In honor of our People Issue, which will hit newsstands and computer screens November 25, Cultist proudly presents "100 Creatives," where we feature Miami's cultural superheroes in random order. Have suggestions for future profiles? Email [email protected] with the whos and whys.
87. Christy Gast
Artist Christy Gast is pretty much good at everything. She's a sculptor, a video and performance artist, and an adventurer. Raised in Ohio, she attended Colombia University, worked in Pensacola as a professor, and constructed stunning artwork in Moab, Utah. Her art tells the kind of stories that inspire one to go out into the world and do something special. Gast's creations are mechanical and
musical, and her sculptures have a certain life of their own.
They're also informed by her surroundings and often reference folktales and fascinating historical nuggets. Now that Gast is living in Miami, her artwork takes a look at interesting local histories. For instance, last year's The Earth We Inhabit explored the Koreshan Unity, a community of Floridian art lovers who believed that we live inside the earth.
-Public land
-Word play
-Cute archeologists
-Tierra del Fuego
-Barbara Hammer
A multi-channel video installation called Batty Cave, which I showed at Gallery Diet earlier this year. The video and sculptures in the show were inspired by a remote desert mountain in Utah where two men who were expecting a flood of Biblical proportions built an ark in a cave and waited for the day they'd be the last guys on earth. I wrote and sang (in a crackly man's voice) some folk songs that hinted at the narrative, and made something of an animation using rocks, broken glass and bits of rusty metal I found on site, which also provided a tinkling soundtrack. The boat, made of completely impossible materials, is still in the cave.
I just wrapped up shooting a video called Herbert Hoover Dyke on the Herbert Hoover Dike, an enormous earthen mound that controls water flow out of Lake Okeechobee. It involves me tap dancing around the entire lake in a tuxedo, with various sculptural props. The video and sculptures will be at the De La Cruz Collection in December.
I have a deep and burning need to get out of town and look at the outskirts, the underskirts, and the infrastructure.
I'd like to go to Antarctica, but I don't really care about going to the beach. If Miami finds out, it might get its feelings hurt.
The Creatives so far:
88. Gustavo Matamoros
89. Shareen Rubiera-Sarwar
90. Kyle Trowbridge
91. Clifton Childree
92. Jessica Gross
93. Danny Brito
94. Nektar de Stagni
95. Anthony Spinello
96. Vanessa Garcia
97. Justin Long
98. Rosie Herrera
99. Rick Falcon
100. Ingrid Bazin
