Design is back with ‘The Body Electric’

Marta Minujín created “Simultaneidad en Simultaneidad” (1966), a collage of situations happening simultaneously and creating the illusion of “total participation.” (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Months before the pandemic that shut doors of institutions throughout the region and around the world, Rina Carvajal was scouting projects for Miami Dade College’s Museum of Art and Design (MOAD).

The museum’s executive director and chief curator discovered “The Body Electric,” an exhibition by The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis that is a searing commentary on the way technology has evolved and continues to change our lives.

She planned to bring the exhibit to MOAD in November, but she’d had no idea back then that it would mark the museum’s reopening after nearly eight months of closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Honestly, all this virus situation that we have gone through with the pandemic has shown more than ever how dependent we are on technology,” Carvajal says about the theme of “The Body Electric,” which runs through May 30 at the museum’s space in downtown Miami’s Freedom Tower.

Though not organized chronologically, the exhibition features influential artists beginning from the late 1950s through the present day.

“There is certainly, you can say, a canon of artists engaging with new technologies with the screen and exploring issues surrounding the body and identity,” says Pavel Pyś, curator of visual arts at the Walker Art Center, who first organized the exhibit. “How have artists engaged with that space between the analog and the digital, the real and the virtual, the place of the world and the space of the screen?”

Pre-pandemic, “The Body Electric” was displayed in its original Minneapolis home and at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Bringing it to Miami for display in the times of COVID-19 created challenges and opportunities. Both curators agreed that organizing the exhibition for Miami was more complex, robust and ambitious than it had been for previous venues.

Because of its subject matter, the exhibit was to be extremely interactive – but how to make it touch-free now?

“We wanted to do it in a way that was user-friendly,” Carvajal says. “We didn’t want to put apps or QR codes that people have to put on a phone or download an app. I did a lot of research just to figure out how we are going to do this, and we found the solution that was technologically easy for people, so people can enjoy the show.”

The solution: The team at MOAD created interactive elements, installing directional speakers and motion sensors to activate the digital content.

In order to support audience participation without having touch points, organizers had to adapt the space and create immersive environments by investing in new technologies and working with some of the artists to adjust their masterpieces.

“The exhibition was full of single-channel videos that would [typically] be experienced on headphones,” Pyś says.

Then there was the major installation by Trisha Baga, an incredibly immersive experience titled “Mollusca & The Pelvic Floor,” which required the use of 3-D glasses.

“There were many conversations that we had among the curatorial team in terms of how we adjust the show … but also with some of the artists in terms of adjusting their work to be shown in a way that is safe, given that we are in this situation,” Pyś says.

As far as selecting the art, Pyś says he discussed Miami audiences with Carvajal and wanted to highlight a diversity of voices.

“We added works that we felt were necessary to see in Miami by artists who maybe hadn’t been seen much in this city,” he says. “So that was one of the key things. I wanted the exhibition to have a greater relevance to the community.”

With the large space inside The Freedom Tower, organizers were able to add 27 artists, some of whom were Latin American, who had not been included in previous presentations.

Additions for Miami included Marta Minujín, an Argentinian artist and pioneer of performance art, video, and soft sculpture, and Venezuelan artist Claudio Perna, who explored conceptualism through collage and photographs, among other artists.

“I think it’s relevant to Miami because there’s such a large population from Latin America living here that people will be interested in knowing what was the contribution of some of Latin American artists to this conversation,” Carvajal says.

“It’s a gigantic show. You have 50 years of history of artists interfacing with technology and showing the importance of technology in everyday life since the invention of television.”

WHAT: “The Body Electric”

WHEN: On display through May 30, 2021

WHERE: Museum of Art and Design at MDC, inside The Freedom Tower, 600 Biscayne Blvd., second floor, downtown Miami

MUSEUM ADMISSION: $12 for adults; $8 for seniors and military; $5 for students (ages 13-17) and college students (with valid ID); free for MOAD members, children 12 and younger, and MDC students, faculty and staff. Purchase tickets online or in person at The Freedom Tower.

INFORMATION: Call 305-237-7700, visit mdcmoad.org or email museum@mdc.edu. Call 305-237-7710 for accessibility issues.

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Commissioner, an alternative arts patronage model, begins its 3rd season

On Oct. 17, Commissioner collectors and alumni gathered at the Design District’s historic Moore Elastika Building for “When we open every window,” a performance, installation and artwork reveal designed by GeoVanna Gonzalez. (Photo courtesy of Andrea Lorena)

What does it take to be an art collector? One imagines well-heeled patrons swooping through galleries and art fairs, dropping big bucks on A-list trophy pieces created by celebrity artists. But how do “regular” folks – interested in acquiring art, yet intimidated by the hype and price tags – get involved?

Enter the subscription program Commissioner, an alternative patronage model that is beginning its third season of operation. It’s the brainchild of Miamians Dejha Carrington, a communications strategist for the National YoungArts Foundation, and Rebekah Monson, co-founder and COO of WhereBy.Us, a platform that helps build media businesses.

