Rarely Seen Works Shine in Purvis Young Exhibition at Pan American Art Projects
Written By Miguel Sirgado January 24, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Purvis Young’s “My Respect to Pollock,” (undated), mixed media on wood. Pan American Art Projects presents “Purvis Young: A Visionary of Miami’s Cultural Identity,” an exhibition celebrating the profound legacy of Young, whose work left an enduring mark on Miami’s art history. (Photo courtesy of Pan American Art Projects)
It has been said and often that Purvis Young is to Overtown what Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring were to Lower Manhattan. Young’s work draws deeply from the elements around him—in his surroundings, through street graffiti, and at his studio in a mostly African-American neighborhood of Miami—organically blending painting, drawing, and collage materials.
“For many years, people have called me all sorts of things to describe me as an outcast artist, a Black artist, a ghetto artist, the Picasso of the ghetto,” Young said in an interview for a publication for the Art Museum of DeLand, which in 2020 organized a retrospective. “I just want to be called an artist. The only thing I’ve done all my life is paint,” said the visionary, self-taught American artist of Bahamian descent.
Since his death at the age of 67 in April 2010, Young’s work remains relevant. His tremendous ability to create an intense “visual narrative” defines the context and history of his community, its struggles, its resistance and its spirit of resilience.
“Freedom Horse (undated), mixed media on wood. (Photo courtesy of Pan American Art Projects)
Pan American Art Projects gallery is showing “Purvis Young: A Vision of Miami’s Cultural Identity,” an exhibition that pays tribute to the extraordinary legacy of Young. Curator Claudia Taboada’s selection includes rarely seen works, which will be on view opening Saturday, Feb. 1 through Saturday, March 22, at the gallery’s Little River location.
“The idea for this exhibition came from a desire to pay tribute to Purvis Young, who not only transformed Miami’s art scene, but also captured the spirit and cultural identity of the city through his work,” says Taboada, curator of the show and director of Pan American Art Projects. “Luckily we were able to bring together a selection of pieces that had only been shown once before: some in Art Miami’s ‘Wall of Peace’ in 2007, or the ‘Paintings from the Street’ retrospective exhibition at the Boca Raton Museum in 2006,” she says.
In addition to celebrating his work, the curator believes that the show essentially invites the public to reflect on the social and cultural dynamics that inspired him—and how these themes remain relevant in a global context—which undoubtedly makes the work transcend its temporality.
“What I admire most about Purvis Young is his ability to turn everyday and found materials into powerful visual content that reflected a profound critique of his reality. Aware that his voice represented his community, he took it upon himself to question racial segregation and the marginalization of women through his work,” says Taboada.
One of the most significant accomplishments of the artist’s legacy was his role in transforming the perception of street art, redefining its value and elevating it—even in contrast to what some in his time regarded as primitivist art. “The art world no longer isolates self-taught creators like Young with labels like ‘outsider’ or ‘naif.’ Today, Young’s spontaneous gestural reveries, painted on found surfaces, are discussed in the same terms and with the same respect for their intellectual content as the works of other artists, in the same terms and with the same respect for their neo-expressionist intellectual content,” says Adrienne Von Lates, a curator, scholar, and art advisor with Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Art History from Columbia University; Von Lates has also served as curator and director of education at MOCA North Miami and the Bass Museum of Art. She is also an adjunct faculty member at the College of Communication, Architecture, and The Arts at FIU.
“Good Bread Alley”(1978), mixed media on wood, by Purvis Young (1943–2010). (Photo courtesy of Pan American Art Projects)
The exhibition at Pan American Art Projects, which features some twenty works from the collection of Martin Siskind—a close friend of the artist and custodian of a significant archive of his work—highlights Young’s inexhaustible creativity and unique ability to work with multiple expressive media simultaneously.
The artist used techniques such as painting, assemblage, and works made from paper and recycled materials. “These pieces reflect his unique approach of taking advantage of whatever was available to him to create art, from doors and reclaimed wood to everyday objects such as lace, grilles, political banners, magazines and books, among others,” explains Taboada.
According to the curator, the organization of the space and the dialogue between the pieces was based on first recreating elements of Young’s creative environment. His Overtown studio (adorned with posters of his exhibitions), his ladder and lamp for painting, are all accompanied by audiovisual materials. “The works were grouped by main themes (spirituality, social protest, everyday life) to highlight the connections between them and create a coherent narrative,” says Taboada. “This arrangement allows the pieces to dialogue with each other, showing how the local issues that Purvis addressed connect to universal concerns. The exhibition is centered around the work “Guardian Angel.”
“It is surrounded by the allegory of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, his Overtown neighborhood, the recurring figure of the pregnant woman and the horses that represent freedom,” explains the curator.
The exhibition not only highlights the significance of Young’s work but also serves as a testament to the unwavering dedication of Siskind, who supported his friend for over 20 years. “Martin kept Young’s creative fire going by making sure he had a pacemaker, a corneal transplant, dialysis and diabetes treatments, and a new kidney,” explains Von Lates.
“Homage to Mona Lisa,” (undated), mixed media on wood, by Purvis Young (1943–2010). (Photo courtesy of Pan American Art Projects)
The scholar says that from his early years exhibiting hundreds of small paintings in Goodbread Alley, Young’s ambition was to share his work with as many people as possible.
“His images were crying out to be savored by a large audience, not locked up in a warehouse,” says Von Lates.
Most of the works in the exhibition have not been seen by the public since Young made them and entrusted them to Siskind, whose home has become a shrine to the artist, according to Von Lates.
“Visitors to this exhibition will be beguiled by images that look as fresh as the day they were painted. They remain forever ‘Young,’ ” she concludes.
Young’s show is accompanied by a collaborative exhibition titled “Voices from the Edge,” which explores unfiltered creativity and the intersection between mental health and art. The parallel exhibit features works by Candice Avery, Jorge Alberto Cadí, Isaac Crespo, Sebastián Ferreira, Jorge A. Hernández, Ramón Llosa, Echo McCallister, Milton Schwartz, Carlos Stella and Misleidys Castillo, all artists whose creations have been shaped by their battles with mental illness.
WHAT: “Purvis Young: A Visionary of Miami’s Cultural Identity”
WHEN: Opens Saturday, Feb. 1 through Saturday, March 22. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.
WHERE: Pan American Art Projects, 274 NE 67th St., Miami
RELATED EVENT: Running concurrently, the show titled “Voices from the Edge: Collective Exhibition of Outsider Art” in collaboration with Juan Martin’s NAEMI (National Art Exhibitions by the Mentally Ill), will spotlight important works by artists across its collection. This collateral presentation explores unfiltered creativity and the intersection of mental health and art.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story atwww.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
What Is Seen and Unseen, 2 Exhibitions at Locust Projects Deserve Attention
Written By Michelle F. Solomon January 8, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Alba Triana’s multisensory kinetic installation captures the power of the unseen through art and science in the Project Room at Locust Projects through Thursday, Jan. 23. The artist will be part of a panel discussion on the closing night of the exhibition. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan/Locust Projects)
What sounds like clocks, chimes, and bells fills the Project Room at Locust Projects but there’s so much more than meets the eye and the ear in Alba Triana’s site-specific installation.
On four walls are a series of magnetic spheres and copper coils wound around the back of small metal plates and attached to the wall by aluminum rods — 86 coils to be exact along with 43 pendulums. The spheres swing, tapping against the metal and coils. Snug against the wall at the floor are various electronic boxes where random analog numbers show a probabilistic code, according to the Miami-based Colombian-born sound and intermedia artist. “Do you see when the LEDs turn off?” she asks.
Alba Triana has always been fascinated by mathematics, which she incorporates into her kinetic sound installation, which is also informed by her professional career as a music composer. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
The “off” signals that the copper coils, receiving voltage from circuits, have emitted an electromagnetic field, she explains. The probabilistic code is used to control the on and off times of the voltage, based on the frequency of the pendulation.
It is a treat to do a deep dive into Triana’s process of “Dialogue with the Primordial Sea” with the sound artist as she walks around the large space. The exhibition is on view through Thursday, Jan. 23 and was commissioned by Locust Projects as part of the Knight Digital Commission series. The intricacy of her creation is a source of endless conversation. There’s a “wow” factor about the work being a treat for the ears and the eyes.
While that is true, she is quick to explain “I’m not so committed to a comparison to the eyes or the ears. I’m committed to whatever manifestation the work has. If it is auditory, it will be auditory or if it’s auditory and visual then . . .I try to follow the pieces instead of me imposing an idea,” adding that she creates the conditions that allow the art to self-generate and evolve.
“In this particular installation, I’m exploring the relationship between that ethereal, vibrational substance that governs and constitutes everything and our tangible surroundings, the main material in this installation, we cannot perceive – it is electromagnetic and gravity. And, yet, while we cannot perceive it, we know that it is there because it interacts with the sphere and the sphere is attracted to it.”
“Dialogue with the Primordial Sea” at Locust Projects through Thursday, Jan. 23 features a series of magnetic spheres that alternately levitate or pendulate as they interact with invisible magnetic fields (Photo by Pedro Wazzan/courtesy of Locust Projects)
When the voltage stops, the magnetic field disappears, and the pendulum is propelled by gravity.
“Yes, it is a sound installation. It’s a choreographic piece, it’s a performance. It can be understood as many things. I want this not to be defined by what type of artwork it is because I’m trying to manifest the universe as a unified whole in which everything is interrelated.”
Still, there’s no denying the musicality of the creation and it is not coincidence. Triana’s paternal grandfather was one of the founders of the symphonic orchestra in Colombia and she studied at a conservatory from an early age –violin and piano. She also attended an experimental elementary school “where I was always involved in different forms of art.”
She received a bachelor’s degree at Javeriana University in Colombia, then at the California Institute of Arts (CalArts) a double emphasis master’s degree, and pursued Ph.D. studies at University of California San Diego. After working as college professor and consultant for the Colombian Ministry of Culture, she dedicated herself to a career in composition working as a composer creating music for symphonic instruments and electronic music. “Not pop music but more experimental,” she says.
She admits to wanting to be a mathematician and always was fascinated by math. The law of physics definitely applies to “Primordial of the Sea.”
The artist has an interest in exploring the natural world at a finite level, focusing on the interactions among atoms and the hidden reality of the universe.
A handwritten poem in English and Spanish is on one of the walls of Alba Triana’s installation. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan/courtesy of Locust Projects)
Citing another influence in her life, she speaks of her maternal grandfather, Camilio, a poet. A large handwritten poem is on one of the walls, part of the installation – in English and in Spanish.
