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.

Enthralling ‘Mythic Creatures’ Casts a Spell at HistoryMiami Museum

A white unicorn bathed in violet light is 10 feet long from tail to tip of horn and featured in the exhibition “Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids” at HistoryMiamiMuseum through March 31, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Justin Namon/HistoryMiamiMuseum)

Miami museums are perfect for escaping this summer’s sweltering heat and you can’t get much farther from South Florida – or from anywhere for that matter – than HistoryMiami’s second floor. That’s where “Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns  & Mermaids” is taking visitors around the world and beyond to contemplate bizarre beasts, fabled fauna, and natural objects that may underlie many a fairy tale.

Adding to the show’s delights is a section with Miami’s own creepy crepuscular, from the Swamp Ape to the Chupacabra. Joining them are mermaid iterations, arising from the region’s diverse cultures.

Tales of the Chupacabra emerged in Puerto Rico in the 1980s and 1990s, then migrated to Miami in 1996, according to Vanessa Navarro Maza, the folklife curator at HistoryMiami Museum. (Photo courtesy of Justin Namon/HistoryMiami Museum)

The exhibit, which opened Saturday, July 8 and runs through Sunday, March 31, 2024, features “life-size” models of fantastical beings, including both European and Asian dragons, sea maidens from across cultures, unicorns – of course – plus a variety of art and artifacts. Illustrations and textual representations provide historical references. But there is a twist– the show reveals how our fore-bearers may have translated fossils and other finds as proof of mythic creatures. For example, the extinct fossilized dwarf elephant skull on display could be interpreted as that of the giant Cyclops of Homer’s “The Odyssey” fame.

Likewise, alongside the dragon exhibit is a woolly mammoth skull – which might look suspiciously like a dragon to those from olden days whose imaginations were steeped in chivalric questing lore. “It ties mythology back to the natural world, taking things from the perspective of ancient people,” says Christopher Barfield, director of exhibitions at HistoryMiami Museum.

Enthralling interactive elements, which will keep kids engaged, illustrate the relationship. For example, a magnetized table-top lets visitors transpose scaled model bones of a Protoceratop into a Griffin, the legendary creature both eagle and lion. Likewise, small modeled mammoth bones can be rearranged to create a humanoid giant – giving participants a feel of how our ancestors made sense of the world. “We are using natural history to understand how the unknown bones they were digging up looked surprisingly human – it (therefore) must be a giant,” says Barfield.

An interactive game at the HistoryMiami Museum lets visitors transpose model fossil bones into mythical creatures. (Photo by Justin Namon/HistoryMiamiMuseum)

Other interactive elements include creating a virtual dragon and being able to touch and explore casts of the narwhal tusk and the lower jaw of the Gigantopithecus, an extinct group of apes.

The exhibition notes that “Mythic Creatures” is appropriate for children 4 and older. Younger ones may find some of the actual-size models (a towering 17-foot dragon with a wingspan of over 19 feet, for instance) and other intense depictions frightening.

What South Floridians will especially savor is “Mythic Miami,” the section devoted to the Chupacabra, plus our own Skunk Ape – a Bigfoot-type creature– and mermaids, which hail from several of Miami’s cultural heritages. What makes “Mythic Miami” both enchanting and chilling are documents, photos, and other ephemera. For example, one display shows Miami officials investigating reported blood-sucking Chupacabra animal attacks. Yet there is also the campy 2017 sculpture “Chupie” by Michael Casines on loan from Zoo Miami.

A fossilized dwarf elephant skull could be interpreted as the one-eyed Cyclops. (Photo courtesy of Justin Namon/HistoryMiami Museum)

Tales of the creature emerged in Puerto Rico in the 1980s and 1990s, then migrated to Miami in 1996 when the reported animal attacks occurred, said Vanessa Navarro Maza, folklife curator at the museum, whose research and assemblage created the Miami section.

In Navarro Maza’s Skunk Ape display, there are photos of reported sightings, plus a plaster cast of alleged footprints from the large creature – four-toed rather than five.

“What is really interesting, which I learned doing this work, is that recorded stories go back about 200 years,” says Navarro Maza. Anyone who wants to know more about the Skunk Ape or the Chupacabra is in luck. Visitors can scan a QR code to hear from Zoo Miami’s Ron Magill, who was tapped to help with the actual Chupacabra investigation, or from Dave Shealy, likely the world’s top Skunk Ape expert.

Mermaids and women from the sea are common across many cultures. (Photo courtesy of Justin Namon/HistoryMiami Museum)

The bulk of the show was organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in collaboration with the Australian National Maritime Museum, the Canadian Museum of Natural History, the Fernbank Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum in Chicago.

The exhibit is divided into three sections, Land, Sea and Air.

The Sea section may be the most alluring, for both children and adults. Along with depictions and models of mermaids from the western tradition are sea creatures from other cultures. Those include Africa’s water spirit Mami Wata, who can be both helpful and dangerous, and Haiti’s Lasirèn who can conduct people to her undersea home from whence they return with new powers. She is often portrayed with a mirror – the doorway to her realm and is associated with voodoo priestesses and practices.

A diorama of the giant squid is exceptionally thrilling – the Kraken’s 12-foot long tentacles rise from the gallery floor. (Photo courtesy of Justin Namon/HistoryMiami Museum)

From the Inuit in Canada and Greenland comes the tale of Sedna, who, after being tossed overboard by her father, creates the whales, seals and walruses. And, a diorama of the giant squid is exceptionally thrilling – the Kraken’s 12-foot long tentacles rise from the gallery floor while it stares at visitors with baleful red eyes.

“As an institution, we tell stories, and this is just a wealth of different cultures,” says Barfield. “It’s a storytelling opportunity.”

WHAT: Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns  & Mermaids

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday; noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday

WHERE: HistoryMiami Museum, 101 West Flagler Street, Miami

COST: $15, adults, $10, students/seniors, and $8 for children, and free for HistoryMiami members

INFORMATION: historymiami.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Four Decades of Oolite Artists Featured in ‘It Was Always About You’

Frances Trombly is one of more than 40 artists whose work is featured in Oolite Arts’ summer exhibition titled “It Was Always About You . . .” (Photo courtesy of Diana Larrea)

A piece of pottery by the late Ellie Schneiderman sits in the center of the gallery at Oolite Arts on Lincoln Road for its summer exhibition, “It Was Always About You  . . .”

The clay pot is on a pedestal, conjuring a dual meaning.

In the annals of Miami’s visual arts community, Schneiderman’s legacy is deservedly put on a pedestal. The visionary artist founded the South Florida Art Center on Lincoln Road in 1983, after persuading the Miami Beach Commission to take her up on an offer to buy three properties on the thoroughfare with grant money. Her idea was to provide low-cost art studios and exhibition spaces.

A piece of pottery by founder Ellie Schneiderman is on display and placed in the center of the gallery at Oolite Arts on Lincoln Road for its summer exhibition, “It Was Always About You . . .” (Photo courtesy of Oolite Arts)

In a taped recording released as a tribute to Schneiderman, who died on April 18, 2020, at the age of 80, the arts pioneer recalled starting the center, which would create lasting change on Lincoln Road, sparking careers and camaraderie among artists, along with a resurgence of the area itself.

“I applied for a grant,” the artist explained.  She received it after going to the Miami Beach City Commission with her idea of starting an urban artists’ colony. The city approved $62,000 ” . . . and that allowed me to figure four bucks a square foot . . . an artist could tell me, once they’d be juried in by a panel, how many feet they could afford.”