Commissioner offers a down-to-earth membership approach for people primarily attracted to learning about the art-making process and supporting the local arts ecosystem – while starting their collecting journey.

“Why would we go on [the website] Artsy and buy something from some guy in Australia or Germany or China or New York or L.A., when there’s such an incredible community here that’s your neighbor?” said Justin Clarke, a Commissioner alumnus.

Its platform harnesses the power of cooperation and pooling resources to directly commission original artwork – locally. With a roster of 153 current members and alumni, they’ve commissioned more than 400 works by some of Miami’s most talented artists – principally for young collectors.

An annual membership of $1,500 (or $500 quarterly) entitles 40 “Collectors” to a series of exclusive cultural programming and four limited-edition artworks, specifically commissioned by the curatorial team. Ten third-season Collector memberships remain on offer.

“We look for rigor in the artists’ practice. We look at what they’ve done and what they want to do, and always we want to see which artists we are very excited about,” said Carrington during a Zoom call. The curatorial team seek diversity in medium, identity and perspective – and consider an artists’ ability to create an edition of 40 pieces (plus artist proofs).

Commissioner isn’t trying to undermine the gallery system. In fact, Primary, a Little River gallery founded by Typoe Gran, Books Bischof and Cristina Gonzalez in 2007, is a curatorial partner in selecting Commissioner’s artist roster and hosts many of its events. Gran was the first artist chosen to create artwork for Commissioner’s inaugural Collector members.

GeoVanna Gonzalez created “When we open every window” as a boxed set of miniature sculptural elements that correspond to the large installation and performance she staged. (Photo courtesy of Andrea Lorena)

The pooled resources generate a financial benefit, while prioritizing relationships with the artists over the works themselves. It’s not a buyers’ club.

“The intention is to make sure that you’re connecting with the person before the object and understanding the process,” Carrington said. “We wanted the combination of being able to commission new work and to keep the group of collectors and members engaged through a program that would be happening very regularly. It’s this idea of not only figuring out the economics but also figuring out how to build community and keep the interaction both between the members and with the artists.”

Commissioner initially was funded by the Knight Arts Challenge and Locust Projects’ WaveMaker Grants. Membership fees, supplemented by corporate and organizational sponsorships, provide ongoing support.

The unveiling and delivery of the artworks is organized as a celebratory event – a reveal – open to the Collector group and a set of Patron-level participants. The artist presents the work – which the collectors see for the first time – and provides insight into the ideas, techniques and materials that underlie the collage, digital media, photograph or sculpture that was created. This dynamic, explained Carrington, “puts the artist in front of the object.”

This was exemplified in the reveal for artist A.G., at Primary on Sept. 25, 2019. As Clarke recalled, “This reveal was particularly interesting because the artist, A.G., has a real flair for theatrics. Everything was dramatic and theatrical in how he presented the piece.”

His untitled digital print on vinyl was described as “prop: newspaper with special effects blood, sweat, & tears.”

For her commissioned work, Johanne Rahaman created a set of diptychs, consisting of one photograph depicting life in her native Trinidad, paired with one from her series documenting Black communities in Florida. Titled, “You Can Never Go Home,” they encompass a wide gamut of moods, activities and personalities. Her reveal featured a photography workshop at The Center for Subtropical Affairs, during which participants used the lush locale – and each other – to create a story of the environment and the creative community they’re generating.

Commissioner also offers special program access during Art Week and regularly organizes studio tours, including at Fountainhead Residency, co-founded by Dan and Kathryn Mikesell. These are supplemented by visits to private homes, where members see how seasoned collectors research, select and live with their treasures. The Commissioner website profiles its artists through non-jargony text and a short, but cogent, video.

Johanne Rahaman created a series of 10 diptychs juxtaposing images of carnival in Miami, Goombay in Key West, and life in Trinidad. Titled, “You Can Never Go Home” (2018-2019), her photographs are windows into everyday moments that highlight entrepreneurship, beauty, sensuality, aging, mortality, youth and resilience. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Members are encouraged to collect on their own, recruit friends and generate a ripple effect. Clarke ran with this idea, creating a monthlong pop-up gallery downtown during Art Week in 2019. “Life in Every Breath” featured the photography of his friend, Enoch Contreras.

“I really wanted to give him a platform to show the world his eye,” Clarke said. “He’s trying to tell the stories of the indigenous peoples of Bolivia and why this mountain of ice is sacred to them, and how global warming is affecting them and the mountain.”

Clarke and Contreras also published a coffee table book, which sold out.

Inevitably, the pandemic disrupted Commissioner’s program, which shifted resources from summer gatherings to commissioning a fifth artwork – a multicolor resin sculpture by Gavin Perry – and adding other special projects, such as virtual art-making workshops. Season One and Two members were allowed to renew.