“I write privately and I never share my work. I do it for me. It is the way in which I organize my ideas. It is easier for me to write poetry than logical prose. So, with this very short poem, I decided to include it – it adds something to what the work is expressing.”
“Under the deepest sea, the point vertical axis of all dimensions tangle in full motion no end no bottom the line point path the circle point cycle.”
There are two black wooden blocks in the middle of the Project Room, an invitation for viewers to sit with the work for a while. And this is where the depth of “Dialogue with the Primordial Sea” sinks in. Where the soul of the composer that is at the heart of the sound installation rings clear. Despite its randomness, there is an organization to it all.
Like a composition, there are pauses and then, as Triana explains, “cascades of attacks. I wanted everything in the piece to have an identity, but it is never the same. It’s like the natural world, right?”
A video projection of Arturo Arrechea skipping stones at Tropical Park is part of the multi-media installation “Bare Tool” (“Herramienta desnuda”) at Locust Projects through Thursday, Jan. 23. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan/courtesy of Locust Projects)
She likens the way the work evolves constantly to a flower, an orchid in this particular example. “If it’s going to bloom, you know what it will look like, but the specific characteristics are random. You don’t know if a leaf will be bigger, if a petal will be smaller. This is how this is designed. I want it to be a manifestation of the natural world, but at a very miniscule, granular level.”
Next door to the Project Room, in Locust Projects’ Main Gallery, is Cuban-born Alexandre Arrechea’s “Bare Tool” (“Herramienta desnuda”), another of the arts incubator’s Knight Digital Commissions.
A video projection shows a teenager by the side of a lake tossing a stone creating ripples. The teenager is Arturo, the artist’s son, at Miami’s Tropical Park. The ripple effect sparked a memory in Arrechea of a time when he was in Japan during a pivotal moment in his career — he had catapulted to international acclaim as one of the founding members of the Cuban collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) from 1991 to 2003.
While standing by a frozen lake in Japan, Arrechea tossed a stone the same way his son would do decades later. In that one gesture, the frozen lake shattered.
Alexandre Arrechea says he sees his work as social sculpture. “Art is not just a mirror to society but a tool for awakening it.” (Portrait at Locust Projects by Pedro Wazzan/courtesy of Locust Projects)
“And then he told me he thought about his role as an artist and the tools that he takes into his hand,” says Lorie Mertes, executive director of Locust Projects. “And the act of making – or gestures – and what are those implications?”
Arrechea sees his work as social sculpture. “Art is not just a mirror to society but a tool for awakening it,” he says.
In his site-specific installation at Locust Projects, the work is meant to be activated by those who interact with it. CNC plywood kinetic sculptures are suspended from the ceiling by steel cables while others are moveable interactive floor pieces with table bases.
The artist, based in Miami and Madrid, envisioned the installation in three acts: “The Tool,” “The Action,” and “The Implications.”
A component of the installation was having the Main Gallery be accessible as a social gathering space. Locust Projects hosted its annual benefit dinner titled “Ripple Effect,” in November and events during Miami Art Week in December. Arrechea incorporated some of the works to be utilized as long tables where the benefit dinner guests were seated.
“The idea for creating this work as a space for reunion, for meeting, is part of the nature of Locust Projects and the nature of what I wanted with this particular installation,” says Arrechea.
Alexandre Arrechea’s sketch of “Bare Tool” (“Herramienta desnuda”), what he envisioned for Locust Projects. (Sketch courtesy of the artist)
The hanging sculptures are meant to be activated interacting with what is happening in the room. “People walking might bump into one of these cables and start making the pieces move and collide with each other,” says Arrechea, and that is the purpose.
This is art that should be touched. “I want people to have an experience with what I’ve developed,” he says.
The artist invites visitors to touch the cables to make the hanging sculptures move as part of the activation of the installation.
This is art that should be touched. The hanging sculptures are meant to be activated interacting with what is happening in the room in the site-specific installation “Bare Tool” (“Herramienta desnuda”). (Photo by Pedro Wazzan/courtesy of Locust Projects)
“He’s very interested in how architecture embodies identity but also how it moves people around space; he’s always looking to challenge that and create new systems of engagement,” says Mertes.
WHAT: Alba Triana: “Dialogue with the Primordial Sea” and Alexandre Arrechea: “Bare Tool” (“Herramienta desnuda”)
WHERE: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67 St., Miami
WHEN: Extended hours in January: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Both exhibitions on display through Thursday, Jan. 23.
COST: Free
RELATED EVENT: Closing night event, 6 to 8 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 23. Panel discussion: Artists Alba Triana, Rodolfo Peraza, and Leo Castaneda, moderated by Andrew McLees, Art + Digital Innovation Manager, Locust Projects, the conversation explores how artists use technology to reveal intangible phenomena through sound and magnetic fields, digital memory and archives, immersive virtual environments, and more.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Traveling Nova Music Festival Exhibition Hauntingly Hopeful
Written By Karen-Janine Cohen January 3, 2025 at 4:04 PM
After starting in New York and then heading to Los Angeles, “The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM – The Moment Music Stood Still,” is on display through Saturday, Feb. 15 in North Miami. (Photo courtesy of The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM – The Moment Music Stood Still)
On a usual day at 6:29 a.m., most of us are sleeping or just waking. On Oct 7, 2023, at 6:29 a.m. Israeli time, most of the 3,882 attendees at the Nova Music Festival in Re’im welcomed the dawn with music and dance. Then the Hamas terrorist assault began. When it was over, more than 400 concertgoers were dead, 44 were kidnapped, and many more were injured and traumatized.
The Nova attack was just one part of the assault on Israel from Gaza. Yet Nova stands out because of the juxtaposition of happy revelers, mostly young, and dedicated to peace and harmony, with the deadly rampage.
Words fall short when portraying the shock, trauma, and cognitive dissonance survivors experienced; the pain and grief felt for the dead and fears for the hostages. There are consequences from bullet wounds and other injuries that will last a lifetime. Yet where words fail, images, objects, and sensual immersion can convey a perception of what happened and how the Nova festival community has come together for healing and hope.
The installation is about hope and healing and draws from different traditions. (Photo courtesy of The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM – The Moment Music Stood Still)
That is what organizers of “The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM – The Moment Music Stood Still,” want visitors to experience. The installation in North Miami runs through Saturday, Feb. 15.
Divided into three parts, the exhibition begins with a video room showing the festival. The next section recreates the festival landscape, with immersive video and audio elements. The third experience is the healing room, where visitors learn about the Tribe of Nova Foundation, dedicated to helping survivors and bereaved family members.
The three rooms create interlocking physical narratives: pre-attack; the attack and the landscape; and the healing room.
On hand are organizers of the exhibit, along with massacre survivors who are willing to tell their stories. While the videos of terrorists in real time and the chaos are frightening and moving, the narratives and images are not overwhelmingly violent; the ultimate message is of hope and resilience.
“I always say the most unimaginable thing happened to us,” says Ofir Amir, a founder of the festival, exhibit organizer and a survivor who was near the main stage when the invasion began and says he saw the incoming rockets. The onsite police immediately told everyone to flee. “We had no idea what was coming next,” says Amir. He and a few others reached a car. Still, he was shot in both legs, and watched a friend die by his side. He used his cell phone to call his pregnant wife to assure her that he was fine. He hid for three hours in an orange grove, murder happening all around, before being rescued. It wasn’t too long before he, other festival founders and survivors began thinking about how they could react.
Burned out cars from the Nova site are part of the exhibit. (photo courtesy of The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM – The Moment Music Stood Still)
“But it is not only a story about darkness, but about light,” he says. The first Nova memorial took place in Tel Aviv. Created and directed by Reut Feingold, it lasted for 10 weeks and drew thousands. The organizers then joined with partners Scooter Braun, Josh Kadden and Joe Teplow to bring the exhibit to the United States, first to New York this spring, where they say they welcomed more than 100,000 visitors, and most recently to Los Angeles.
In the exhibit’s first section, visitors sit on benches in a room where the ceiling is draped with a fabric tent from the festival. A seven-minute video shows the revelers and along with comments from fairgoers. Foliage off to the side is meant to echo the trees that were at the actual site. There’s also the Mushroom Stage timetable, showing when artists performing would be on stage. The timetable shows that Sonik Scizzor was scheduled to play when the attacks began.
The next room is the heart of the exhibit. Visitors walk through the re-created landscape, where actual tents, clothing, blankets, backpacks and items seen at any campsite – personal care products; the occasional stuffed animal – are arranged. The music from the festival plays (The last deejay to play the main stage was Yarin Ilovich) and, at short intervals, videos created by concert-goers (all of whom survived) play on screens as do attacks by the terrorists. The immersion gives a shadowy echo of what Nova festivalgoers experienced.
Terrorists’ bullet holes can be seen in the portable toilets that were hiding places for some festivalgoers. (Photo courtesy of The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM – The Moment Music Stood Still)
Adding to the verisimilitude are several burned-out cars from the festival, which were brought from the site by the organizers, as were a group of portable toilets, showing the actual bullet holes. Several people survived by huddling low in the structures. Nearby the cars in the exhibition is the bar, complete with the bottles and drinks that sold at the festival.
Farther into the room is a round dais, the installation lighted from below, dedicated to three healing traditions, the mystical Jewish Kabbalah, the Mexican curanderos, or sacred healers, and the Intentional Art Code, from which the dais’s keyhole design originates, indicating that, as explained in the placard, “even in the face of the most painful circumstances, when reason eludes us, we hold the answer and the personal and collective ability to transform, grow and heal.”
Finally, on a far wall are an array of photos of those who died and those still missing.
The last room of the exhibit is the healing room, where visitors can decompress. The space has a water element in its center and placards around the perimeter educate visitors about The Tribe of Nova Foundation, which provides services to survivors and families of the fallen.
Large words in neon, “We Will Dance Again,” offer the final message of the exhibition.
The message of life is encapsulated in the neon words, “We Will Dance Again.” (Photo courtesy of The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM – The Moment Music Stood Still”)
During a visit set up for the press in North Miami, several survivors were on hand to talk about their experiences. Shani Ivgi was helping out at the entrance with a friend when they heard the rockets. She ran for her car and could drive to the nearby city of Ofakim. The friend did not survive. Ivgi is coordinating and guiding other survivors who rotate in and out of Miami to bear witness – organizers believe more than three weeks at the exhibit could be overwhelming. Yet being part of the endeavor is healing as well, says Ivgi.