“It Was Always About You . . . ,” which opens Wednesday, July 12, and runs through Sunday, Sept. 17, features more than 40 artists who have been a part of Oolite Arts’ four decades on Miami Beach.

Potter-turned-artists’ advocate Ellie Schneiderman bought empty storefronts on Lincoln Road and in 1983 founded South Florida Art Center, which became ArtCenter/SouthFlorida. In 2019, the name was changed to Oolite Arts. (Photo courtesy of Oolite Arts)

“Having Ellie at the center of the show makes sense,” says Laura Guerrero, Oolite Arts programs coordinator, who co-curated the group show with Dennis Scholl, the nonprofit’s president and CEO since 2017. “When I was reaching out to different artists that we asked to participate in the show, I was really struck by the long-lasting community that Ellie started. It was apparent that this was something that wasn’t only close to her heart but also to everyone around her.”

For Scholl, there’s a bittersweet nostalgia built into “It Was Always About You. . .” It will be the last show he curates at Oolite Arts in his position:  He is stepping down at the end of the summer to focus on his own art practice.

“Her line was always ‘helping artists help themselves,’ so when Laura and I started to talk about this show, we both agreed almost immediately that it all started with Ellie and it would be important to honor her,” says Scholl.

Roscoè B. Thické III, “Hear No Evil,” will be exhibited as part of Oolite Arts’ “It Was Always About You.” (Photo courtesy of Oolite Arts)

The South Florida Art Center, which became ArtCenter/South Florida, sold its signature building at 800 Lincoln Road for $88 million in 2014, with the profits from the sale allowing growth for the organization. Then in 2019, when it was announced that the center would eventually be moving to Miami’s Little River neighborhood, where it is building a new $30 million, 26,850-square-foot campus, ArtCenter/South Florida became Oolite Arts. It continues to house resident artists and produce arts programming at 924 Lincoln Road.

“This show,” says Guerrero, “is about art, community, and intimacy. It’s about exploring the relationships of the artists that have been part of the evolution, the relationships created among the arts, and the impact of Oolite on them and their careers.”

Luis Gispert, who is one of the artists featured in “It Was Always About You . . .,” had a studio at Art Center/South Florida for a few years during the 1990s.

Co-curators of “It Was Always About You. . .” Laura Guerrero, Oolite Arts’ Program Coordinator, and Dennis Scholl, Oolite Arts President and CEO. (Photos courtesy of Oolite Arts and Mary Beth Koeth)

“At the time, the art scene in Miami wasn’t as big as it is now. There weren’t many places for young artists to hang out and do things. We were a bunch of kids in our 20s. There were some artists like William Cordova and John Espinosa who have gone on to bigger and greater things,” says Gispert, who Scholl says was one of the artists that he first thought of to be in the group exhibition.

“There are people like Luis who have gone on to have pretty big art careers. I wanted this exhibit to be the works of people for whom Oolite has meant a lot and for those that Oolite has been very appreciative of, too,” says Scholl.

When he called Gispert to ask if he would be part of the group show, Scholl says he had a special request. “I asked him if he would lend us one of my favorite pieces.” Gispert said yes.

In 2001, Gispert began documenting Miami’s iconic “chonga” girls in his photographic series entitled, “Cheerleaders,” which attracted widespread critical acclaim and induced the chonga image into high art.  His 2002 digital video, “Blockwatching,” part of the series of works based on Miami culture, will be at Oolite: A girl dressed a la Miami chonga is in a green room and she’s dancing to a car alarm as if it’s a techno beat.

Luis Gispert, “Block Watching,” Digital Video 1:53, 2002, is part of the summer exhibition at Oolite Arts, “It Was Always About You . . .”(Photo courtesy of Frederic Snitzer Gallery)

When Gispert thinks of the Miami art scene now compared to when he was at the Art Center studio, he says “it’s night and day. You couldn’t find a place to do a show. There were no galleries, no collectors that would buy anything. You couldn’t make a living.”

Frances Trombly, another artist featured in “It Was Always About You . . .” spent a year in 2019 as an Oolite artist in residence. Then in 2022, Trombly received one of the grants for Oolite Arts’ Home + Away program to attend a five-week residency at Artpace in San Antonio, a life-altering experience not only for her work but for her family.

“I was able to bring my daughter (Penelope) and my husband (artist Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova). It’s rare to have the opportunity to be in residence with family and for my daughter to be there alongside me,” says Trombly. “As a mother, it would be difficult for me to leave my role as caregiver for a month. Oolite understood my needs. It’s that kind of thinking that we need, organizations that meet artists where they are.”

Trombly also received one of Oolite Arts’ Ellie Creator Awards (named in honor of founder Schneiderman) to create large-scale works that examine textiles and their relationship to painting. The piece she’s showing in the summer exhibition is one of the smaller works from the series created as part of the award.

Frances Trombly, Weaving, (Weld with Canvas Warp),” 2020 Handwoven, Hand-dyed (Weld) silk and rayon,
cotton, wood. (Photo courtesy of Emerson Dorsch)

“They have been really supportive of my practice for a long time,” says Trombly.

She co-founded Miami alternative art space Dimensions Variable with Rodriguez-Casanova in 2009 and says her time with Oolite has made an impact on how she approaches her business, too.

“We look to them as a visionary organization in the community. We have a lot of influences, and they are definitely a place that is inspiring,” she says.

The title of the show speaks to what Trombly expresses about Oolite. Scholl explains that he wanted to come up with a name for the exhibition that would differentiate the group show from anything else the organization has done. And that led to the notion of Oolite putting artists at the center of its mission from Day One.

William Osorio, Mayabe, 1978, 2022, oil on canvas, is featured in Oolite Arts’ summer exhibition, “It Was Always About You.” (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“It always comes back to being there for them,” Scholl says. “It always is, and has been, about the artists.”

Artists exhibiting in addition to Trombley and Gispert include Michael Loveland, John Sanchez, Alette Simmons-Jimenez, Regina Jestrow, William Osorio, Jayme Gershen, Barron Sherer, Amanda Bradley, Carlos Betancourt, Gonzalo Fuenmayor, Pablo Contrisciani, Laura Marsh, Vickie Pierre, T.E.S., Tom Virgin, Chire Regans, Ahol Sniffs Glue, Roscoè Thické, James Herring, Christina Pettersson, Ema Ri, T. Elliot Mansa, lou anne colodny, Marielle Plaisir, Cara Despain, Diana Eusebio, Jen Clay, Kelly Breez, Germane Barnes, Rose Marie Cromwell, Juan Luis Matos, Beatriz Monteavaro, Gavin Perry, Thomas Bils, Rafael Domenech, Mark Koven, Matthew Forehand, Ernesto Oroza, Carolina Sardi, Agustina Woodgate, Kristen Thiele, Michael Vasquez, Robert Thiele and Reginald O’Neal.

WHAT: “It Was Always About You”

WHERE: 924 Gallery, Oolite Arts, 924 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach

WHEN: Opening Wednesday, July 12. 6 to 8 p.m. Through Sunday, Sept. 17. Hours, daily, noon to 5 p.m.

COST: Free

INFORMATION: 305-674 -8278 or oolitearts.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of dance, visual arts, music, and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Nomadic homework gallery launches 2 summer shows in 2 locations

Gallerists Aurelio Aguilo and Mayra Mejia, co-founders of homework, have one show at the former Miami Club Rum distillery in Little River and another coming up at the Sagamore. (Photo courtesy of Gabriel Duque).