During Season Three, GeoVanna Gonzalez’s Oct. 17 artwork reveal was unique and COVID-safe. The young and highly accomplished artist took her socially based practice into the Moore Elastika Building in the Miami Design District, where she orchestrated three performances in which her collaborators – all shared householders – gracefully assembled and re-assembled a set of sculptural “props” for a choreographed dance. This was accompanied by music and Gonzalez reading her poem, “When we open every window.” Inspired by the whirl of activity in and around her great-grandmother’s Los Angeles home, Gonzalez’s abstract sculptural forms evoked the furniture, open windows, steps and curb where friends and family hung out.

Each taking home a boxed edition of miniaturized forms that the artist team fabricated and painted, the Collectors were encouraged to re-invent – on tabletop scale – the physical and emotional exchanges they witnessed during the reveal. Several days later, while celebrating her just-announced Ellies Award from Oolite Arts, Gonzalez said, “Performers told me that people in the audience were tearing up from seeing the performance, so it really seems to have touched people in a particular way.”

Safety-enhanced studio, gallery and private collection tours are scheduled for November and beyond. For more information, visit Commissioner.us.

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ICA Miami presents ‘Tomás Esson: The GOAT’ exhibition through May 2021

The exhibition, “Tomás Esson: The GOAT,” is on display at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami through May 2, 2021. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

“Tomás Esson: The GOAT,” the latest installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, is the Cuban painter’s first-ever solo museum presentation.

Throughout three decades, Esson’s work has been called grotesque and challenging, and has been censored, with exhibitions being shut down in his native country. Since moving to the United States in 1990, Esson has lived between Miami and New York, and he has pieces in the permanent collections at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany, among others.

The opportunity to support Esson with a solo exhibition at this transformational juncture in his career resonated with ICA Artistic Director Alex Gartenfeld.

“Tomás is such an important artist who has been based in Miami on and off for almost 30 years. It’s so crucial to our mission to be able to support not just international artists but artists living and working in Miami who are making a profound impact on the international scene – and Tomás is a great example of that,” he said.

“Tomás’ work is provocative and it has a history that is closely related to censorship, and so this is the time to kind of reckon with the ideas that are central to his work,” Gartenfeld added. “Tomás’ work has been consistently critical of the political regime in Cuba and has done so by employing revolutionary iconography, as well as very provocative imagery relating to mythology and sexuality.”

Set in three rooms, the exhibition allows the viewer to trace the trajectory of Esson’s work – something Gartenfeld says highlights the depths of his artistry.

The exhibition, which will remain on display through May 2021, features never-before-seen pieces and highlights different periods of Tomás Esson’s life. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

“Over the course of three decades, you see him moving from figurative mythological to a hybrid style to an almost completely abstract style, and just the consistency and steadiness of Tomás’ development, I think in this exhibition, is really striking.”

The exhibition, which will remain on display through May 2021, features never-before-seen pieces and highlights different periods of his life, including his early career with works such as “The Retrato (Portrait) Series” and his “Wet Painting” series. It also features a monumental, 100-foot-wide wall painting done by Esson in black and white, with mythical and malformed figures that are signature to his work.

“There are new works which are site-specific and responsive installations,” Gartenfeld said. “One of the wall paintings are drawings on paper which are assembled into a mosaic-like wallpaper using some of his very humorous, very kind of sexual iconic imagery from the late ’80s and early ’90s and turning them into an immersive installation.”

ICA Miami is also creating a catalog to accompany the exhibition, due in the spring, which will offer a significant contribution to
the scholarship of Esson’s work through a critical exploration of his oeuvre.

Added Gartenfeld: “I’m hoping that people take a sense of what kind of incredible artistic practice is happening here in Miami, and a sense of how painting can be political, critical, humorous and sexual at the same time and teach us new things about ourselves and our society.”

ICA Miami reopened in September. The museum has implemented new cleaning procedures and polices to ensure the safety of visitors. In addition to requiring advanced timed tickets for entry, attendees are limited to one hour in the museum and are required to wear facial coverings while inside or in the sculpture garden. Visit Icamiami.org for more details. 

WHAT: ICA Miami presents “Tomás Esson: The GOAT”

WHEN: Through May 2, 2021

WHERE: Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, 61 NE 41st St.

COST: Admission is free, but visitors must reserve timed tickets in advance

INFORMATION: Call 305-901-5272, visit Icamiami.org or email hello@icamiami.org

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$1 million Miami Beach relief fund helps arts groups look to the future

The Rhythm Foundation offered a Fete de la Musique livestream performance in June 2020. (Photo courtesy of The Rhythm Foundation)

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber sees cultural institutions as vital to the heart and soul of his city.

“We believe that the best version of the city is as an art-and-culture destination,” he said. “And if we don’t have a vibrant arts community, that version becomes less attainable.”

In an effort to help keep one of the city’s most valuable assets viable, the mayor and City Commission – in partnership with the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council – approved distribution of $1 million in funds to 13 arts groups. What came out of that funding has exceeded the original intent: The COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund that was intended to help Miami Beach arts organizations stay afloat during the pandemic has ended up giving them a nudge into the future, forcing them to look ahead to a post-pandemic world and consider what can keep them relevant and a significant part of the community.