“In the beginning, I isolated myself,” she says. The 31-year-old architect and designer is now deeply involved in bringing the Nova story to the rest of the world. “I prefer to go back to community. Helping people is helping myself double.”
Says fellow survivor and organizer Amir, “You enter the light again. It shows hope, strength and resilience.”
WHAT: “The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 am – The Moment Music Stood Still”
WHERE: Greenwich Studios, 12100 NE 16th Ave., North Miami
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, last exhibition entry at 7:40 p.m; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, last exhibition entry at 4:40 p.m.; closed on Mondays except Dec. 30, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., last exhibition entry at 7:40 p.m., runs through Feb. 15
COST: $8, $18, $36, $72, $180 with a maximum purchase of eight tickets.
INFORMATION: www.novaexhibition.com. All bags are subject to search; see website for items that are not allowed on site. The exhibit is recommended for those 16 and older due to the graphic nature of the content.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Miami Is The Perfect Place To Create a Caribbean Alphabet, Designer Says
Written By Douglas Markowitz December 20, 2024 at 4:12 PM
The artist Arthur Francietta conducts research on ancient petroglyphs to develop a Haitian Creole alphabet during a residency at the Bakehouse Art Complex. (Photo by Gregory Jacquelin/courtesy of Arthur Francietta)
What if the Caribbean had its own written language? It’s an idea explored by a Martinique artist while in Miami, the region’s unofficial capital.
Originally from the French overseas territory, artist and graphic designer Arthur Francietta’s work focusing on hypothetical written language systems earned him a Caribbean Cultural Institute Artist Fellowship from the Pérez Art Museum Miami. On Sunday, Dec. 15 he finished a two-month stint at Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood. It was there that he spent time working on a new writing system for Haitian Creole, one based on something other than the Latin script adopted from the country’s French colonizers.
For Francietta, Miami is the perfect place to develop the project.
Originally from Martinique, Arthur Francietta won a Caribbean Cultural Institute Fellowship from PAMM. (Photo courtesy of Arthur Francietta)
“This is a really cool experience for me as a French Caribbean,” he says. “Miami is like the center of the Caribbean. If I could, I’d travel to each island in the Caribbean and spend a year there, but maybe the first step is to be here and meet a lot of the diaspora and community, and try to understand how they preserve the aspects of their culture outside the islands.”
To make his new Creole alphabet, Francietta has been conducting investigations on ancient petroglyphs left behind by the indigenous Taino people, as well as Haitian vèvè cosmograms and other symbols. His research also included visits to the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami and explorations into Afro-Caribbean religious practices such as Palo Monte.
“The goal is to use all of the graphic systems, the prehistoric and the new ones, and inject them inside the Latin alphabet, because we use the Latin alphabet for Spanish, English, and Creole. The beginning of the project here is to focus on the Creole writing system, but before that, it’s to understand all the shapes that come from the vèvè, and the Cuban and Amerindian prehistoric shapes.”
One of Arthur Francietta’s calligraphy tests at the Bakehouse. The artist uses black ink on paper to draw symbols that will be used for his Haitian Creole alphabet. (Photo courtesy of Arthur Francietta)
Although he uses modern computer software to draw the completed letters, part of the process involves what he calls “Divination” – using his knowledge of typography and ancient shapes to devise new letters and glyphs. The artist demonstrated this process in the studio, using a paint brush and ink to draw symbols on a prepared piece of paper. Embroidery, either with a sewing machine or by needlepoint while traveling, is another technique he uses to draw letters.
“The idea is to focus on my memory and then try to draw new shapes inspired by these petroglyphs,” he says.
Posters on the wall in his studio show cryptic symbols, drawn by the artist in black ink and white paint, experiments in letter-making for a new alphabet for the French-based language. Rather than mere improvisations, they’re the result of a thought process conducted by the artist. One cross-shaped symbol on the wall, for instance, is based on the Kongo cosmogram, a religious symbol introduced to the Americas by enslaved Africans.
Arthur Francietta’s process includes “divination.” “The idea is to focus on my memory and then try to draw new shapes.” (Photo courtesy of Arthur Francietta)
Francietta first developed an interest in typography while studying art in Fort-de-France, the Martiniquan capital, where a professor introduced him to the field and taught him how to draw fonts. He then journeyed to
Paris to study at the École Estienne to learn calligraphy and further his typography studies, later joining the National Typography Research Workshop. There he worked on the Missing Scripts Project, collaborating with fellow academics in Germany and at UC Berkeley in the U.S. to preserve the world’s writing systems. He researched Medefaidrin, a constructed language developed in Nigeria in the 1930s.
Along with scholarly research, Francietta’s other artistic projects have included murals and commissions for companies like Jaguar and Citroën. He says that he’ll continue developing the Creole typeface after the residency has wrapped; the project’s second phase will continue next year when he takes a second residency in California, sponsored by the French Embassy’s Villa Albertine Institute. He also has plans to travel to Taiwan for a similar project in 2025.
Francietta’s past projects have included commissions for brands such as Jaguar. Photo by Alan Marty/courtesy of Arthur Francietta)
So far, Francietta has compiled a report on his work in Miami, and he plans to eventually exhibit the project as a book, documenting the finished product as well as the process used to reach it. The process of building a new language isn’t an overnight one, in other words. While it may be some time before we see the fruits of his labor, Francietta’s work will hopefully provide Caribbean people in Miami and elsewhere the opportunity to think about different ways of living and seeing themselves. If language can change, what else can?
Once complete, Arthur Francietta’s project will have developed a new writing system for Haitian Creole. (Photo courtesy of Arthur Francietta)
“The idea is to just think about if, as Caribbean people, we have the chance to create an alphabet just for our language. It’s an Afro-futuristic way of thinking,” he says. “As a designer I just want to create a kind of fake writing as the first step to show people that we can just focus on the history of the Caribbean. And then, maybe with the community, if we can think about a new alphabet for Creole, we can think together and work together to bring some new way of thinking about the future.”
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Unpacking ‘Invisible Luggage’ at The Hampton House
Written By Douglas Markowitz December 20, 2024 at 3:39 PM
Installation view of “Invisible Luggage” at the Historic HamptonHouse Museum of Culture & Art on view through Saturday, Feb. 15. (Photo by Oriol Tarridas/Courtesy of Historic HamptonHouse)
Last year, the buzziest destination during Miami Art Week wasn’t on the beach or in Wynwood. It was at a historically significant former motel in Brownsville little-known outside of the local community.
The Historic Hampton House on NW 27th Avenue, just north of the Airport Expressway is one of the last standing Green Book hotels, listed in the famous travel guide as a refuge for Black travelers in the Jim Crow south. Opened in 1961 as a luxury motor hotel by Harry and Florence Markowitz, a white Jewish couple, the two-story MiMo-style Hampton House became a magnet for celebrities, politicians, and significant figures of color looking for upscale lodgings. It was a destination in the years prior to desegregation, when famous and influential African Americans came to Miami for business or pleasure only to be turned away from “Whites Only” hotels elsewhere.
The room where Martin Luther King Jr. stayed, complete with an escape door in case of dangerous situations, is preserved on the lower floor. So is the room given to Muhammad Ali, who won his first heavyweight title in Miami in 1964. The evening he spent at the Hampton House with Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke is immortalized in Regina King’s 2020 film “One Night in Miami.”
Artworks centered around travel and place are a feature of “Invisible Luggage” at the Historic Hampton House Museum of Culture & Art on view through Saturday, Feb. 15. (Photo by Oriol Tarridas/Courtesy of Historic Hampton House)
Now, 60 years later, a new generation is aiming to put the Hampton House back on the map by making it a destination for art. They opened their first art show, “Gimme Shelter,” during Miami Art Week in 2023, as well as a show from Brazilian street artist KOBRA.
Featuring sections curated by Miami’s top galleries and anchored by Palm Beach collector Beth Rubin DeWoody’s holdings, “Gimme Shelter” attracted plenty of movers and shakers from Miami’s art scene and beyond to the museum. Local artists such as Reginald O’Neal and Jared McGriff exhibited next to art world stars such as Rashid Johnson, Terry Atkins, Charles Gaines, and influential funk musician George Clinton.
Curb Gardner II, creative director at the Hampton House, says embracing art is a way for the museum and community gathering space to move with the times.
“It’s a shift of the institution,” he says. “We’re a space to bridge racial, cultural, ethnic, social, and religious divides, and we have to tell that story.”
That mission continues with “Invisible Luggage.” Convening a new set of artists under a new theme, the show’s title derives from a conversation between Gardner and an artist at Rudin DeWoody’s birthday party.
Barbara T. Smith, “Trunk Piece,” 1969-72. Antique trunk, Persian carpet, 100 unique objects, dimensions variable. / (Photo courtesy of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York)
“We’re sitting and we’re talking about just where we are in the country, where we are individually, and in that dialogue the phrase came up. We have all this luggage, and most of it is invisible,” he recalls. “You don’t know what people are carrying with them. I may see you happy in one moment, but there are things going on in your life that are sad, or things that you’re carrying with you. And that luggage doesn’t allow me to see you as you see yourself, or how you want to be seen.”
Along with Rudin DeWoody, a reshuffled curatorial team including Laura Dvorkin, Maynard Monrow, Zoe Lukov and Auttrianna Ward built the show around this theme. Artworks centered around travel and place are a feature.
A painting by Hugo McCloud made of plastic merchandise bags depicting an overladen Black motorcycle traveler greets visitors up front. Nearby is Barbara T. Smith’s “Trunk Piece,” an installation of a suitcase filled with precious stones
. A sequence of photos documents Marina Abramovic’s performance piece “The Lovers,” in which she and partner Ulay walked for three months toward each other from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China.
A group of works by the Highwaymen, a group of Black Floridian landscape painters active during the mid-20th century, concludes the show. Dreamy beaches, surreal swamps, and other plein air scenes by Roy McLendon, Mary Ann Carroll, and Ellis Buckner feature in this section, all captured by the mostly self-taught traveling artists that painted and sold their work from their car trunks.
Other artists featured in the show include some prominent art world names such as Frank Bowling, Ed Clark, Sam Gilliam, and Cecilia Vicuña. A few locals also made the cut: There’s a ceramic work by Joel Gaitan as well as a painting by Tomm El-Saieh, a major advocate of Haitian art and artists equally known for his abstract work drawing on the country’s culture.
As impressive as “Invisible Luggage” is, it’s still a massive effort for the small institution. The Hampton House is a short-staffed nonprofit run by a community trust; preservationist Dr. Enid Pickney spearheaded a $6 million renovation in 2015 aimed at turning the hotel back into a community resource. Gardner hopes the increased attention paid will help raise funds to provide further programming.