Pipes coming out of walls, derelict machinery yet to be carted away – contemporary art gallery homework’s newest temporary home is a far cry from the pristine walls of a museum. Located just one door down from art bookstore Dale Zine, until recently it was the Miami Club Rum distillery in Little River, yet another one of those Miami businesses that pops up out of nowhere with a fancy showroom and disappears just as quickly as it came.

Yet Aurelio Aguilo, the homework gallery’s co-founder along with his partner Mayra Mejia, isn’t fazed by the abandonment. “It’s curatorially interesting,” he says.

“Lenguaje,” a mixed-media work by Joaquin Stacey-Calle, created from pool screens. The artist is one of eight featured in homework’s “Summer School” group show. (Photo courtesy of homework)

The duo is used to bucking tradition when it comes to showing art. Since holding their first show in 2021, they’ve jumped around various locations in keeping with their ethos as a “nomadic” art gallery, attempting to break free from the commercial fairs and white-walled asceticism of the establishment. They’ve activated in New York at the Ace Hotel and are currently planning a project in Los Angeles to coincide with Frieze Week in February. But most of their shows have been in Miami, where they currently live, and the majority were held at The Knoxon, a gutted former motel on Biscayne Boulevard. It’s an innovative approach, but one that certainly has its pros and cons.

“It helps us a lot, because we don’t have that constant overhead of having a permanent space. But if we find a space that is worth it for us business-wise, and we can do these nomadic options more frequently, and actually control what we have permanently, for a year, I think it would be a good evolution for the gallery,” says Aguilo.

After the owners of the motel finally leased the space to a full-time tenant, homework struggled to find a new spot. They came up against Miami’s difficult commercial real estate market, where landlords in Little Haiti and Wynwood were unwilling to rent to a temporary tenant or were charging unreasonable rates. But through a twist of fate, they ended up not just with one exhibition space, but two.

Heading into July, homework will present a smorgasbord of summer offerings in two locations across the city. Starting on Friday, July 7 at the Little River space, a group show titled “Summer School” will show eight local artists throughout the cavernous distillery’s four rooms. The show will close on Saturday, July 22, and the gallery will move to the Sagamore Hotel on Miami Beach for “Retreat Volume 1,” a solo show for Miami-based Argentinian pop artist Falopapas running from Saturday, July 29 to Wednesday, Aug. 12.

A homework presentation at Ace Hotel in New York City. Though they’ve become fixtures of Miami’s art scene, the gallery doesn’t see itself as tied to any specific city. (Photo courtesy of Jodie Love)

Like their last summer show “Salad Days,” which presented art based around themes of youth and innocence, “Summer School” also carries with it a concept. With summer marking the low season in Miami’s tourism industry, Aguilo says, the show marks a chance to explore what rest, renewal and reflection can do for us in a world defined by the “constant grind” of work.

“Summer, for me, is always like a time where the year cuts in half, there’s a break, there’s a reflection, and then you come back with some new energy to finish off the year. But it’s also, I think, for artists it’s very important to  . .  . filter and limit the stuff that they’re always showing out there, and to take the time to reflect on the work that they’re actually doing, not just doing work to do work.”

Aguilo’s experimental attitude also extends to the artists in the show. During my visit Richard Verguez, who showed constructivist-inspired collages of trains and rail infrastructure with homework during Miami Art Week in December, stopped by to see the space and plan out an installation. Other featured artists include Matt Forehand, known for sumptuous figurative and landscape paintings; Joaquin Stacey-Calle, who incorporates patio screens into his mixed-media canvases; and photographer Roscoè B. Thické III.

Then there’s the stuff beyond the art. One signature of homework’s summer shows that has made them a fixture of Miami’s alternative art scene during the low season is supplementary programming. The gallery is making sure there’s plenty to do at both sites besides look at artworks, with opening and closing parties and more, and also aim to provide a space for artists and creatives to hang out.

At “Summer School,” homework will host a Relaxation Tea Ceremony (4 p.m. Saturday, July 8), a wine tasting hosted by Boia De sommelier Gabriela Victoria Ospina (5 p.m. Sunday, July 16), a panel discussion on fine art, branding, and commissions featuring artist and designer Brian Butler (6 p.m. Friday, July 14), a pair of film screenings, and more. They’ll round out programming at the space by hosting the monthly vintage market Walter’s Mercado, which has been in residence at the building.

An untitled painting by artist Andrew Arocho, who features in homework Gallery’s “Summer School” group show. (Photo courtesy of homework))

Programming at the Sagamore is a bit more sporadic. An opening pool party (beginning at noon Saturday, July 29) will feature sounds by vintage Latin music crew Rum & Coke, during which Falopapas will execute a mural painting. There will also be a “Meet The Artist” session (6 p.m. Thursday, August 3, RSVP required) sponsored by the Consulate General of Argentina.

Beyond the summer, when Miami’s scene kicks into high gear, homework is pondering their options. Weary of constantly searching for spaces in the city, they’ve considered applying for one of the Miami Art Week fairs such as NADA or Untitled. They’ve even thought of ditching the traveling aspect and finding a permanent space – the Sagamore has expressed interest in an extended partnership. Or, they may leave Miami altogether.

“We don’t want to drown because we weren’t able to adapt or evolve, and that evolution can even mean leaving the city,” says Aguilo. “We’re nomadic in nature.”

WHAT: homework Presents Summer School; homework Presents Retreat Part I

WHEN: Summer School runs through Friday, July 7 through Saturday, July 22; Retreat Part I runs Saturday, July 29 through Wednesday, Aug. 12

 WHERE: Summer School at 7401 NW Miami Place, Miami; Retreat Part I at Sagamore Hotel, 1671 Collins Ave, Miami Beach,

 COST:  Entry and programming are free; some events encourage RSVP but is not required.

 INFORMATION: For schedules, RSVP links, and other information, visit homework.gallery or instagram.com/homework.gallery.

Miami indie bookstore Dale Zine takes on the art world

Rows of books, zines, and artwork line the walls inside Dale Zine’s colorful space in Little River. (Photo courtesy of Alfonso Duran)

The bright, welcoming space of Dale Zine’s shop in Little River has a pull — it draws you in and makes you never want to leave.

Sunlight streams through the windows and onto the funky orange-and-off-white checkerboard linoleum floor. Art books and zines, the majority published by independent presses, line the walls and tables alongside stickers, candles, t-shirts, sunglasses, and other ephemera.

The shop, recently declared “Best Bookstore” by Miami New Times, sells books on all kinds of subjects: exhibition catalogs from prestigious museums, experimental photography books, zines featuring rave culture memorabilia. One can walk out of the place with a quarterly magazine on natural wines or a funky jigsaw puzzle from an independent designer, a photo book of street art in New York or a pack of incense. You never know what you’ll leave with, but you’ll always leave with something.

Outside Dale Zine’s storefront in Little River. (Photo courtesy of Alfonso Duran)

The space’s focus on art and visual culture has seen it survive where more traditional bookstores have closed. They also use the shop as a community space, holding events like small press fairs, book signings, and art classes.

“I’ve noticed a lot more people being more endearing to Miami, and being like ‘we want to support what you do, and we understand how hard it is,’” Lillian Banderas, the shop’s co-owner, says. “I think, definitely, our demographic has grown into that, where before it’s just been, I feel like, people that geek out about specific things like we do.”