It happened almost organically, with the money and the downtime of the past months combining to help groups explore beyond what they had been doing for so long.

“We had to put on our thinking caps on how we could continue our mission, which is to promote, preserve and protect, but how to do it in this new era?” says Daniel Ciraldo, executive director of the Miami Design Preservation League, one of the beneficiary groups. “What the funding did was allow us to continue, but to pivot toward digital, which makes us resilient in the future.”

The Miami Design Preservation League’s walking tour app had been in the works, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made it even more essential. (Photo courtesy of MDPL)

In addition to the preservation league, the other recipients included: The Wolfsonian-Florida International University; The Bass Museum of Art; The Rhythm Foundation; Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach; Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU; O, Miami; Miami Beach Botanical Garden; Miami Beach Urban Studios-FIU; Miami City Ballet; Miami New Drama at the Colony Theatre; New World Symphony; and O Cinema South Beach.

Before the pandemic, the preservation league had wanted to develop an app to guide visitors on its Art Deco walking tour. Thanks to the grant from the city, the project went full steam ahead and the app is now live.

The organization also has been digitizing its historical archives, including photographs from the time of The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 and beach fashions from the 1940s. “So much of it was in storage,” Ciraldo said.

This image in the Miami Design Preservation League’s online archives features high-dive champion Tony Zukas at the pool at Roney Plaza. (Photo courtesy of MDPL)

The archives aren’t only great for the future, he said, “but great for right now, [for] people who want to learn about the preservation movement but right now don’t feel comfortable visiting in person.”

Meanwhile for The Bass museum, which reopened its doors Sept. 16, this has been “the moment to experiment,” said executive director Silvia Karman Cubiñá.

“The money helped us keep the staff on and helped us to look at new ways of conceiving what a museum could be – not just in a logistical approach but philosophically, too,” she said.

Adopting new technology to help make The Bass more relevant had been on the bucket list, Cubiñá said, but those tasks were always put on hold for varied reasons.

While The Bass has as its mission to be a steward for art in Miami Beach’s public places, the pandemic and the funding from the city led to planning of a more cohesive outdoor project: the Art Outside program. Designed to bring public art directly to the people, outside of the confines of a museum building, works are being created specifically for the program. These include an outdoor banner display by Karen Rifas that was installed during the summer in partnership with Oolite Arts and a mural that is being created by Arturo Herrera.

Works come together in context, according to Cubiñá. The art spread throughout the city, including along Washington Avenue, Lincoln Road, and the Miami Beach Boardwalk, is meant to be a curated outdoor exhibit – with the route beginning and ending at The Bass. The idea is to offer a re-envisioned museum experience that meets visitors where they are, which right now, in many cases, is outside, Cubiñá said. That’s in addition to the museum offering some of its public programs on a digital platform.

“We rejuggled every job description to see how we could service our members through digital,” she said.

For The Rhythm Foundation, which was tapped by the city to manage the North Beach Bandshell in 2015, the challenge was: How do you keep an arts organization going when your existence is built around live performers and an audience sitting close together in an almost 1,400-seat oceanfront amphitheater?

Director James Quinlan said they did the “pandemic pivot” – streaming performances that are presented live at the bandshell but without an audience.

“The grant allowed us to continue doing what we do by having virtual programming on a live stage,” said Quinlan.

The grant also helped the foundation invest in multiple cameras and high-tech sound equipment, which has in turn expanded business for the city’s bandshell and its offerings.

“Groups are now coming to us because of our capabilities. We have more organizations performing in this venue than ever before,” said Quinlan. “We have an entire fall season of virtual programs that are our own, but we’re also working with other cultural organizations to have a diverse range of deep cultural offerings.”

Karen Rifas’ “Hang in There” (2020) features 32 vinyl banners hanging throughout the city, as part of The Bass museum’s Art Outside public exhibition project. (Photo courtesy of Zaire Kacz)

Deputy director Benton Galgay said the relief funds have helped with practical expenses, too. For example, when the green light is given for the live venue to open to the public again, the foundation will be able to get ready at a moment’s notice, with additional signage needed to safely usher in audiences and other security measures.

“We now have the ability to change gears to go from a virtual space to a live space and welcome in members of the public safely,” said Galgay, though he added that producers plan to also keep livestreaming events even post-pandemic.

In establishing the relief fund, 16 organizations were chosen as “cultural anchors,” defined by the city as “institutions physically based in the city of Miami Beach, whose primary mission is year-round artistic and cultural programming that contributes significantly to the cultural life of the City of Miami Beach,” according to Brandi Reddick, the city’s cultural affairs manager.

Of those 16 organizations, 13 applied and received the grant.

The grant amount was based on each organization’s annual budget. Those with budgets below $750,000 could apply for up to $50,000 in grant money; those with $750,000 to $3.5 million could receive up to $75,000; and for those above $3.5 million the threshold was $100,000.

There are plans to launch the second Miami Beach Cultural Arts COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund in the upcoming fiscal year – with an additional $1 million coming from an emergency reserve fund that was established in 1998.