Mary Ann Carroll, “Golden Reflections,” ca. 1970s. Oil on Upson Board, 24 x 36 in. (Photo courtesy of Mark Lerner and John Biederwolf Collection)
“We’re a little organization with big ideas, and we’re implementing them the best that we can,” he says. With more support, we can do a better job of it. But at the very base is always excellence and quality, first and foremost, just like the excellence of each of the artists that performed here.”
WHAT: “Invisible Luggage”
WHERE: Historic Hampton House Museum of Culture & Art, 4240 NW 27th Ave., Miami
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Through Saturday, Feb. 15.
COST: $25, includes a 45-minute tour of The Historic Hampton House
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Celebrating Artists of Color During Miami Art Week
Written By Sergy Odiduro December 2, 2024 at 1:47 PM
“Veo Veo, I See I See, Mwen wè Mwen wè” by Anthony “Mojo” Reed II: Honoring Judge Lawson E. Thomas and the civil rights history of Overtown. (Photo courtesy of Miami MoCAAD)
Point Comfort was anything but comfortable for a group of 20 enslaved Africans who landed on Virginia’s shores in 1619. Their arrival in Hampton, where Point Comfort is located. ushered in an era of slavery in the United States, as well as a period of creativity that exists to this day.
“We believe that the beginning of African American art began when Black folk came to this colony,” says Christopher Norwood, founder of Hampton Art Lovers, which operates the Historic Ward Room House Gallery in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.
Norwood routinely uses his artistic pursuits as a conduit to examine periods in African American history and culture. It’s not surprising given that art, in and of itself, often reaches far beyond the scope and stroke of a painter’s brush or the caress of a sculptor’s touch. It is a discipline with a reputation for weaving itself into seemingly unrelated subjects, bubbling up into various schools of thought, and asking its viewers to ruminate on meaningful philosophical questions such as, “Did Disco begin in Miami?”
The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau is marking the tenth year of its Art of Black Miami series highlighting art and performances from throughout the African diaspora. (Photo courtesy of AJ Shorter Photography )
Yes. It’s a bold sentiment for sure, but Norwood believes that the topic should at least be open for debate. And why not? Since he points out that KC and the Sunshine Band were founded in Hialeah, thank you very much.
And for those who are willing to take a closer look at music, and the role that Miami plays in it, Norwood recommends visiting Hampton Art Lovers Point Comfort Art Fair + Show 2024 at the Historic Ward Rooming House Thursday, Dec. 5 through Sunday, Dec. 8.
This year, Hampton Art Lovers is presenting “One Night Stand!,” a photography exhibit of musicians who played in clubs and bars and restaurants in the Overtown area, explains Norwood.
“The photo exhibit is bringing into life these amazing musicians because there was a music movement in Miami that a lot of people don’t recognize. It wasn’t at the level of Detroit or Motown, but it was definitely a center of Black music.”
Inside the Ward Rooming House, “One Night Stand!”showcases the work of photographer Greg Clark, displayed alongside oral histories, which are meant to preserve Overtown’s cultural heritage in partnership with FIU Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab. Outdoors in a tented space, the gardens will exhibit works by contemporary artists Solomon Adufah, Adonis Parker and Judy Bowman. One of the original artworks may be recognizable – a Parker original featured on OneUnited Bank’s OneLove credit card.
“Sunday Best (Sunday School I).” 2023 by Solomon Adufah. The oil on wood panel piece will be on view during the Point Comfort Art Fair + Show during Art of Black Miami. (Photo courtesy of Point Comfort Art Fair + Show 2024 )
Art of Black Miami hits a milestone this year celebrating ten years. In 2014, AOBM was founded to showcase Black artists who were often overlooked and to give visibility during Miami Art Week. From panel discussions to live music performances to art workshops and more, there are enough activities to keep any art enthusiast occupied.
Connie Kinnard, senior vice president, multicultural tourism and development for The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau says that through Art of Black Miami’s partnerships with local artists, she has seen the impact the initiative has made.
.“We couldn’t have Art of Black Miami without our community arts,” says Kinnard. “We’ve heard that it has really helped some of the artists to expand their reach, to expand their platform and to expand who some of their customers are.”
South Florida-based muralist Stefan Smith is just one example.
“I did a couple of projects this year working with different municipalities,” says Smith.
“Specifically, I did one in Overtown that I’m quite proud of, and it was called ‘OVERtown Pitch: Game Changers’ and it was essentially a honorarium to the Miami Edison girls varsity soccer team and how they won the regional championships.
“OVERtown Pitch: Game Changers,” a mural tribute to the Miami Edison girls varsity soccer team and how they won the regional championships, according to artist by Stefan Smith. (Photo courtesy of Miami MoCAAD)
“But more importantly, it was a way for me to connect with the Overtown community and the underserved communities of Miami that are really starting to invest their time and money into backing the arts in South Florida.”
For Art of Black Miami, Smith will be a featured panelist at an event hosted by Miami MoCAAD at the Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater, 819 NW 2nd Ave., Overtown, on Monday, Dec. 2. Miami MoCAAD will host a screening of the documentary and virtual reality art exhibition, “ARt Connecting Communities: Overtown and Coral Gables,” from 7 to 10 p.m. The evening will feature replicas of interactive murals, oral history QR codes, music, refreshments, and networking opportunities. Tickets through eventbrite.
Co-founder Marilyn Holifield said that enlarged mural replicas by Smith, Anthony Renelle “Mojo” Reed II and Reginald O’Neal will be on view.
“I think that in different ways, each of these artists reflects a level of creative genius that maybe many people have not been exposed to. Some of the artists are more well known than others, but I would say that many people in our community may not have had an opportunity to examine the artwork of these artists, close up and personal in this way, and what we’re doing is carrying out our mission to inspire curiosity about art and to bring art to people by making it accessible in different forms using technology.”
In addition to the murals, French Caribbean artist Marielle Plaisir will present her artwork alongside a showing of a companion documentary.
“It features Dr. Dorothy Fields, who is legendary in her knowledge about the history of Miami,” says Holifield, about the founder of the Black Archives.
“I like the idea that I can call Dr. Fields a movie star, a movie star as a historian who’s pulling together facts and knowledge that most of us have not thought about, and she brings it together in a very compelling way. I love the fact that we are creating a context for art, for us to show the power of art to tell stories.”
It is collaborations like these that the GMCVB hopes to achieve on a consistent basis.
“One thing to remember is that Art of Black Miami is it is a year-round platform,” says Kinnard. “Art and culture is a big part of Miami and a very important piece of our destination. And specifically (Art of Black Miami) is a good, unifying cross-cultural program, and you can enjoy it and it doesn’t matter who you are. And although Art of Black Miami is an elevation of artists in art that touches the Black diaspora, it is for anyone.”
Here are additional programs scheduled during Miami Art Week
Afrikin Art Fair
Miami’s premier showcase of African contemporary art, the AfriKin Art Fair, returns to Maison Afrikin, in the Scott Galvin Community Center from Sunday, Dec. 1 through Sunday, Dec. 8. Themed “Threads of Life in Fragments of Time,” the tenth edition of the fair offers a week-long exploration of the interconnectedness of human existence, the cosmos and the transformative power of art.
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday, Dec. 2 through Sunday, Dec. 8.
WHERE: Scott Galvin Community Center, 1600 N.E. 126th St., Miami
COST: $5 donation gift or free. Tickets at Afrika Art at eventbrite
Lauren Pearce, “Hidden Beneath the Shadow,” 36” x 40”, 2024, will be shown at PRIZM during Miami Art Week. (Photo courtesy of Prizm Art Fair)
Art Beat Miami
Good food, great entertainment and beautiful clothing is all that one can hope for. But at this event you can experience all three. The Little Haiti Optimist Club is hosting its 11th annual Art Beat Miami, a satellite fair, at both Brightline Miami and the Joseph Caleb Center, which will feature more than 30 artists including sculptors, muralists, painters and visual artists. A youth art history workshop and exhibit will also be on view.
WHAT: Art Beat Miami
WHEN: Various times. Wednesday, Dec. 4 to Sunday, Dec. 8
Ten North Group is hosting “Black Aliveness and an Aesthetics of Being” as part of their Art of Transformation program. For the past five years, the group has selected literary works by those in the African diaspora as a “foundation for artistic exploration.” For 2024, Art of Transformation will delve into Kevin Quashie’s book, “Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being.” Performances, exhibitions, discussions and film screenings exploring this theme will be available for those who attend.
WHEN: Various times. Wednesday, Dec. 4 to Sunday, Dec. 8
WHERE: Art and Recreation Center, 675 Ali Baba Ave., Opa-locka
Basel B.A.E (Black Art Experience) is billed as a rare cultural celebration of incredible visual art in various formats; paint, photography, sculpture and fashion. The artists will be present to comment on their work, and pieces will be available for purchase, along with additional items provided by local vendors.
WHEN: Friday, Dec. 6 through Sunday, Dec. 8
WHERE: The Urban, 1000 N.W. 2nd Ave., Miami
COST: Free entry until 10 p.m., but RSVP; also $15 plus fee or VIP seating from $450 to $800.
INFORMATION AND TICKETS: Basel B.A.E. at eventbrite.
PRIZM 2024
Prizm 2024, in partnership with REVOLT, returns to Miami’s Omni District, showcasing international artists from the African Diaspora. Artists from Africa and various global locations such as Barbados, Kenya, Martinique, Portugal, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and the United States are featured. This year in its 12th edition, Prizm presents “The Architecture of Liberation” examining the profound role of visual art, architecture, and spatial aesthetics in the context of political resistance and social justice.
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 3 to Sunday, Dec 8
Prizm Preview Day, noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 3.
WHERE: Ice Palace West Studio, 71 NW 14th St., Miami
Little Havana’s Calle Ocho’s Umbrellas of Little Havana Art Festival features a myriad of hand-painted umbrellas by local artists, each reflecting the rich cultural influences of the region. The colorful, custom-painted umbrellas serve as a symbol of the diverse artistic spirit that thrives in Miami.