Her partner Steve Saiz agrees, pointing to things like a comic book on Drexciya, a conceptual techno group from Detroit. “If one person comes in they’re obviously gonna be (excited) like, ‘Why the hell do you have this?’ And that’s what we love so much. It’s not like, ‘where’s the bestseller section.’ We try to get the deeper things in there.”

Dale Zine expanded from a shop selling art books into a gallery selling art. It recently showed work from local artist Kelly Breez at the NADA New York art fair. (Photo courtesy of Vanessa Diaz)

It’s this kind of esoteric appeal that’s made Dale an inseparable part of local life for many Miamians, especially when such spaces remain threatened by rising rents and encroaching development. Banderas and Saiz both hold down full-time jobs in addition to running Dale, and the physical shop itself has been forced to move frequently – their first locations were small, booth-sized storefronts in Downtown Miami. Their current space, adjacent to the Fountainhead Studios arts complex, is the largest they’ve ever had. Artists with studios in the Fountainhead complex frequently pop in, adding to the shop’s neighborhood feel, and although the building has been threatened with demolition, Banderas and Saiz feel confident in their landlords and their ability to source another location nearby, should the need arise.

“I feel really secure in the neighborhood, but I’m starting to feel like, you know, really our brand is always on the go. It’s a part of Miami, too,” says Banderas.

“We’re movers and we also sell books and art,” Saiz says jokingly.

Dale Zine’s owners have been forced to move locations multiple times. They’ve gotten creative by reusing materials, such as creating this display table out of an old shop sign. (Photo courtesy of Amanda Martinez)

“I think we’re a good example of how hard it is to have a small business in Miami,” Banderas continues. Saiz adds, “That’s not like a tourism or nightlife thing. Something cultural in Miami, I feel like, I grew up here and (small art businesses) aren’t really a thing that survives.”

For Dale, sustaining their business has meant traveling down a new avenue: art dealing. The shop began showing art as a gallery when the current location opened in 2021, including at NADA Miami during Miami Art Week. Buzzy locals such as Alejandra Moros and Thomas Bils, both known for their hyperrealist paintings, have held down shows with Dale, which usually shows artwork on the shop’s back wall (on a recent visit, works on paper by Portland artist Momo Gordon were on display). Their gallery activity has been such a success that they were invited to show at NADA’s New York art fair in May; they recruited friend and Fountainhead resident Kelly Breez, who curated the space’s inaugural show “Sun Showers,” to show new work.

“. . . Starting to sell things in that kind of atmosphere will help us support having (the shop) and having this platform for keeping things accessible,” says Banderas.

Banderas and Saiz credit Ebony L. Hayes, a boundary-pushing curator at David Zwirner Gallery and 52 Walker, for helping them take the next step from publishing zines and artists’ books to putting on art shows. “She dry-called us, basically, and was like ‘Hey, I would love to see you guys as curators for NADA,’” says Banderas. “She was very matter of fact, like ‘I’ve been following your guys’ careers for a while, and what you guys are doing with zines is kind of disrupting how we see gallerists.”

In keeping with their grassroots sensibility, the duo tries to take a more sustainable approach to art dealing, a field that can be fraught with ethical issues and high prices designed to gatekeep art for the upper class. “Every show, we’ll try to do a scene with that artist that someone could get for like five or 10 bucks,” says Saiz. “Or you could buy a painting, depending on your economic (situation).”

Banderas believes it’s about removing barriers.

Kelly Breez’s work explores the kitschy culture of a bygone era of South Florida. (Photo courtesy of Vanessa Diaz)

“I think accessibility starts with us, and with the artists too,” says Banderas.

Both describe a certain sense of impostor syndrome when exhibiting alongside art world heavy-hitters like multinational mega-dealer Hauser & Wirth, one of several art world heavy-hitters with gallery spaces in Chelsea where NADA New York was held. But they say it is empowering considering their humble origins, comparing themselves to David going up against the blue-chip Goliaths. Maintaining a firm curatorial voice and focus on Miami’s idiosyncratic culture helps: Notable past shows have included meditations on Hurricane Andrew and illustrations by Brian Butler riffing on local iconography. Breez’s presentation at NADA New York featured “matchbook paintings” celebrating vanished and imaginary small businesses evoking the ‘80s and ‘90s in South Florida.

Not all of what Dale shows or sells comes exclusively from locals – they’ll stock whatever they think is cool whether an artist lives in Opa-Locka or Osaka. But it’s undeniable that having such an accessible space for art and artists in Miami has had a deep effect.

“We’re not trying to sell work to sell work. We’re selling the work to really empower new artists to feel really secure about their future,” says Banderas.

WHAT: Dale Zine

WHEN: 1 to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Closed Monday and Tuesday.

WHERE:  7395 NW Miami Place, Miami.

COST:  Free.

INFORMATION: dalezine.com or instagram.com/dale_zine

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of dance, visual arts, music, and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Texas native turned Miami artist highlights environment, experience in ‘Textures of Humanity’

Troy Simmons, “Pearl,” (2023), reinforced concrete, cardboard, wood, house paint, acrylic mix, and powder-coated aluminum, is one of the works included in “Textures of Humanity” at Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami. (Photo courtesy of Fredric Snitzer Gallery)

As a boy, Troy Simmons would spend summers sitting at his grandfather’s feet on a small farm in Texas and watching as he created magic with his hands.

Totem poles were coaxed from hunks of wood and furniture emerged from deer antlers and skin.

Intrigued, Simmons attempted to follow suit and, on that farm, (his very first studio) he fiddled with sticks, experimented with concrete and dirt, and launched his career through the art of play.

Troy Simmons, “Push-Pops & Daytons,” (2023), reinforced concrete, aluminum, and acrylic mix. (Photo courtesy of Fredric Snitzer Gallery)

“I didn’t go to art school,” says Simmons. “Basically as a kid, I just was one of those kids that liked to experiment with things.”

And while his family encouraged his creative side, they also reminded him to be practical.

“My parents weren’t fans and didn’t really know much about art, so there wasn’t a discussion about ‘Oh, I’m going to be an artist. There was more of like, ‘Okay, you’re having fun playing with that wood, now go get a job, find a career and you could play with that later on.'”

And that is what Simmons did.

His first job opened his eyes, giving him a front-row seat to a whole new universe.

“I got a job working as a lab technician for a water treatment company,” says Simmons.

“It was interesting. It brought me into this world of microbes and really seeing what’s in the water that we’re drinking before we put it back into the environment and the water that’s coming through our tap. All that stuff was cool for me,” he says. But, he admits that he was bored.

“I wasn’t able to be creative . . .” says Simmons.

“Flagship ’83, (2023) reinforced concrete, aluminum, and acrylic mix. (Photo courtesy of Fredric Snitzer Gallery)

During his off hours, he made sculptures but it still wasn’t enough. He decided then and there he needed to go in an entirely different direction.

“I went back to school again for architecture. It was one of those things for me that felt like it was checking all the boxes,” he says.

Then working at a design-build firm satisfied some of the yearnings.

“I was able to take a customer’s idea from a napkin and basically put it into the real world…So this was all growing my art practice at the same time, too. So, when I got off from work as an architectural designer, I would come home and do my own sculptures.”

But when his wife was offered a new career opportunity, the couple moved to Miami and it afforded him the chance to wholly immerse himself in his artistic practice.