“I can’t imagine that this isn’t an emergency,” Gelber said. “We’re using it for exactly what it was set up for.”

That second fund disbursement will be assessed by the cultural arts council beginning in October. According to Reddick, the council has not yet finalized the criteria. When it does, guidelines and application instructions will be available at Mbartsandculture.org.

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Two Locust Projects exhibitions tackle themes of home, migration

A still from Juana Valdes’ “Rest Ashore” at Locust Projects. (Photo courtesy of Locust Projects)

Miami’s Locust Projects presents two new exhibitions this month, both exploring themes of home, migration and sense of place and community.

Juana Valdes’ “Rest Ashore” and Raúl Romero’s “Onomonopoetics of a Puerto Rican Landscape” will be available from Sept. 12 to Oct. 24 at the nonprofit exhibition space at 3852 N. Miami Ave. The space is open by appointment only, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.

“Both are dealing with the migrant experience and immigrant experience. Both really give us a moment for pause and reflection,” says Locust Projects’ executive director Lorie Mertes. “There’s a lot of divisiveness and a lot of conversation about immigration, and there are various sides of the conversation, but both of the shows bring a real sense empathy for that person in that journey that someone takes when they make the decision to seek a better life.”

Valdes’ “Rest Ashore” is an immersive video installation, which represents a departure from her traditional arts media of ceramic work, sculptures and printmaking. Viewers are invited to explore different waves of the Cuban migration, from the exodus of the 1950s to the “balseros” (rafters) of the 1990s.

For Valdes, who emigrated from Cuba to Miami in 1971, this was a deeply personal exploration.

“I’m almost reliving my past, but from a completely different perspective, so it’s been interesting,” she shares from her studio in Amherst, Mass., where she is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “I knew that this show was a way to talk not just about my experience but the Cuban experience in these waves of migration, and the ways they have shaped Miami. It’s about how you welcome people, how policy impacts the well-being of futures and communities.”

The exhibition – which makes use of archival footage as well as new imagery – welcomes visitors into a space bedecked with stacks of old cathode-ray television sets. From there, they work their way through the exhibition, to scenes projected on sails showing ocean waves and shores strewn with luggage and clothing, evoking scenes reminiscent of not only Cuban immigration, but of immigration from all over the world.

“My work really uses metaphor a lot. It’s always used a lot of visual imagery to compile information, through icons or objects, or just the way things interact with one another,” Valdes explains. “I feel like in the past, I have really managed to compress that into objects and not moving forms, but I felt that for this investigation, into the impact of migration and refugees, that I needed a medium that would be able to tell a story in a way that I thought would be more compelling – and video and the moving image had the ability to do that.

“Once I started to work on the filming and bring out all the ideas, I knew it was the right medium to be able to convey the kind of trauma and loss that I felt I wanted to put forth.”

Raúl Romero works on his cargo-bike/sound transmission mobile station for his project at Locust Projects. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Romero’s “Onomonopoetics of a Puerto Rican Landscape” – presented as part of Locust Projects’ public art initiative “Art on the Move” – is another immersive experience, though this one is auditory.

Using a cargo bike, Romero has created a mobile sound transmission station that will broadcast his field recordings of the coquí frog – representative of his native Puerto Rico. He and other performers will drive around Miami, but for those who don’t catch the cargo bike on its journey throughout the city, viewers can hear the sound of the coquí through motion-activated sensors along Locust Projects’ North Miami Avenue exterior.

The idea is to explore how sound can evoke memory and a sense of place for Miami’s immigrant communities.

“The distinct sound will be transmitted alongside the everyday urban sounds onsite at Locust Projects and throughout Miami, creating an augmented soundscape,” according to a Locust Projects statement.

Today, Romero lives in Philadelphia, but the second-generation Puerto Rican immigrant grew up in Florida. He explains how his exploration of sound works to connect people through memories and shared experiences.

“Most of these things start with questioning, looking at identity, and thinking about culture and certain values,” he says. “Here is something, specifically, this sound, and it has all of these other representations. What does that mean to other people, and how do they connect back?”

In developing the project, Romero says he took inspiration from Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory and the beaming of transmissions into outer space, putting it on a more terrestrial plane.

“I’m taking the idea and that imagery of using a satellite dish, and thinking of the sounds of the coquí as a way where it is a transmission of culture, so from the sounds of the coquí, our culture is being sent out,” he says. “There is this idea that we are constantly searching, and looking out to create this sense of communication and connection, and this does that, reminding somebody of a place through a sound and a memory.”

People will also be invited to share their own experiences and stories of the coquí, or the native and iconic sounds from their own lives. To contribute sounds, leave a direct voicemail at 305-699-4233 or send a recording to Miami@coquicalls.com. Running concurrently to an exhibition in Philadelphia, these sounds will become part of an online archive of sounds and stories.