WHAT: Umbrellas of Little Havana Art Festival
WHEN: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6 to Sunday, Dec. 8
WHERE: Futurama 1637 Art Building, 1637 SW 8th St.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
At the Jewish Museum of Florida, Pot in Jewish Life, Both Ancient and Modern
Written By Karen-Janine Cohen November 29, 2024 at 2:41 PM
A view of the wall text and images from the exhibition “Kosher Kush” at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, which is on view through Sunday, April 20, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)
You wouldn’t think it, but the venerable ancestors weren’t averse to sampling the delights of marijuana. Indeed, as “Kosher Kush,” a new exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU concludes, some seeds and herbs mentioned in the Bible, Talmud (and other religious texts) were likely cannabis.
From then to now, the exhibit looks at how cannabis was and is used by Jewish communities, including by Hebrew priests and, spanning the centuries, culminating in the roles some scientists and activists – who just happened to be Jewish – have played in the larger story of how cannabis went from sacred ritual to secular intoxicant.
“We really pushed for this exhibition as a conversation starter,” says Jacqueline Goldstein, curator, who says the show had been in the works for about a year. “Kosher Kush” is based on and interpreted for South Florida audiences from the 2022-2023 exhibit, “Am Yisrael High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis,” put on at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. Susan Gladstone Pasternack, the executive director of the Jewish Museum, saw the show there, and according to Goldstein “thought it would be great for us. We try to create an exhibit that creates discourse.”
Another view of the “Kosher Kush” show with a Torah in the foreground (Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)
And this one is likely to do so. What might be surprising to visitors is a view of biblical Hebrews that is a bit more intriguing than your general Torah story
Of special interest is the idea that the Kaneh bosem or the “fragrant stalk” used to make anointing oils referenced in the Book of Exodus is cannabis, according to the show’s on-the-wall entry. It is also referenced as a rope-building fiber plant (think hemp, pot’s cousin, still used today). It was also likely, the text continues, part of the incense mixture that was an integral part of Jewish religious ceremonies.
And it seems the plant was already known and used in the ancient world. According to the text, officiants at the temples of Assyria used the herb as incense as well as an intoxicant, “because its aroma was pleasing to the Gods.”
The exact composition of the incense used in the Jewish Temple of biblical narrative remains murky, but there are interesting clues, according to the exhibit. Maimonides, the famous Spanish Jewish rabbi and philosopher of the early Middle Ages, says that Kaneh bosem, imported from India, was used for medical purposes. Bolstering the argument for pot’s ritual role is that charred cannabis residue was discovered on a third century BC Jewish altar, suggesting that the herb was a regular part of religious ceremonies.
Wall text shows comments made by Richard Nixon in 1971 regarding Jews and the legalization of marijuana in “Kosher Kush” at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. (Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)
Interestingly, as we move through the centuries of pot’s presence in Jewish lives, what stands out in relief is the recurrent theme of borrowing and incorporating norms of the societies they lived among – a motif that appears in Jewish art, literature and culture through the ages, as the stateless people settled in lands from Spain to the Netherlands.
Highlights of this part of the exhibition include scraps of writing referencing cannabis found in the Cairo Geniza, a discovery of fragments that lay remote and forgotten in the storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Egypt’s Old Cairo. Finally rescued in the late 1800s, the works span from the ninth to the 19th centuries. The fragments touch on many topics, from the sacred to the mundane, including a number of reefer references, including a humorous song that praises the advantages of wine over cannabis.
The greater part of research for the show was done by Edward Portnoy, academic advisor for exhibitions at YIVO. His interest was piqued after he saw a photo of a glass bong in the shape of a menorah. He thought it would be a great addition to the institute and contacted its maker, the Grav company who agreed to donate one. The question was asked if Portnoy could create an exhibit showcasing Jews and marijuana. “I sat down and thought, ‘I could do that,’ ” he says.
It turns out that academic articles written about archeological digs of ancient synagogues was a rich source of information. “Every aspect of a synagogue dig is delved into by scholars,” says Portnoy. Meanwhile, a friend and colleague, Marina Rustow professor of Near Eastern studies and history at Princeton University, just happens to be deeply involved in the Princeton Geniza Project that, since 1986 has been translating and digitizing the 400,000 or so fragments rescued from the Ben Ezra Synagogue. That trove was key to Portnoy’s research.
“You can do a keyword search,” he says, noting that the song extolling the virtues of wine over cannabis was from around 1300 AD. “For me what was so fascinating is that there is an incredibly lengthy history of Jewishness and cannabis as an intoxicant in places like the Middle East. It became part of their lives and ritual.”
Also in the exhibit show are a frequently humorous group of contemporary cannabis-related Jewish-themed items, such as the aforementioned glass menorah-bong, and a seder plate with a marijuana leaf substituted for the customary bitter herb (often romaine or endive), to name a few.
Steve Marcus’ work, “420- עשן” references the mystical nature of numbers in Judaism, in particular the belief that Solomon’s Temple stood for 420 years and simultaneously, the number became a code for smoking marijuana. (Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU)
In another are the contributions of scientists involved in 20th and 21st-century research about the plant’s biochemical properties and possible medicinal uses, including in psychiatry and alleviating nausea from chemotherapy used to treat cancer, are detailed.
Finally, there is a section on the 1960s counterculture with lots of references to activism by Jewish figures, and popular art of the period, including “420- עשן” by artist Steve Marcus. The name of “420- עשן” references the mystical nature of numbers in Judaism, in particular the belief that Solomon’s Temple stood for 420 years and simultaneously, the number became a code for smoking marijuana.
Coincidentally Marcus has his own exhibit “Built to Last: The Art of Steve Marcus” now ongoing in the same museum through Sunday, April 27, 2025.
The show also includes several Florida specific exhibits, including on South Tip, a Homestead-based company that specializes in hemp and CBD products.
The museum intends to put on panel discussions geared toward FIU students studying law and medicine. The show, says Goldstein, “is a terrific conversation starter,” encouraging visitors to discuss what they may not otherwise talk about.”
WHAT: “Kosher Kush”
WHERE:Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, 301 Washington Ave., Miami Beach
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; closed Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays. Through April 20, 2025. The Jewish Museum is hosting an Art Basel Open House from 10 a.m. to noon on Sunday, Dec. 8.
COST: $12, adults, $10, seniors/students; free admission for JMOF-FIU members, FIU faculty, staff, and students; also children 6 and under admitted free. Free admission on Saturdays.
INFORMATION: (305) 672-5044 or jmof.fiu.edu
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
6 authors coming to Miami Book Fair muse about their work and coming to the fair
Written By Michelle F. Solomon November 18, 2024 at 2:45 PM
Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts, Jr., comes to the Miami Book Fair on Saturday, Nov. 23, to introduce his latest book, “54 Miles,” the follow up to 2019’s “The Last Thing You Surrender.” (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
At the 41st Miami Dade College Book Fair, there may be a bit more contemplation on the heels of the 2024 election. Author Amy Tan, who will introduce her book, “The Backyard Bird Chronicles,” says it’s a good time to come together in community. “Whenever you come to a place where people read books, you know you are going to find that commonality . . . shared values, a love for country that is based on something that we all understand.”
For Leonard Pitts, Jr., who will discuss his latest book, “54 Miles,” a sequel to “The Last Thing You Surrender,” he says about the fair: “If you’re a reader, it’s pretty much as close as you’re going to get to heaven and get to hang out with people of who I am a fan, right? So that’s a wonderful thing.”
The two celebrated authors are just two out of 400-plus writers who will be all in for all things literary during eight days at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus for author events from Sunday, Nov. 17 through Thursday, Nov. 24. Beginning Friday, Nov. 22 through Sunday, Nov. 24, the outdoor street fair features tent-lined streets with more than 200 exhibitors selling mostly books, of course.
Amy Tan began her “Backyard Bird Chronicles” as a personal journal in 2016. It is now her latest book, which she’ll be talking about in her session at the Miami Book Fair on Friday. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
The opening day block party starts at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 17 featuring deejays and house music legends. And the conversations start with “Evenings With.” Former CNN anchor and journalist Don Lemon kicks off the “Evenings With” series of ticketed events at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 17 talking about his book “I Once Was Lost: My Search For God In America.”
Author talks are the soul of the Book Fair and this year, writers share introspective memoirs, stories of the Black and Jewish experience, of historical figures – from fiction to non fiction. Here are six authors who candidly discuss their books and what brought them to fill their pages.
Amy Tan, “Backyard Bird Chronicles,” 6 p.m., Friday, Nov. 22, Chapman, Room 3210, Building 3, Second Floor
The author of “The Joy Luck Club,” Tan says in recent weeks she’s once again soul searching, which brought her back to what prompted her to being what became “Backyard Bird Chronicles,” which she’ll be talking about in her session at the fair.
In 2016, just after the presidential election, Tan made a decision to “check out,” especially from social media and from a country that she says felt more divisive than ever. She began studying birds in her backyard and hadn’t set out to write a book, per se; it was more of a personal journal.
“It was a way for me to regain a balance in my life, of not seeing the world as completely devastated. I did not want to react in total despair and helplessness, so I decided to seek out beauty. . . there are things that do continue in this world no matter what happens.”
She says she was reminding herself of that just days after the 2024 presidential election and how the “Backyard Bird Chronicles” helped her. “It was exactly eight years ago that I started and for those reasons, I didn’t fall into the same kind of despair.”
She says that it doesn’t mean she’s going to just kick back and contemplate nature.
“What I can do now is to focus on what’s beautiful and important in the world with relationships with people but also to be active in ways of protecting those rights that I think are important.”
Tan experienced anti-Asian sentiment during COVID “in ways that I never had before.” She’s made some commitments around that and revealed that the day after this year’s election, she made a donation – a sum that is bigger than any amount she along with her husband, Lou DeMattei, who she has been married to since 1974, had given at a single time to any charity – to the Center For Reproductive Rights.
And about the birds? “The birds are not political, they are concerned with their own territory and disputes and they are buffeted by environmental changes, but they’re not buffeted by election results.”
Tan also is reuniting at the Book Fair with the garage band The Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of notable literary names that started performing at a 1992 booksellers convention in Anaheim. They’ll perform at this year’s convention with Tan who’ll strut and sing along with a lineup that hasn’t been seen on stage for more than a decade, including Mitch Albom, Dave Barry, Scott Turow, Stephen King, Sam Barry, Alan Zweibel and more.
“We’re all standing with arthritic knees now, but I play the rhythm dominatrix. I’m in costume and I do the song ‘These Boots are Made for Walkin’ and ‘Leader of the Pack.’ Tan says remembers the group’s heyday when they played as part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opening in Cleveland in 1993 and gigs they’ve had with real musicians . . . “like Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, and (The Byrds) Roger McGuinn.” And, she says, one of her favorites, singer Lesley Gore.