Artist Troy Simmons with one of his works exhibited at Volta New York art fair. (Photo courtesy of Anton Kirindongo)

“We just decided to make that career change. My art practice is pretty mobile so I was able to move my tools and everything Miami and so it was good for us.  We were young. We were excited . . . We chose to come and explore Miami. So, when I moved to Florida, I basically just jumped all into the art world.”

It paid off.

His pieces have been featured at numerous events including Art Basel Miami Beach, VOLTA New York, Art Paris and the Cornell Art Museum. He received the Oolite Ellies Creator Award and completed residencies at Artpace San Antonio and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His pieces appear internationally in private and corporate collections and he has also been tapped repeatedly for permanent public installations. This includes “Janus Portal,” a towering 22-foot concrete aluminum and steel sculpture commissioned by Bombardier Inc. at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport and a building facade in Wynwood commissioned by Goldman Global Arts at the Wynwood 2300 building.

His latest exhibition, “Textures of Humanity,” is on view at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery through Friday, June 30.

The work of Miami artist Troy Simmons is at Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, through Friday, June 30 (Photo courtesy of Fredric Snitzer Gallery)

“This is our first solo exhibition of his work,” says Joshua Veasey, managing director of the gallery, who adds that highlighting a local artist is important for the gallery.

“The other artists that we’re showing right now are based in Los Angeles yet have lived in Miami for a number of years, but our program is sort of rounded in the sense that we work with a lot of Cuban artists, a lot of Latin American contemporary artists, artists in Los Angeles and in New York, but it’s always important for us to be able to highlight and showcase a Miami artist.”

Veasey says that Simmons offers a unique perspective mostly because of his science and environmental studies and architectural background as opposed to formal visual arts training.

“. . .That he doesn’t come from this structure of visual art . . .  it’s pushed his own vernacular and his own voice and what he identifies with on a personal level into work that is very sophisticated and nuanced. And that also feels poetic with the way that he is juxtaposing these different materials together into his own formal language.”

The show consists of five pieces, but one, in particular, has caught Vesey’s eye and, he says, he believes it’s the most powerful work in the show.

” ‘Chasm,’ which is a work done all in black,” he says. “It’s really nuanced and it’s something that you really have to see in person.

“Chasm,” (2023), reinforced concrete, salvaged roofing tar on felt, wood, house paint, acrylic mix and powder-coated aluminum. (Photo courtesy of Fredric Snitzer Gallery)

Vesey says what draws him to the work are differentiations between the tonalities of the blacks, as well as a play between matte and gloss finishes within the work.

“You can almost see different dimensionalities in that sense,” says the gallery director.

Simmons says that the piece entitled, “Pearl,” reminds him of his grandmother’s jewelry box.

“Just a bunch of old pieces of jewelry all intertwined so that she couldn’t get the knots out. It’s just this stuff sitting in there. I’m thinking about all those colors that I saw. This gold and this green, emeralds, and these little trinkets of rusted tin copper looking stuff that was fake gold. So, all those different things are coming into play as I was completing this.”

Transforming materials in his environment is a theme commonly found throughout his work, which leads to the title of the exhibition “Textures of Humanity.”

“I use concrete as a material because concrete is the most used material outside of water in the world. it’s recognizable. It’s in everything. It’s in your highways. It’s in your streets. So, when you see the concrete facades of my work, that’s just a representation of that thing that you didn’t really know.  When it breaks down into the color, that’s that interior buildup of what you can build up over years of who you are inside. It’s more about who you are, as opposed to your exterior. So that concrete again… you see it. You’ll know what it is. It’s humanity. It’s the material that is what it is. But, when you chip away at it, you don’t know what’s inside.”

WHAT: “Textures of Humanity”

WHERE: Fredric Snitzer Gallery, 1540 NE Miami Court, Miami

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday,

COST: Free

INFORMATION: 305-448 -8976 or snitzer.com

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Artist Explores Cultural Significance of the ‘Black Card’ at Hampton Art Lovers

Brandon Clarke’s re-imagining of the birth of America at its core, stitching the stars and stripes to include all the people groups who helped build it, is part of the exhibition BLACK Card: Transactions of Cultural Currency” at Hampton Art Lovers. (Photo courtesy of Eye and Heart Photography)

The notion of the “Black Card” has permeated popular culture, often serving as a humorous reference. However, its meaning and representation as a marker of racial authenticity have raised questions.

Artist Brandon Clarke also shares these concerns, which led him to create t”BLACK Card: Transactions of Cultural Currency.” The exhibition will open on Saturday, June 17  and is on display through Aug. 31 at the Historic Ward Rooming House in Overtown.

“We curated this show to have a conversation about authenticity and access within our own community and outside our community,” says Clarke. “As we continue to make our Black voices known in America and around the world, we demand a seat at the table.”

A piece from “Black Card” interrogates the meaning of being Black. (Photo courtesy Eye and Heart Photography)

Delving into the intricacies of authenticity, access, and identity within the Black community, Clarke’s idea is to challenge societal perceptions and to shed light on the significance of the symbolic “Black Card” as a representation of cultural validation.

“My vision is not only to get our seat at the table, but we can sustain our seat at the table?” What good is wealth if you cannot sustain it for generations to come? I feel to help accomplish this alongside the strides we have already made requires a level of cultural sustainability within ourselves. The Black card became the perfect catalyst to represent much of what we are fighting for and against.”

The concept of the “Black Card” is not exclusive to the Black community but extends to various cultural groups. “Cuban Card,” “Haitian Card,” or “Jewish Card” are also figurative cards acting as signifiers of belonging and granting access to these specific cultures or communities.

In the Black community, some people have had their black card “revoked” because they have never seen TV series “The Wire,” the movie “Friday,” because they don’t like collard greens or sweet potato pie, or because they do enjoy pumpkin spice lattes.

Born in California, Clarke’s family moved when he was 8 years old to Lewes, Delaware, what he calls a beach community. He attended Cape Henlopen High School.

Because he didn’t grow up in a Black community or attended a majority Black school until he went to a historically Black college (Hampton University), he says he faced challenges to his own authenticity, with people questioning his Blackness due to engaging in activities that did not align with certain stereotypes.

“Oftentimes people question your authenticity when your experiences are different from theirs,” he says. “Sometimes, someone can lose his Black card, not because of what he may not know about the culture, but what activities he participated in.”

He says he surfed, snowboarded and skateboarded — activities that he enjoyed.

Artist Brandon Clarke. (Photo courtesy of Eye and Heart Photography)

“But people often questioned my Blackness because of it. Growing up I found out that a lot more Black people like myself had the same experiences.”

Reflecting on the level of Blackness, the Miami-based artist acknowledges that he is not sure “what the bar is.” However, he firmly believes that being Black in America is a precious gift, a tribute to the courageous legacy of his ancestors who faced countless limitations.

Quoting Christopher Norwood of Hampton Art Lovers, who co-curated and commissioned the show, the artist states, “As we expand our horizons and what it means to be Black in America, our ancestors expand their smiles.”

To explore the concept of the Black Card in his artwork, Clarke obtained a collection of black credit cards, which became the focal point of his creative expression. Some pieces portray the physical black credit card embedded within paintings, while others take a metaphorical approach, symbolizing transactions across various spaces, including marketing, social interactions, and economic evaluations.

“Our Blackness just doesn’t reach within our own community, but it stretches out the borders of who we are within this nation and even internationally,” says Clarke.

In deconstructing the idea of the Black Card as a euphemism for Black identity, the South Dade artist views it as a tool designed to confine individuals to predefined notions of Blackness.