What: Locust Projects presents Juana Valdes’ “Rest Ashore” and Raúl Romero’s “Onomonopoetics of a Puerto Rican Landscape”

When: From Sept. 12-Oct. 24; by appointment only from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays

Where: Locust Projects, 3852 N. Miami Ave., Miami

Cost: Free

For more information: Call 305-576-8570, email info@locustprojects.org or visit Locustprojects.org

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Oolite Arts: New acquisitions program, new home, new virtual offerings

Oolite Arts CEO Dennis Scholl and artist Diego Gutierrez in his studio at Oolite Arts. (Photo courtesy of Christina Mendinghall)

About five years ago, Oolite Arts’ board chairwoman Kim Kovel visited the Cranbrook art center in Michigan. While touring the art museum’s collection of works created by students – many of whom became renowned as alumni – Kovel had a revelation that percolated over several years.

“She came to me six or eight months ago and said, ‘How would you feel about having an Oolite art collection?’” said Dennis Scholl, Oolite’s CEO and president, in a recent interview.

The idea: To acquire and display the works of Oolite’s artists-in-residence and alumni.

Scholl loved it and suggested that after a few years of exhibition in Oolite’s new facility – currently in the planning stages – the works be gifted to museums, chosen to best support each artist’s developing career. Scholl and wife Debra, renowned collectors who also initiate traveling exhibitions and make major gifts, have strong connections to many museums.

Scholl and Kovel agreed it was a very good, virtuous circle. With an approved budget and a long list of candidates, the Oolite Arts Acquisitions Program was born.

A committee, led by board members Lin Lougheed and Marie Elena Angulo, selected works by seven current and recent Oolite studio residents and presented these to the full board.

“We originally were going to only take one or two,” Kovel said. “But in the end, we decided to take all of the recommendations, just because of the times and the need in the community.”

Additional funds were promptly budgeted, totaling $46,000, Scholl said. The acquisitions include two commissioned pieces – a baroque-style interior charcoal drawing by Gonzalo Fuenmayor, and a vividly painted, expressionistic masked portrait of a young man wearing a bandana by Michael Vasquez. Both are improvisations based on prior works, expanded in scale.

Michael Vasquez’s work in progress is not yet titled; acrylic, acrylic spray paint, acrylic paint markers on canvas; 40 x 30 inches. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“These are artists who are working at the top of their game and in our community among the best,” Scholl said.

In phone interviews and transcribed excerpts from recent videos, the artists commented on their works.

“I’m really interested in showing the process that goes along with making the painting, and so I’d like to leave things really dirty and gritty. I don’t like to have a refined finished product. I don’t see it like that. For me, it’s more capturing an energy.”

– Diego Gutierrez, “45 minutes to myself,” 2018

“It’s a Victorian-style room used as a storage space for Hollywood-style letters, spelling out ‘BANANAS.’ When I came to the U.S. [from Colombia], I was making work with bananas as a way to exoticize myself, coming from a ‘banana republic,’ and bananas became a vehicle to explore my identity, power dynamics, immigration, luxury, labor.”

– Gonzalo Fuenmayor, not yet titled, 2020 (reference image)

“The [Malcolm X] text and phrasing are re-phrased as a ‘we’ statement and layered on and about impressions of flowers and leaves — the botanical and natural. The rest is art, so the artwork is my layering of those things together as an offering, a kind of reminder, a marker – hoping the viewer goes there.”

– Adler Guerrier, “Untitled (We will join Malcolm) IV,” 2017

Adler Guerrier’s “Untitled (We will join Malcolm) IV,” 2017;
solvent transfer, graphite ink, colored pencil, collage,
and enamel paint on paper; 30 x 22-1/4 inches. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“Partially revealed elements are essential components in my work. This veiling alludes to protection – preservation as a way of cloaking historical elements previously distorted by external forces. Both the Oolite purchase and the piece currently on exhibition endeavor to protect their coded meanings, otherwise skewed by commercial fabric production.”

– Yanira Collado, both pieces she cites in the quote are known as “Untitled”

“We live in an irrational, absurd and surreal time. I am building improbable structures, which would collapse in the real world, but let me dream, believe in and explore on paper. These works, more so than ever, reflect the ever-tenuous relationship to what we believe we know and reality. It’s a delicate balance.”

– Karen Rifas, “1225,” 2017

Anastasia Samoylova’s “Miami River,” 2018; archival pigment
print; 40 x 50 inches. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“[In Miami Beach], it’s like I don’t have to invent light anymore. It already exists here, and it reflects off of the multitude of shiny surfaces. It is sort of this jungle, but it’s so unnatural already, and so there’s plenty of artifice for me to work with that I’m absolutely fascinated.” 

– Anastasia Samoylova, “Miami River,” 2018

“I’m most recognized for my figurative paintings and portraiture that explore identity, pride, place, and belonging. With this new commission, I am acknowledging the current moment of social progress and the health crisis, and creating an image that’s imbued with a sense of resilience and a will to overcome.”

– Michael Vasquez, not yet titled, 2020 (sample work)

In selecting next year’s acquisitions, the board plans to adopt a more formal jurying process.