We’re just funny, we’re bad, and we have attitude.”
Susan Seidelman, the filmmaker of “Desperately Seeking Susan,” discusses her book “Desperately Seeking Something,” her memoir, on Saturday, Nov. 23 at the Miami Book Fair. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
Susan Seidelman, “Desperately Seeking Something,” noon, Saturday, Nov. 23, Room 2106, Building 2, First Floor
The Philadelphia-born movie director who says she came into her own living in New York City after attending NYU film school in 1973 and never leaving, talks about her four-decade movie career in her book with a title that’s a riff on her smash hit starring Madonna “Desperately Seeking Susan.” She also has a familiarity with South Florida. “I absolutely know South Florida,” she says. “I made movies there. And my mom lived in Miami for 30 years and my brother lives in Boca Raton.
“ ‘Making Mr. Right’ was shot in 1987 and we did a lot of filming in South Beach before it became the South Beach it is now. It was around the same time they had started ‘Miami Vice’ so it was that whole world.”
The second was filmed in West Palm Beach but also in Fort Lauderdale, 2005’s “Boynton Beach Club,” which was her mother, Florence’s, idea.
Seidelman says she never intended to become a filmmaker. “I knew I liked movies and I wanted to do something in the movie world. But it wasn’t until I started making short films that I thought maybe I could be good at it. Back then, in the mid-80s, there weren’t a lot of American women film directors.” And then came the low-budget studio movie she made after a punk drama she helmed called “Smithereens.” And she cast a woman named Madonna in her next film. “No one could have predicted the timing of Madonna’s soar to fame coinciding so perfectly with the film. But it was the right time to tell that story with those characters.”
She says she found the right time to write her memoir, which she began while in lockdown during the pandemic. “I felt I needed to wait until I was a certain age to get a perspective on things. My book isn’t just about the movies I’ve made. It’s about the journey of being that girl from somewhere else who goes to the big city and and it’s kind of a social history of how New York change from when I arrive in the mid-70s up to today.”
This is her first time appearing at the Miami Book Fair.
Leonard Pitts, “54 Miles,” 2 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 23, Room 2016, Building 2, First Floor
National newspaper opinion columnist, whose writing appeared in the Miami Herald until he retired to devote his career full time to books in 2022, will discuss his book “54 Miles,” the follow up to 2019’s “The Last Thing You Surrender.” Again, he creates it in the style of historical fiction. “I fee that (the genre) brings the history to life in a way that it doesn’t always do in a history book. Historical fiction gives you a sense not just of what happened, which is important, but how it felt to be there in that moment.”
For “54 Miles,” he says there plot elements from the last book that he wanted to deal with.
“What happened on Bloody Sunday on the bridge is limited at this point to a 15-second news clip that they show on March 7 every year. It doesn’t touch on that sense of chaos that was unleashed on that bridge. I wanted people to feel that. I wanted them to be there.”
He says there’s an unwritten coda to the novel – and that he’s been asked for a sequel to deal with the coda. “I probably won’t. We know at the end of the novel they are going to pass the civil rights bill and that’s a triumph. But you and I know that in 2013, the Supreme Court is going to gut that type of civil rights bill.”
He confides: “You know, that’s the problem with writing African American historical fiction. You may want to leave it at a happy ending or at least at a place of hope, but if the reader has any understanding or knowledge of history, then they know that what happens after you take down the lights and close the curtain.”
Co-writers PauL S. George, upper right, and Henry Green, lower right, will speak on Sunday at the Miami Book Fair about “Jewish Miami Beach.” (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
Paul S. George and Henry Green, “Jewish Miami Beach,” 11 a.m., Sunday, Nov. 24, Room 8102, Building 8, First Floor.
The resident historian at the HistoryMiami Museum and the former director of Jewish Studies at University of Miami team up to look into the Jewish community and its mark on Miami Beach. “Paul as a lecturer in the history department at the University of Miami and I was the director of Jewish Studies,” says Henry Green. Their paths continued to cross with first a Jewish American project, which became a traveling exhibit “Mosaic: Jewish Life in Florida,” for the FIU Jewish Museum of Florida, and more through the years. The pair now lends their knowledge to one of the “Images of America” books about Jews playing a role in the what became a vibrant community.
“Twenty five years later we were in a Coconut Grove library and we meet up and say, ‘hey why don’t we do something together. And one year later, here’s the book,” says Green. “So between Paul who knew the grown in terms of the history of Miami Beach and me being able to add that Jewish history layer to it . . . We only really take it to the year of about 2000 and we really look at what happened in the 20th century . . . The achievements, the people who design buildings, the financial, the economic, the hospitality, and medical contributions,” says Green.
George says the book chronicles it all through text and images. “It’s shows a fascinating kind of growth. There was a draw to Miami Beach for the Jews – the climate, proximity to water, the idea of life and longevity and an environment like that. And they really set the foundation for their descendants to success in big ways.”
He says despite being Catholic, he’s “done so many Jewish histories.” George says he finds that the Jewish population began dwindling as people move to Broward and Palm Beach counties. “They were seen as places of opportunity with the same weather and less congested. And now the Jewish imprint there has been phenomenal culturally, politically, judicially, and in many other ways.”
Edda Fields-Black and the histories she discovered about her own family prompted her book “Combee: Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Raid.” She’ll be at the Miami Book Fair on Sunday. (Photo courtesy of Miami Book Fair)
Edda Fields-Black, “Combee: Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War, 3 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 24, Room 2016, Building 2, First Floor.
The daughter of Dr. Dorothy Jenkins Fields, the founder of Miami’s Black Archives, is an African-American historian and associate professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University. In her book, she digs into her own history as the descendent of one of the participants of the Combahee River Raid, people enslaved on rice plantations and, she takes a deeper look into the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Fields-Black says so many accounts of Harriet Tubman omit a crucial chapter about the freedom fighter. “That raid brings together a lot of my passions and a lot of my obsessions.” She says it was, her mother, in fact, that began the research about her father’s family and family members that were freed in the raid Combahee River Raid. She found unexamined documents — “some that Civil War historians said they’ve have not seen before.” She used bills of sale, wills, marriage settlements and estate papers from planter’s families to put together the story of what she says is one of Tubman’s most extraordinary accomplishments.
“Historians have not used these pension files in this way and it gives us a more intimate picture of enslaved people’s lives and enslaved communities. I’m telling these stories in their own words,” says Fields-Black, adding that the book also has an undercurrent about the making of the Gullah Geechee.
“It was definitely a passion project – a pretty large passion project,” she says.
WHAT: Miami Dade College’s 41st Miami Book Fair
WHERE: Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave.,
Miami.
WHEN: Sunday, Nov. 17 to Thursday, Nov. 24. Various times for author events; Street Fair 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday, Nov. 22, Saturday, Nov. 23 and Sunday, Nov. 24.
COST: Admission to Saturday, Nov. 23 and Sunday, Nov. 24 street fair; some author events have admission prices.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story atwww.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Every year just before Miami Art Week, one of the biggest publicly accessible private art collections in the city undergoes a big change. The Margulies Collection at the WAREhOUSE, tucked away in the northwest corner of Wynwood next to I-95, has completed its annual rehang. And this year, there are pieces on display that high-powered collector Martin Z. Margulies rarely lets out of his own home.
“There are a lot of works that came from his home, from the private collection. So we’re very excited to get to show some of these to the public,” says Jeanie Ambrosio, associate curator at the collection.
Two new shows have been installed in the museum’s entrance galleries, one focusing on historical modernism and the other on conceptual work. It’s the former that has the heavy hitters, some of which have never been seen before in Miami. There are sculptures from Joan Miró and Robert Indiana, and paintings and drawings from Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock, among others. Rare three-dimensional works from pop art legends Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol are on display.
In the front gallery are electrified artworks incorporating neon lights and television screens. A wall of cathode-ray televisions by Peter Coffin presents footage of wildlife engaged in play, a reminder that all species seek out joy. Chilean artist Iván Navarro created a fluorescent-light replica of de Stijl artist Gerrit Rietveld’s famous “Red Blue Chair” that also serves as a commentary on Pinochet-era blackout curfews the artist suffered through.
There are simpler works too, including a rug made of car mats by John Beech – a play on Carl Andre’s minimalist floor sculptures – and a group of 26 doorstops assembled by the same artist, gathered from the San Francisco Museum of Art and placed in a vitrine. Ambrosio says the work recalls Duchamp’s idea of the “readymade,” the idea that any object can be considered a work of art.
“It’s the idea that, is anything in a museum art, even the door stops? But then, here they are.”
Photography, always a staple of the Margulies, is also well-considered in the rehang. A series of artist portraits by Jason Schmidt includes scenes captured in Miami: Text artist Jenny Holzer is pictured in front of Freedom Tower, where her work was projected in 2004, while local Mark Handforth is shown next to a palm tree. Other artists include Ed Ruscha, Maria Abramovich, the late Richard Serra, and additional famous names.
The museum is also hosting an exhibition from the Barcelona-based Foto Colectania Collection, “Beyond the Single Image,” that focuses on Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan photography from the early 20th century onward. They include images of street life in the Iberian Peninsula, portraits of people from marginalized groups such as women, Black, and LGBTQ+ people, and unsettling historical photos. A portrait of the fascist dictator Francisco Franco is contrasted with images of poor villages in rural Southern Spain.
Of course, the Margulies may be best known for its large-scale installations, including a group of monumental, permanently installed works by Anselm Kiefer. The German artist’s massive sculptures and grim paintings, relating to his country’s history and complicity in the Holocaust, will be supplemented by director and countryman Wim Wenders’ recent documentary on the artist, “Anselm.” The film will play on a screen in the space.
Some of the shows from last year have been retained, including a stately room of works by Italian “Transavanguardia” artist Mimmo Paladino (“Mr. Margulies loved the show so much that we kept it up,” says Ambrosio). But there are plenty of newly installed pieces, including a work by Do Ho Suh, famous for his transparent fabric sculptures that recreate various places and spaces. The piece at the Margulies is a facsimile of the first apartment Suh rented in New York. It’s not the only one of its kind, according to curator Katherine Hinds.
“He was lonely (in New York), as you can imagine. He came from Korea,” she says. “And one of the first social things he did is he knocked on his neighbor’s door and said, ‘Can I make a sculpture of your bathroom?’ And it’s New York, so they said, ‘Sure.’”
That particular piece is on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, but its more significant companion, depicting Suh’s own place, is here in Miami.