This piece, included in Hampton Art Lovers’ “Black Card,” represents the internal transactions Black people make against and for themselves, according to the artist. (Photo courtesy of Eye and Heart Photography)

“The Black Card ultimately does not exist, it’s a tool to keep you in a box. But cultural currency is real, and we need to harness our culture and respect it as an economic tool for development,” proposes the artist. “Black culture absolutely drives the music business and sports, no one would argue with that statement. But the potential of our culture could also drive and revolutionize math and science as well.”

Clarke firmly establishes a connection between the symbolic Black Card and its real-life counterpart in the realm of credit and currency. He identifies the Black Card as the ultimate symbol of luxury and access, paralleling it with the value and global influence of Black culture, which has been at the forefront of defining “Cool” since the Harlem Renaissance.

Hampton Art Lovers, the organizers of the event, have played a crucial role in presenting Clarke’s artwork. The collaboration between the artist and the gallery stems from a shared love for Black art and a belief in its power to tell meaningful stories. With their mentorship and support, Clarke says he was able to develop the “Black Card” concept and transform it into this new installation.

“Chris (Norwood) and I began talking frequently. I pitched several concepts to him. We discussed them all and played them out visually. We scrapped most of them, but one of them was ‘Black Card’ and it felt personal to me in ways that the others didn’t. . . According to Chris, ‘Every great pitcher needs and even better catcher’ and on that day he caught ‘Black Card. and threw it back to me and said run with it.”

WHAT: “BLACK Card: Transactions of Cultural Currency”

WHERE: Hampton Art Lovers at Historic Ward Rooming House, 249 Northwest 29th St., Miami

WHEN: Opening 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 17.  noon to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday through Aug. 31.

COST: Free. RSVP for opening at hamptonartlovers.com

INFORMATION: hamptonartlovers.com

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‘All Black Everything’ showcases generations of African American graffiti artists

“Untitled,” 2019, by pioneering graffiti artist Bama, a Bronx, N.Y. native, is on view at the Museum of Graffiti’s “All Black Everything,” exhibit through Sept. 4. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Sometimes you just run out of luck.

It wasn’t the first time that graffiti artist and pioneer Richard “Bama” Admiral had been accused of spray-painting trains, but it was the third time that did it.

“The first two times I was arrested I was completely innocent,” says Admiral.

Daze, “If I’m Not Getting Through to You, You Ain’t Listening” 2021. Acrylic on canvas. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

At the time his parents were in Las Vegas on their second honeymoon and his father, in particular, wasn’t in the mood for any shenanigans.

“So (Dad) just said, ‘Wait ’til I get back,’ because he was not going to give up his vacation,” says Admiral, who hails from the “Boogie Down” Bronx.

“. . .I had to sit there for a week till they came back because there was nobody to get me out. That taught me a great deal. And I was guilty,” he admits. “I couldn’t get around that. I was completely guilty.”

Despite this, Admiral’s arrest didn’t exactly end his career.  It just took a slightly different turn.

From then on he decided to embrace a different tactic — one that significantly reduced his chances of getting caught.

“I became a soloist.”

His father, of course, still wasn’t enamored with his artistic pursuits.

Augustine Kofie, “FIRST,” 2023. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

And if you ask East New York-born and raised graffiti artist Doc TC5, he could definitely relate. His mother wasn’t much of a fan either.

“It was like an embarrassment to her that I was a vandal,” says TC5. “She never saw that it could go somewhere.”

But eventually, it did.

Ironically, the now much sought-after artist, said that it was his own mom who inspired the name for which he is now known.

“Before graffiti, I was into music,” explains TC5.  “I was into DJing very early in my life. It just became a thing where, you know, my mother just associated anything with me, as being music related.

“One day she asked me, ‘What are you gonna be when you get older’  And I said, ‘Well, I’d like to work with something in the medical field.’ She said, ‘What do you want to be a disco doctor?’ And it stuck.”

In all, it’s clear to both casual observers and graffiti fans alike, that both artists have paid their dues.

Kool Koor, “The ‘K’ Factor Kool,” 2009. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Whether it is getting arrested, dealing with detainment or getting ostracized from society and family members, it was all for the love of art; specifically their love of graffiti. The price they paid may have been well worth it because now their legendary pieces are unilaterally regarded as part of the bedrock of this street-based art movement.

Their contributions are part of the Museum of Graffiti’s “All Black Everything: A Survey of African American Graffiti” exhibition on view in Wynwood through Monday, Sept. 4. Also included are some of the most historically influential multigenerational artists, including Bama, Blade, Delta2, Dondi White, Ewok, Kool Koor, Noc167, Skeme, Web One, and Wane One. Original graffiti paintings on canvas and works on paper spanning the past four decades.

Alan Ket, curator of the exhibition and co-founder of the museum, says that it is important to highlight their contributions, particularly for those who are new to the art form.

One of the museum’s primary missions is “to preserve graffiti’s history and celebrate its emergence in design, fashion, advertising, and galleries,” he said. The “All Black Everything,” event is just one more way of celebrating graffiti while paying proper homage to some of those who initiated it first, according to Ket.

“These are real people that have contributed for decades and deserve to be recognized and not necessarily overshadowed by whoever is popular or is trendy at the moment, or the Instagram favorites of the past few years,” says Ket. “It seems like only people from my generation and older know this. Everybody else doesn’t have the awareness of the Black contribution to graffiti and how significant and important it is.”

Veefer, “Road & Track,” 2023, ink and watercolor on paper. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Ket says it is important that it is known that there are, and were, important African American artists that should be celebrated and acknowledged. As a graffiti artist himself, Ket wants to share what he has personally learned and experienced. He hopes that this history will ultimately shine through the exhibition.

“It isn’t just what’s happening today, but this is 50 years of history and 50 years of this sort of shared experience. And I want them to know the names. I want them to learn about these artists.”

He said that the exhibition with its long run through summer will offer plenty of time for people to visit the Museum of Graffiti.

“. . .To come in here, experience it and learn.”

WHAT: “All Black Everything: A Survey of African American Graffiti”

WHERE: Museum of Graffiti, 276 NW 26th St., Miami

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.

COST: $16 plus fee and sales tax, general admission, $12 plus fee and sales tax, student/military/senior general admission, free general admission for children 13 and younger.

INFORMATION: (786) 580-4678  or museumofgraffiti.com

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Cuban Artist Mariano Gets His Due at Little Havana Gallery

“Naturaleza muerta” (“Still Life”), 1946. Oil on canvas is Mariano Rodríguez’s own take on the European standard and is featured in the Latin Art Core gallery exhibit, “Mariano. Everything Possible.” (Photo courtesy of Latin Art Core gallery)

Cuban artist Mariano Rodríguez is arguably almost as popular in the Spanish-speaking world as his compatriot Wifredo Lam. Yet widespread recognition of the modernist master has been more elusive in North America. An exhibition at Little Havana’s Latin Art Core gallery is lifting the profile of this painter, primarily known as Mariano, whose unique vision brought a world of light and color to works that also celebrate his homeland.

Showcasing some of the artist’s most iconic paintings, drawings and watercolors, “Mariano. Everything Possible,” features works from the 1940s through the 1980s, including a room filled with his iconic rooster images. The exhibition also features later work, from the 1960s and beyond.