Kovel, who also heads her family’s antiques publishing business and has a background in finance, said Oolite administers an endowment of about $95 million – primarily from the 2014 sale of a Lincoln Road property. That bounty still requires judicious management to maintain a positive balance sheet, particularly with commitments such as the annual Ellies artist awards and its new $30 million building project.

Karen Rifas’ “1225,” 2017; acrylic on Arches Hot Pressed 140
lb. watercolor paper; 45 x 45 inches. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

OOLITE COMMUNITY 

“Helping artists help themselves” is the oft-quoted motto from later founder Ellie Schneiderman. Oolite Arts, once known as the South Florida Art Center, offers an array of services – with a particular focus on residents and alumni (more than 1,000 since 1984). Scholl calls it “a 360-degree holistic support system, with a place and opportunity for every artist in the county.”

Among the benefits afforded Oolite residents and alumni is the chance to exhibit alongside nationally and internationally celebrated artists “in the same show with equal dignity,” said Scholl. “That’s the best thing you can do for an artist. Every year, artists are given two or three such opportunities.”

EMERGENCY FUND 

As an organization intimately connected to working artists, Oolite quickly responded to the economic pain induced by the pandemic with an emergency relief fund, offering grants of up to $500 to artists who demonstrated need. Initial seed money was supplemented by individual and institutional contributions and, to date, about $200,000 have been awarded to 464 Miami-Dade County artists. Moreover, no staffers were laid off or had hours cut, Scholl said.

NEW FACILITY

Despite the pandemic, planning for Oolite’s new mainland home – at 75 NW 72nd St. – continues relatively unimpeded. Scholl expects the schematics from Spanish architectural firm Barozzi Veiga to be made public this fall, with an anticipated buildout by spring 2023.

“I’ve got really the dream team in terms of the facilities committee helping us and guiding us,” said Scholl, praising Oolite board members with architecture and development expertise.

In addition to more education facilities and 22 studios, “it’s going to have a theater, a significant exhibitions space, a makers’ space where people can come in and use very interesting tools – CNC routers and things like that. So we’re going to be a lot of different things,” Scholl said.

Complementing these expanded facilities, there will be scholarships and outreach available to open opportunities for residents of the Little Haiti/Little River community.

Already, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Oolite’s Video Art Club engaged middle-school students at nearby St. Mary’s Cathedral School. “We bring in some of the best filmmakers in our community and invite them to make a film,” Scholl said. The students develop the story, design the sets, even use green screen for special effects.

While the new facility is intended to pull Oolite’s audiences to its mainland neighborhood, Kovel and Scholl both said that retention or sale of Oolite’s second Lincoln Road property is one decision they’ll make only when the new dynamics can be assessed. Considering these turbulent times, that’s an uncertainty they can live with.

Seasoned arts executive and entrepreneur Dennis Scholl became president and CEO of Oolite Arts in 2017. View more video interviews with Scholl in Florida International University’s Inspicio e-magazine. (Video courtesy of Inspicio)

VIRTUAL PROGRAMMING

Following Centers for Disease Control guidelines, Oolite’s facilities remain closed, but staff and board regularly meet via Zoom sessions. Programming has also adapted to virtual platforms, as a range of film screenings and commissions, curatorial talks, professional development workshops, and hands-on classes are offered – currently at no charge to participants. Meanwhile, instructors are paid.

GALLERY EXHIBITION

“Idioms and Taxonomies,” curated by Laura Marsh, is the current exhibition, featuring 16 Oolite artists-in-residence whose work encompasses diverse two- and three-dimensional mediums and timely themes. Absent physical access to the facility, a seven-minute video tour provides an intimate virtual walk-through, suggesting the tactile qualities of high-touch work, but also advanced digital media. View the current exhibition by going to Oolitearts.org/exhibition/idioms-and-taxonomies. 

For more information on the Oolite Arts Acquisitions Program, visit Oolitearts.org/acquisitions.

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Miami writer tells pandemic story in ‘The Decameron Project’

Miami’s Edwidge Danticat was one of 29 authors asked to contribute to The New York Times Magazine’s “The Decameron Project.” (Photo courtesy of Lynn Savarese)

“I’m thinking of a Joan Didion quote,” Miami writer Edwidge Danticat says. “‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live. ‘”

The National Book Award finalist and 2009 MacArthur Fellow believes stories are “how we make sense of what’s happening around us.”

That was the thinking behind The New York Times Magazine’s “The Decameron Project” issue, which was published July 12. The issue marked the first time – in the magazine’s more than 100-year history – that its pages were devoted entirely to works of new fiction. The coverline of the issue: “When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of it.”

Danticat was one of 29 authors (and one of two from Miami) tapped to write a short story for the magazine’s project, a 21st century pandemic bookend of sorts to Giovanni Boccaccio’s almost 700-year-old “The Decameron,” which was written in the midst of a global epidemic of bubonic plague that hit Europe and Asia. The book that inspired the project consists of “100 tales processing fear and grief caused by the Black Death of the 14th century,” according to a statement by the magazine’s creative director, Gail Bichler. In the current project, “against the backdrop of the coronavirus, writers from around the world tell stories that help us unpack and understand this moment.”