The museum reopens to the public on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
WHAT: The Margulies Collection at the WAREhOUSE
WHERE: 591 NW 27th St., Miami
WHEN: Reopens Wednesday, Nov. 13; open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
COST: $10 for adults, $5 for out of state students, free for Florida students with ID.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story atwww.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
When was the last time you took a photo? Sometime today, right? Maybe within the last hour?
In today’s world, everyone has a camera in their pocket.
“I think it’s the most accessible medium,” says Aldeide Delgado, co-founder and director of the Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA). “I mean, we interact with photography every moment in our lives, every day. When we think about these discourses that have been key for the history of art, like closing that gap between art and life, or thinking of accessibility, how to reach wider audiences, how to bring the artwork outside the museum – photography does all of that.”
Delgado believes firmly in the power of photography to change society – especially when it comes to changing how women and people of color are seen. That’s part of the reason why she co-founded WOPHA, which this month will host an expansive international photography conference in downtown Miami.
Aldeide Delgado, founder of the Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA), based in Miami. (Photo by Gaby Ojeda/courtesy of WOPHA)
With its home base at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and at sites across South Florida, the WOPHA Congress, the second edition of the event following a 2021 session, aims to bring together artists, scholars, and enthusiasts from around the world to discuss the past and future of photography for women.
WOPHA begins Tuesday, Oct. 22 and runs through Saturday, Oct. 26.
In fact, according to Delgado, the theme of this year’s congress “How photography teaches us how to live,” is focused on ensuring the medium’s future through education.
“I took as a starting point the idea that more than 75 percent of photography students around the world are women. However, still there are no educational programs specifically addressing the history of women photographers. So that’s why I created this particular edition of the Congress focused on pedagogies, to propose this kind of new model, to propose an academic curriculum, and also to launch the WOPHA Institute.”
Education is central to Delgado’s previous work as well. As an art historian at the University of Havana, she played a key role in boosting the profile of women photographers at home in Cuba. In 2013, after she noticed a lack of female representation in the country’s photographic history, she helped build a catalog of female photo artists dating back to 1853. When she immigrated to Miami in 2016, she found a similar mission to take on.
Susan Meiselas teaching an elementary school student, South Bronx, New York, 1972. (Photograph by Community Resources Institute/Courtesy Susan Meiselas Studio)
“I noticed that there were no spaces for photography in the city,” she says. “And also, I noticed the lack of spaces for promoting the work of women photographers.”
Delgado knew that there were institutions around the world interested in preserving and promoting photography by women. She sensed that something similar could be built in Miami, and that she could leverage the city’s identity in order to build it.
“I decided to take the challenge, to fill that gap of, let’s say, approaching the field from feminist and decolonial perspectives, taking the strategic or the geopolitical position of Miami at the crossroads of the Americas as a key component for the organization, or how I envision WOPHA.”
That international vision certainly holds true for WOPHA’s programming, much of which is free to attend with registration. Speakers and panelists from across the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America – some are even traveling from as far away as South Africa and Japan – will present on various photographic topics.
Whitney Johnson, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Vanessa Charlot, Daniella Zalcman, Veronica Sanchis Bencomo, and Maggie Steber at the inaugural WOPHA Congress. “Women, Photography, and Feminisms at PAMM,” Nov 18, 2021, (Photo by Diana Larrea/Courtesy of WOPHA)
Programming at WOPHA also includes a “photowalk” through Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood and downtown Miami hosted by local photo artists, networking lunches, and even yoga classes.
Throughout the Congress, iconic photographers such as Susan Meiselas, Carmen Winant, Peggy Nolan, Maggie Steber, Keisha Scarville, and María Martínez-Cañas, are given the space to highlight their contributions to photography history.
In tandem with the congress, WOPHA has also curated a series of exhibitions at various institutions in Miami. These include “What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women Reading Room” at the Miami-Dade County Main Library, and “Women Photographers – Shared Documentary Narratives” at HistoryMiami Museum. Featured artists include Steber, Elisa Benedetti, RemiJin Camping, Peggy Levison Nolan and Sofia Valiente. The show is curated by Delgado. It opens Friday, Oct. 18 and runs through May 4.
Locals are also in the mix at WOPHA. One presentation at the congress comes from local artist and educator, Isabella Marie Garcia, who won a WOPHA research fellowship. She’ll discuss her project “The Photography Care Matrix” at the congress, based on her work teaching photography in juvenile correctional and residential rehab facilities in and around Miami.
“I was able to learn a lot just from meeting with students and seeing how much they really need it, especially in facilities like juvenile detention,” she says. “They don’t have a lot of stimuli. I mean, they have school, but they don’t get a lot of access to create things. I saw how much more willing they were to talk about what they were going through when they were able to make things, and a lot of things that they thought about photography that were very much condensed to what they know about phones.”
Garcia, who has exhibited her artwork at local galleries such as Tunnel Projects, an artist-run studio and exhibition space in Little Havana, also had to navigate the complicated rules each facility put in place. For instance, she had to adapt her teaching to the fact that the students, as underage wards of the state, could not photograph each other or themselves. “That’s also something else to think about, how do we process identity through photography when you can’t really even show yourself in the work, not even your self-portrait or a portrait of somebody?”
Garcia’s work perfectly exemplifies the idea of photography as a source for change – even politically, as Delgado says.
“Having control over representation is a political act. So, for sure, in a context where women have been shaped by photography, where Black people have been shaped by images as well, it is important to have control of that representation, and in that sense, provide visual justice.”
WHAT: WOPHA Congress 2024
WHERE: Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
WHEN: Various times beginning Tuesday, Oct. 22, through Saturday, Oct. 26
COMPANION PROGRAMMING: “Women Photographers – Shared Documentary Narratives” at HistoryMiami Museum, 101 West Flagler St., Miami, through through May 4, “What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women Reading Room” at the Miami-Dade County Main Library, 101 West Flagler St., Miami, through Jan. 3, “In Between Sentiments,” Nicole Combeau and Sue Montoya, curated by Amanda Bradley, WOPHA associate curator of programming, Miami International Airport, through Feb. 2.
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
At PAMM, Exploring Caribbean Identity and Resistance through ‘Beyond Representation’
Written By Jonel Juste October 18, 2024 at 1:05 PM
Performance by Danish Trinidadian artist Jeannette Ehlers’ “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls)” on the terrace of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, part of the “Beyond Representation” series at PAMM.(Photo by Diana Espin and Pedro Wazzan/Courtesy of PAMM)
The Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Caribbean Cultural Institute has introduced a new series titled “Beyond Representation,” which highlights the diverse performative practices of Caribbean artists and those of Caribbean descent.
“Beyond Representation” is presented through a series of live art events. It also includes a series of video performances and documentation of performances by artists from the Caribbean or of Caribbean heritage, showcased on PAMM TV, a free streaming service featuring the museum’s video art and film collection, launched last year. It is accessible on web browsers, mobile devices, and through Apple TV.
Iberia Pérez González, the project’s curator, describes it as ongoing research “because I am not only interested in organizing live art events (the live art is the artwork itself), but underlying these events is a deep interest in performance art in/from the Caribbean as a field of research.”
“Beyond Representation” is curated by Iberia Pérez González who describes the programming of “Beyond Representation” as an ongoing research. (Photo by Eliz Perez/courtesy of PAMM)
The project draws on the history of Caribbean performance art, which often blends various art forms. The series began during Miami Art Week in 2023 with a program focused on pioneer Puerto Rican performance artists. Pérez González recalls presenting “¡Fenomenal! Rompeforma 1989–1996,” a documentary about the Rompeforma festival in Puerto Rico, directed by Merián Soto and Viveca Vázquez, who received the Jury’s Prize at the International Festival of Cinematographic Arts in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico.
This year’s series started on Saturday, Sept. 21, with Danish Trinidadian artist Jeannette Ehlers’ performance titled “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls),” which invited Miami’s Afro-Caribbean diaspora to engage in a communal braiding circle. This act symbolizes cultural connections that span generations and geographical boundaries. Ehlers later expanded on this performance on Thursday, Sept. 26, connecting the braids to the PAMM terrace. She emphasizes that the act of braiding fosters “a feeling of interconnectedness,” linking participants both physically and symbolically to the performance space.
“By extending these braids to PAMM’s terrace, I aimed to highlight the unbroken connection between modernity and coloniality, the natural world and the ancestral past as well as contemporary cultural practices. This gesture emphasizes how history and heritage are living forces that continue to shape us,” says Ehlers.
Danish-Trinidadian artist Jeannette Ehlers performance invited Miami’s Afro-Caribbean diaspora to engage in a communal braiding circle during as part of her performance “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls)” at PAMM in September. (Photo by Diana Espin and Pedro Wazzan/courtesy of PAMM)
Ehlers highlights the significance of hair in her work, framing it as a political statement: “For centuries, hair has been a battleground for identity, self-worth, and autonomy within African diasporic communities. It carries the weight of colonial legacies, systemic racism, and cultural erasure, while simultaneously being a powerful tool of resistance, empowerment, connectivity and pride.”
Through the collaborative act of braiding, participants reclaim cultural heritage and resist the erasure of their histories. The sound of the Atlantic Ocean during the performance at PAMM, situated by the sea, further evokes the trauma of the transatlantic slave trade while also alluding to the ocean’s healing power.
Also part of the project are Caribbean artists such as Puerto Ricans Viveca Vazquez, Merian Soto, and Awilda Sterling, Trinidadian Shannon Alonzo, Cuban Carlos Martiel, and Curaçaoan Tirzo Martha. “Collectively, says the curator, these artists in varying degrees expose and/or refuse oppressive colonial ideologies while creating multiple narratives of freedom, healing, solidarity, and joy.”
Martha’s Captain Caribbean persona in the video performance “I Wonder If They’ll Laugh When I’m Dead” explores themes of colonialism and daily survival in the Caribbean. His upcoming workshop, “Act of Valor,” with an upcoming date to be announced, will focus on designing superhero costumes from everyday materials, highlighting the resourcefulness and resilience of Caribbean communities.
Martha explains, “The conditions of the daily lives of the people living in the Caribbean is the foundation for both my autonomous work as for my Captain Caribbean performances. The urgencies dominating their daily survival mode and shortcomings create a great longing for a better life.”
Curaçaoan artist Tirzo Martha’s will present a workshop, with a date to be announced, called “Act of Valor,” which focuses on designing superhero costumes from everyday materials, reflecting the resourcefulness and resilience of Caribbean communities. (Photo by Luidspreker/Courtesy of PAMM)
Martha’s work addresses the nuances of postcolonial life in Curaçao, where colonial legacies persist in more subtle forms. “As a native of the island of Curaçao we are still part of the Dutch Kingdom. So, this means that challenging and confronting the colonial ideologies are very complicated,” he acknowledges. Through his work, Martha sheds light on these complexities, prompting audiences to rethink Caribbean identity and its ties to colonial histories.