Mariano, born in 1912, spent his entire professional life in Cuba, and is tightly associated with island identity and culture, though he visited New York and Mexico. Imbibing the styles of Picasso, and other early Cubists, along with the Fauvist approach to color, Mariano was also strongly impressed by the Mexican muralist traditions, according to Latin Art Core President Israel Moleiro, who has been working with Mariano’s art for several decades. The exhibit is a collaboration between Latin Art Core and the Fundación Mariano Rodríguez.

Mujer en interior con piña (Woman in Interior with pineapple), 1943. Oil on cardboard. Curator Cristina Figueroa says that Mariano enjoyed the company of his muses, his peasants, and his tropical fruits.

Greeting visitors as they enter the gallery on Calle Ocho is one of Mariano’s best-known works, “La Paloma de la paz,” (“The Dove of Peace”). Painted in 1940, the allegorical work is Mariano’s cri de coeur about World War II, then raging across Europe.

In the painting, a full-bodied white-clad woman bends backward and releases a white dove from a red handkerchief; beyond is sea and sky. Cuba, an early ally of the United States, was deeply involved in the war. “This is more a political statement about the war in Europe,” says Moleiro, who noted that the war produced a booming island economy, and rapid changes along with fears of German U-boats stalking the Caribbean.

Flanking “La Paloma” are works that highlight how Mariano integrated European and Latin American ideas to produce his signature oeuvre.

“La paloma de la paz” (“The Dove of Peace”), 1940, oil on canvas. Mariano’s comment on the ravages of WWII. (Photo courtesy of Latin Art Core gallery)

“One of the characteristics of Mariano is the connection between the muralist style from Mexico and the surrealist style in Europe,” says Moleiro, adding that many Cuban artists were similarly influenced, but in Mariano’s work, one can see the bridge. “That combination gives you a unique style.”

Mariano was deeply influenced by how the Fauvists and masters such as Paul Cézanne, André Derain, and Henri Matisse used color. Intense painting choices that may have seemed wild under the often-muted skies of Europe, fit perfectly the experience of Cuban island life.

“Most of the intention in the color is in relation to the culture – where you live and express yourself,” says Moliero. “Those are the real colors you see in the tropics.”

The work of Cuban artist Mariano Rodríguez, pictured here in 1964, is featured in a retrospective at the Latin Art Core gallery through June. (Photo courtesy of Ida Kar, The Mariano Foundation )

Those influences can be seen in several of the show’s masterpieces. “Mujer en interior con piña” (“Woman in Interior with Pineapple”), from 1943, shows a woman in purple, holding a pineapple, one leg raised behind her, a symphony of blues, mauve, green and orange.

Indeed, his take on the traditional European still life, channeling Matisse and Cézanne, couldn’t be more wry. In “Naturaleza Muerta” (“Still Life”) from 1946, instead of apples, we see pineapples and the Mexican fruit mamey.

In “Mujeres en interior” (“Women in Interior”), again from 1943, a woman holds a bunch of bananas to her breast, her face composed of greens, oranges, blues, yellows, and beige, referencing another Mariano focus, the intersection of fruits and sexuality.

“He was a very erotic artist,” says Cristina Figueroa, show curator who wrote the catalog’s introduction and text, and who is project manager of the Spain-based Mariano Rodríguez Foundation. “For him, the fruit was like a forbidden fruit,” she explains. Figueroa’s expertise about Mariano has deep roots. She formerly worked at Casa de las Américas, the well-known Cuban cultural institution, headed by Mariano in the early ’80s, where, explains Figueroa, he started the department devoted to art.

“Mujeres en interior” (“Women in Interior”) 1943, oil on board on canvas. Eroticism was many times a subtext in Mariano’s work. (Photo courtesy of Latin Art Core gallery)

Women with fruit weren’t his only erotic commentary. Many first come to know Mariano from his rooster paintings and drawings, a group of which are featured in the exhibit. “It’s a very common animal, but it lets you put all the colors inside,” says Moliero. His roosters were also a national symbol, a connection to the island’s everyday people and a reference to virility. “At that time, the rooster was a symbol of freedom, and of a strong man.”

In the last few years, Mariano, who died in 1990, has been attracting the attention his work deserves. A 2021 exhibit at The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College showcased the artist, and Miami’s own Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) had a retrospective of his work last year. The Little Havana show now adds to that growing visibility.

WHAT: “Mariano. Everything Possible”

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday. Through June 29, 2023

WHERE: Latin Art Core, 1646 SW Eighth St, Miami

COST: Free

INFORMATION: 305-989 9085 or latinartcore.com

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Lonnie Holley’s Transcendent Outside Art at MOCA North Miami

Lonnie Holley, “If You Really Knew I and II,” 1980s, chain link gate, scrap metal, fabric, painted street sign, pressure gauge, on display in the exhibition “If You Really Knew” at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

Throughout Alabama artist Lonnie Holley’s show at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, we see faces. They occur in his sandstone sculptures that resemble Shona art from Zimbabwe or Mesoamerican stone carvings. They appear in profile all over his recent spray paintings and monolithic steel sculptures, sometimes in vivid fluorescent colors, other times in monochrome or earth tones, and always in a collage-like profile. It’s something of a fixation for the 73-year-old artist but speaks and moves with the wise, weary demeanor of someone even older, someone who’s lived a lot of life.

“I can’t put the whole body of everything. In my earliest faces, on my sandstones, I tried to,” says Holley. “But I can put us together, by symbolizing the many faces in one particular thing – and giving that particular piece of work a title – of us. No matter how, or where, or when, we are the us of humanity. And I may not be able to say that this is talking about Blackness, or colored-ness, or negro-ness. But I can say I’m talking about us as humanity.”

Lonnie Holley’s “The Spirit of the Misused Ones,” 2019, Steel, on display at MOCA, North Miami. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo. (Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber)

To say the least, the life that Holley has led is an unconventional one. He is self-taught as an artist. He declares himself to be one of 27 children from 32 pregnancies. He faced extreme adversity throughout his life as a survivor of childhood poverty and the deprivations of the Jim Crow era. He spent time in the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, a notorious juvenile detention facility now likened to a “slave camp.”  His work is informed by those traumatic experiences – the show’s title “If You Really Knew” speaks to the fact that we can never truly understand the complexities of his life. But the exhibition is not defined by it. It speaks to the greater humanity that we can all connect to through art and how we can use it to transcend ourselves.

“If You Really Knew” encompasses a small, but wide snapshot of Holley’s career as an artist, which is defined primarily from his use of salvaged objects, dating back to his earliest works —the sandstone heads that he carved out of discarded slag from local steel mills. Materials such as scrap metal, wood, and plastic are assembled with extreme intentionality.

Artist Lonnie Holley (Photo courtesy of David Raccuglia)

Many works in the show are contemporary meditations on past anti-racist struggles that reverberate into our own time. Works such as “The Water This Time” and “Without Skin,” made from fire hoses wrapped around stacked wooden boxes, recall the hoses that were turned upon Black protesters by police during the civil rights movement. In one of his spray-paintings, silhouetted faces loom over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched over. A similar painting on a canvas made from quilts, titled “What Women Are Afraid to Lose (The Fires on Our Planet),” references the contemporary fight against the anti-abortion movement in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s overturn by the Supreme Court.

Years ago, at an art workshop I attended taught by Holley, he told the class that everything he uses in his artwork comes from the earth. In a philosophical sense, he’s right: Everything in human civilization eventually comes from one source, our “Mothership.” So, by using these cast-off bits, Holley is forcing us to confront the “stupid” things we’ve done to the planet.