Among those recently using “The Decameron” and “The Decameron Project” to understand this moment were members of a University of Miami book club.

The group, created through UM’s Center for the Humanities, decided to tackle both works during its July and August virtual gatherings. They discussed the collection of novellas in which Boccaccio sends 10 wealthy Florentines, three men and seven women, fleeing to the countryside to escape the Black Death. There, they pass their time in quarantine by telling 10 stories per day over the course of 10 days.

The University of Miami’s Center for the Humanities Virtual Book Club discusses “The Decameron Project” on Aug. 13, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Meghan Homer)

“‘The Decameron’ is one of the literary masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance,” says Megan Homer, assistant director UM’s Center for the Humanities. “The introductory framework provides an unusually vivid picture of the impact of a premodern pandemic, which we thought would be of interest, given the present COVID-19 pandemic.”

The 2020 pandemic has certainly upended daily life, but what struck Danticat was the age-old ritual of how we mourn and how it has been, as she says, “irreparably altered.”

“I knew when they asked me, I wanted to write about that,” Danticat says.

At the time, Danticat says, she was “sitting in my home in Little Haiti like everyone else, so it was a good time.” Ordinarily, she’d be out making the rounds, speaking or promoting a book – most likely it would now have been a book tour to promote the paperback release of her hardcover book, “Everything Inside.” Published in 2019, it’s a collection of stories set in locales from Miami to Port-au-Prince and beyond, and is the recipient of numerous book awards.

She found the notion of writing fiction – creating characters in the moment when a true-life event was happening – intriguing.

“Fiction takes a lot longer to write than news commentaries, for instance. It takes a while to process an event enough to create characters around it,” Danticat says.

She admits she was torn about contributing a serious piece: “What I knew about ‘The Decameron’ was that many of the stories were raunchy or love stories, and there was a debate inside of me if I should write something that was lighter to try to help people forget the moment.”

But she couldn’t stop thinking about the isolation of a person dying alone and the loneliness of their loved ones: “I wanted to write about characters that captured this moment. One of them was the situation of people having to be in a hospital alone, of not being able to have a loved one hold your hand when you are suffering – from the intake process to the time people die, and the period of time where they never see their loved ones again.

“That distance of people dying alone was very jolting to me,” she adds.

Her short piece, “One Thing,” is about a high school science teacher named Ray and his wife Marie-Jeanne. The story follows them from the time that Marie-Jeanne drops her husband off at the emergency admission section at a New York hospital.

“Two people in what looked like spacesuits had wheeled him inside. He could still breathe on his own then.”

The writer paints the picture of Ray wearing a face covering, and of Marie-Jeanne back at home and wondering where her husband is in the hospital, which floor, which room.

“The night nurse wouldn’t say, perhaps so she and others don’t storm the building and rush to those floors to hold their loved ones’ hands.”

There is symbolism as husband and wife connect over the phone, still dreaming of their summer plans of visiting caves in the south of Haiti, a trip financed by family and friends through the couple’s recent wedding registry.

“Returning to Haiti for that trip was a dream that they had. For me, there is so much symbolism in that cave, and it’s a cave that I really love, where I go so often when I am in Haiti,” says Danticat, who connected that “to where we are today in the midst of COVID-19. Caves are our oldest homes, where they found the oldest writing and the oldest pictures. The notion of a cave birthing us all.”

The other Miami writer who took part in “The Decameron Project” is Karen Russell, who contributed a piece titled, “Line 19 Woodstock/Glisan.” Her short story is about a public transit bus driver, Valerie, who works the night shift and calls her riders “The Last Bus Club.”

“Covid had shifted the Last Bus Club’s demographics – now a majority of her riders were people for whom ‘state of emergency’ was a chronic condition.”

There’s mention of a Ziploc bag given to Valerie by the transit company, bearing only a single paper mask and eight Clorox wipes, and of another bus driver who had put up a Dollar Tree shower curtain to protect himself but was ordered to take it down.

“It’s fascinating to see how consistently we turn to storytelling as a way to process our experiences,” says UM’s Homer. “I think the potential for literature to have an impact is perhaps especially significant in our present circumstances.”

Thinking back to the original “Decameron,” Danticat ponders “The Decameron Project” withstanding the test of time.

“It will be interesting to look back at these works perhaps in 20 years, because I feel like the kind of fiction you write now will have to be judged in hindsight. You will have to look back and say, ‘Oh, this was just a sliver of this moment.’ Who knows where we will be? Will face masks be a daily part of our existence, for instance?” she says. “Writing fiction in the middle of that uncertainty, well, it’s like an open-ended ending.”

The New York Times is scheduled to release a hardcover edition of “The Decameron Project” on Nov. 10, 2020. Published by Simon and Schuster, the book will include all 29 stories featured in the magazine and be available for $25 online and in store booksellers.

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