“Beyond Representation”’s digital component displays the video performances of Ehlers, Martha, Vázquez, Soto, and Martiel.
In “Whip it Good,” Ehlers reenacts the brutal punishment of whipping, once inflicted on enslaved people. In “I Wonder If They’ll Laugh When I’m Dead,” Martha blends performance, animation, and archival footage to explore the lasting impact of slavery and colonialism in contemporary Curaçao. Vázquez’s “Las Playas Son Nuestras” reflects on the toxic legacy of US Navy military operations in Puerto Rico. Soto’s “Pachanga en Dos Medios” examines the Puerto Rican experience of adapting to contrasting landscapes on the island and the US mainland. In “Cuerpo,” Martiel uses his body to confront the complex legacies of colonialism on race, labor, and migration.
The series is organized as a three-part series that explores the intersection between performance art and video from the mid-1980s to today. The first installment was launched September 26 on PAMM TV and will be on view through Jan. 26, 2025.
Pérez González notes that the opportunity of developing part of the project through the PAMM TV platform has opened up possibilities for expanding the project in other directions and sharing some of this work with broader audiences that are not able to visit the live events at the museum. “Exploring performance in relation to digital media enables a broader understanding of the multifaceted and rich array of performative practices that have emerged in the Caribbean and its diasporas in recent decades.”
In her live performance “We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls)” and video performance “Whip It Good”, Jeannette Ehlers addresses issues of memory, race, and colonialism (Photo by ROAR Studio, Milan/Courtesy of PAMM)
Pérez González believes that the performance series challenges narrow perceptions of Caribbean art. She states, “At the core of most of the curatorial work that I do within the context of the Caribbean Cultural Institute is to engage in projects that will expand the traditional understanding of what Caribbean art is.” She emphasizes that by highlighting experimental and often underrepresented artists, the series confronts stereotypes of Caribbean art as solely representational, instead emphasizing its vibrancy and relevance in contemporary discussions.
While “Beyond Representation” is rooted in the Caribbean, it resonates on a global scale. Ehlers, whose Caribbean heritage contrasts with her upbringing in Denmark, articulates the universal struggle of navigating diasporic identity. “My Caribbean roots often felt distant, yet they have always been a source of strength,” she says. Her performances encapsulate the tension of living between cultures, bridging Caribbean legacies with contemporary European life.
The overarching goal of the initiative is to provide a platform for Caribbean artists and their diasporas to reclaim their histories. Pérez González summarizes this vision: “I see a project like this contributing to expanding the horizon of possibility of what Caribbean art can be, helping to shed light on an art form that is constantly left out of many exhibitions of contemporary Caribbean art.”
She envisions a future where Caribbean art is not just acknowledged but celebrated as a vibrant force of change.
WHAT: “Beyond Representation” WHERE: The Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, and PAMM TV WHEN: Live performances will be announced through December 2026 COST: Free (registration required for live performance and free account for PAMM TV) INFORMATION: (305) 375-3000 or pamm.org
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.
In the 11th edition of the Little Haiti Book Festival, themes of community displacement and immigration instability while the written word remains center stage.
Enma Saiz’s ‘Deering Tiles’: Where Tradition, Identity, and Resilience Meet
Written By Miguel Sirgado October 11, 2024 at 11:08 AM
Enma Saiz’s, Deering Estate’s artist in residence, created the “Deering Tiles” site-specific installation, on exhibition in the Richmond Cottage Garden Room, the Deering Estate, Miami, through Thursday, Oct. 31. (Photo courtesy of Deering Estate)
The rise of modern architecture in the 1920s and 1930s brought with it a wave of minimalist ideals, rejecting decorative elements in favor of clean lines and geometric precision. Ceramics, once cherished for their ornamental beauty, were confined to functional spaces, excluded from the modernist vision.
Yet, by the 1940s, cracks began to show in this rigid approach, as architects sought to create more humanized, art-infused spaces. Brazil was at the forefront of this shift, integrating traditional tiles into contemporary buildings without abandoning local customs.
Iconic projects like Lucio Costa’s Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro and Oscar Niemeyer’s Church of St. Francis Xavier in Pampulha, stand as enduring symbols of this harmonious blend of old and new. In Cuba, renowned artists Amelia Peláez and René Portocarrero left their marks on iconic buildings in the island’s capital, Havana.
This integration of art and architecture forms the backbone of Enma Saiz’s exhibition, “Deering Tiles.”
Artist Enma Saiz re-grouts seam lines in situ. The tiles were installed in components for easy transport. Saiz had to chisel the components and grout them apart in order to separate them for transportation and installation. She then re-grouted the cracks in the seams on site. (Photo by Lilliam Domingues/courtesy of the artist)
As a 2024 artist-in-residence at the Deering Estate, Saiz has drawn deeply from the estate’s rich archaeological, cultural, and botanical history. The result is an intricate tile mural installation that not only beautifies the estate’s Richmond Cottage Garden Room but also provokes reflection on themes of identity, heritage, and modernity.
On display through Thursday, Oct. 31, the exhibition invites viewers to explore Saiz’s unique take on the interplay between tradition and contemporary expression.
“I began working with tiles in 2019 to explore my identity as a Cuban refugee,” says Saiz, who’s now 58. Having arrived in the United States at the age of 3 1/2 years old—on a Freedom Flight from Cuba in 1969—her memories of Havana’s architectural splendor were hazy, if not entirely absent. To reconnect with her heritage, Saiz began creating Havana-style tiles, using them in performances titled “Colonial Kaleidoscopes.”
“I was fascinated by how different orientations of simple tile designs could form complex patterns that reflect the tension between traditional craftsmanship and modern expression.”
Saiz’s work in “Deering Tiles” extends beyond her personal journey. The mural also draws on Deering Estate’s historical connections to its sister estate, Maricel, in Sitges, Spain.
The Iberian influence, particularly the intricate azulejos (decorative tiles) of the region, plays a crucial role in her designs.
“I used the Maricel shield to frame the edges of my murals, connecting the Deering Estate to its Spanish counterpart,” she says. But more than just aesthetic choices, Saiz’s work is layered with historical references, including tributes to the indigenous Tequesta people who once inhabited the land.
“I incorporated the ‘coontie’ plant, a vital resource for the Tequesta, who ingeniously processed it to make starch despite its natural toxins. Their resilience is a key theme in my work.”
A view of the “Deering Tiles” installation shows the other components of the exhibition, which include a case containing the plaster molds used to pour the porcelain slip for the tiles and reference books used in creating the tiles. (Photo by Francesco Casale/courtesy of Deering Estate)
For Saiz, ceramics represent more than just a medium; they are a subversive tool.
“Traditional crafts like tile-making, often considered ‘women’s work,’ are powerful vehicles for social commentary,” she says. Drawing inspiration from movements like “The Subversive Stitch” (Rozsika Parker’s book that re-evaluates the reciprocal relationship between women and embroidery), Saiz uses her art to encode messages that challenge established norms. This is particularly evident in her engagement with migration, colonization, and social justice.
“I’ve seen firsthand the effects of ongoing colonization in the Global South, where systemic injustices drive migration to the U.S.,” says Saiz.
Her art, whether through ceramics or other forms, seeks to dismantle those colonial narratives, shedding light on issues of migration, medical ethics, and women’s rights. Saiz studied art at several schools, but interestingly, her first professional endeavors were as a medical doctor.
“My undergraduate studies took place at the University of Miami; then I was a middle school science teacher for two years before going to medical school at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine,” explains Saiz.
She then did her residency in pathology at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, completed a fellowship in Cytopathology in Houston, and worked in Seattle for four years before returning to Miami in 2004.
She retired from medicine and is now a full-time artist.
“I made the decision to leave medicine after surviving breast cancer and to raise my children,” says Saiz.
Artist Enma Saiz glazing part of the “Deering Tiles” installation. (Photo by Sofia Yaziji/courtesy of the artist)
She decided to go back to school in 2020 and received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“(During medical school) I studied the stark disparities in medical care between white and non-white communities,” she shares. The intersection of art and medicine fuels Saiz’s drive to address the inequities that persist in healthcare and society at large.
In recent years, Saiz’s focus has evolved from documenting social injustices to celebrating the resilience and triumphs of marginalized communities. “While my work acknowledges painful histories, it also honors the strength of women, Black people, Indigenous peoples, and other communities of color,” she says.
The Latinx, multidisciplinary Cuban American artist was selected by Oolite Arts to join a group of Miami-based artists at the prestigious Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 2022, and in 2024 she became one of the artists-in-residence (AIRs) at the Deering Estate.
She explains the process at Deering. “There is a yearly application and selection process for Deering Estate AIRs for which local artists apply, and around 10 artists are selected per year. The artist chooses at the time of the application whether they want to be project-based or studio-based. There are a limited number of studios at the Estate, and I chose to do a project,” says the artist.
The artist says that AIRs go on “field trips” throughout the Deering grounds with naturalists and other experts to learn more about the rich natural, cultural, and archeological history of the estate. “We have also gone kayaking. We support each other at our respective openings and exhibitions. The curators are also very knowledgeable and supportive of our projects and provide exhibition opportunities for the AIRs through a juried process,” she says.
Artist Enma Saiz’s “Deering Tiles” installation at the Deering Estate. Saiz created holes in the coontie plant cones and left out the grout so that the glow of LED lights would come through the tiles at the level of the fire in a fireplace. (Photo by Francesco Casale/courtesy of Deering Estate)
Her work has been shaped by a variety of influences, including contemporary artists like Nick Cave, Doris Salcedo, Yinka Shonibare, and Teresita Fernández. “Nick Cave’s maximalist installations, in particular, resonate with me because he uses found objects to highlight social justice issues,” according to Saiz.
Ultimately, “Deering Tiless” is not just a showcase of ceramics but a celebration of the ways in which art can bridge the past and present, honoring cultural heritage while engaging with pressing contemporary issues. Through her innovative work with tiles, she reminds us that art has the power to tell stories of resilience, resistance, and renewal.
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas. Through Thursday, Oct. 31.
COST: Exhibition included with general admission, $15 for adults (ages 15 and older) and $7 for children (ages 4 to 14). Admission is free for Deering Estate Foundation members and children under 4 years old.
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