Lonnie Holley, “Without Skin,” 2020, chairs, fire hose and cement nails. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo. (Photo courtesy of Lonnie Holley/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

“We are blaming so much and leaving so much to blame for other generations to try to figure out,” he says. “Everything that we’ve buried, all in landfills, and all the sneakiness – we snuck away and we took loads and loads of trash, garbage, and debris off the backs of our vehicles and we just put them in what we call sacred, hidden places. We didn’t hide them from nature. Mother Nature still was feeling our way of throwing things away upon her.”

Holley has seen plenty of faces come and go in his time. Some of these were of fellow “outsider” artists following similar, self-taught paths, and a section of the exhibition co-curated by Holley features their work. This includes Miami’s own Purvis Young, as well as Thornton Dial and Mary T. Smith. All of these artists have passed away.

Lonnie Holley, “What Women Are Afraid to Lose (The Fires On Our Planet),” 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo. (Photo courtesy of Lonnie Holley/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

Holley becomes emotional, even shedding tears, when discussing his friendship with them, as well as the late art collector William Arnett, who championed underseen Black artists from the South as founder of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. In a way, Holley has taken on that mission. He is proof that through art, anybody can be seen, and anything can be made greater than the sum of its parts. We’re all living on the same mothership, after all.

WHAT: “Lonnie Holley: If You Really Knew”

 WHEN:  noon to 7 p.m. Wednesday. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Through Oct. 1.

 WHERE:  Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, 770 NE 125th St., North Miami.

 COST:  $10, general admission; $5, seniors, students, and visitors identifying as disabled; free for children (12 and under), veterans, North Miami residents and city employees, caregivers accompanying disabled visitors, and museum members.

INFORMATION: (305) 893-6211 or  mocanomi.org

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Oolite CEO Dennis Scholl leaving to focus full time on creating his own art

“Untitled (DiMaggio honeymoon),” 2022, acquired objects and graphite 57 1/2″ X 57 1/2″ (Photo courtesy of Hua International)

A large part of Dennis Scholl’s success as an arts leader, collector, documentary filmmaker, and every one of his endeavors from attorney to entrepreneur is that when he commits to something, he does just that – commit.

For the past six years, he has been devoted to Oolite Arts as the president and CEO of the Miami-based non-profit artist support organization. Prior to that, from 2009 to 2015, he was vice president for arts at John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, where he oversaw the foundation’s national arts program, directing the giving of grants to artists and arts organizations.

Now, after years of being a supporter of artists and leaving the art-making to artists, Scholl says it is time to turn his attention to his own creative practice.

“I was a patron and a collector and a fan,” says Scholl. (For context, in 44 years of collecting, he’s amassed nearly 2,000 works and continues to purchase art.)

Seasoned arts leader Dennis Scholl, president and CEO, of Oolite Arts is leaving after six years to dedicate his work full time to creating films and his own visual art. (Photo courtesy of Mary Beth Koeth)

It was in 2009 when he made his first film, the six-minute short “Sunday’s Best,” a documentary that highlighted the African-American custom of wearing extraordinary hats to church services. He co-directed it with two other filmmakers, Marlon Johnson and Chad Tingle, and he felt what having his own creative practice was like.

“I enjoyed the process and the collaborative part of filmmaking,” he says. “And (the film) received a lot of attention.”

Since then, he’s made 100 short films and seven feature-length documentaries about art and artists.

And while he loves filmmaking and will continue, Scholl says that about eight years ago he felt he wanted to expand his practice. “I wanted to try and do something that didn’t take 15 people to make a piece of art. Films are collaborative and you need so many people – a photographer, a sound person . . .”

He began focusing on the question: “What is it that I know and do that I can bring to an art practice?”

Then, as someone who has been “collecting things almost since birth,” he began “poking around in that.”

The poking unearthed an interest he has always had in collecting historical ephemera, which has led to where he is now. It brings together his desire to create original art with his penchant for collecting.

Scholl began to look for historical and branded original objects, some that he already obtained from bidding at auctions and others that he would and will continue to acquire to create his original works.

“I generally reassemble the individual objects creating a dodecagon, a 12-sided figure,” he says.

In March, he exhibited his first solo show, titled “The Texture of Memory,” in Berlin, featuring nearly 20 works.

“Untitled (vintage Hermes scarves),” 2022. Twelve Hermes scarves. 104″ x 104″ (Photo courtesy of Hua International)

One of the pieces in the Berlin show was created with ephemera purchased from Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio’s estate, which included film footage and newspapers.

“I bought footage of him on his honeymoon with Marilyn Monroe and then I bought the New York Daily News’ newspapers from the week that Marilyn died and I put them together,” says Scholl.

There’s a Miami Beach connection to the inspiration for “Untitled (DiMaggio honeymoon), 2022,” Scholl recounts.

“Every day I’d go to breakfast at a place called Arnie & Richie’s (525 Arthur Godfrey Road). In fact, I still do. But back in the day, Joe DiMaggio would be there almost every morning. He was taciturn. You couldn’t approach him, you couldn’t ask him for an autograph or a picture, you couldn’t smile, you couldn’t even look at him. I would think, ‘Why is he like that, he’s one of the greatest baseball players ever, so why is he so unhappy.’ Then I made this piece about him and about Marilyn dying.”

Another one of the pieces is made up of royalty statements Scholl acquired at an auction for songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

“Untitled (Lennon and McCartney Royalty Ledgers),”  2022. Acquired objects and graphite. 56″ x5 56″ (Photo courtesy of Hua International)

He told ARTNews that taking “objects of desire,” like the DiMaggio footage and the Beatles’ original ledger sheets, “draws you into this collective memory we all share.”

Scholl says as much as the work resonates with him personally, it has with others. After the show in Berlin, he got offers to have shows in England and France. “I’m going to Poland in July to see if I might do a show there, and a gallery wants to keep working with me and do a show in Beijing,” he says.

Stepping away from all that’s happening with Oolite wasn’t an easy decision. He was at the forefront of Oolite’s major modern transition – a move from Lincoln Road to a sprawling new urban village, its $30 million headquarters in Little River, designed by Spanish architectural firm Barozzi Vega.

And, as anyone might do when considering a significant career change, he thought aloud to a trusted colleague.

“I called Franklin Sirmans (the director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami). And I said, ‘Franklin, I have all these opportunities,’ ” he told Sirmans referring to what was coming to him with the interest in his art practice. ” ‘But you know at Oolite, I want to finish up the building, which is going to be another two years. So, I think I’m going to defer the opportunities.’ ”

A rendering of Oolite Arts’ new campus in Little River designed by Barcelona-based Barozzi Veiga. (Photo courtesy of Oolite Arts)

He remembers Sirmans’ response: “He laughed. And he said, ‘Dennis, that’s not how the art world works. Somehow you have gotten all these opportunities out of your first show and you have to keep going now if you want to keep the momentum.’ ”

Scholl says that in the same month, he received offers to do two films with good budgets.

“You can’t do all that and have a full-time job,” says Scholl. He consulted with his wife, Debra, and made the decision. “I’m going to go for it.”

He’ll continue to consult for Oolite and won’t officially leave his position until later this year. Oolite has already announced it will conduct a national search for his replacement who will open the new campus with an expected completion in 2025.

And while Scholl says he never says never – “I’m not someone who forecloses any opportunity down the road” –  he believes that what he calls his “third act” will be making films and art for the next 15 years.

“How exciting it is for me to have the opportunity to be part of an artist community that I embrace and that I revere and now can be a part of it in a different way,” he says.