It's last night, and Anthony Spinello is sanding down walls in his new
gallery space, dealing with what he calls some "finishing touches." But
all the bare, white space and even debris of renovation still laying
about seems to imply a long way to go before a gallery opening only
three days away. Covered in powder, Spinello, smiles and shrugs it off.
"It's OK ... You know The Amazing Race? That's pretty much my life."
There
is nothing anxious about the skinny 28-year-old with a shock of curly
black hair and well-groomed beard. There is only restless eagerness.
During a moment he has to sit down at a large, dark wood table in a
garage that will serve as his receiving area, he plays with a tightly
folded scrap of cardboard. He flips the tiny yellow square over and over
in his fingers or rubs it into an edge of the table as he speaks. "I'm
project-driven, and the artists I work with are project-driven. My
artists like to work site-specific, and this is a pretty cool space to
navigate."
The space is a two-story building built in the 1940s
with 3,000 square feet of space, located just a block east of I-95 and
west of Wynwood. There are no other galleries in the immediate area, but
when it is finished, the new Spinello Projects will have plenty of space to offer an array of art. The rooms are almost labyrinthine and
exude characters all their own. Walking through one room, Spinello
imagines a great space for a video installation.
Though excited about the new Spinello Projects space, the curator cannot wait to present his first show, only a few days from now. The opening exhibit for the new space will feature the art of Farley Aguilar, a self-taught Nicaraguan-born painter who works with ink on mylar and oils. Farley is among the eight artists Spinello currently represents.
"He's a fantastic artist," Spinello says. "It's very painterly. It feels like German expressionist painting. It's not, but it feels like it."
And these are some powerful images. In 9 Boys and 1 Girl, nine figures in costumes that can either be bunny rabbit ears or horns of the devil surround a single crouching female figure clearly in a bunny suit (look for the cotton tail). Her face is almost all open mouth. Meanwhile, in the faces of the boys you can see dead eyes, crazy eyes, drunk eyes, among other expressions all drawn in simple lines and circles.
The exhibit is entitled "Americana," and, Spinello says, "It's about how America is obsessed with violence.... I feel the show is very relevant, very now. The work is touching on a particular time, pop culture and the media and violence."
Spinello is also in his own moment. Having had more than several locations in both the Miami Design District and the Wynwood Art District since 2005, this new space has a feeling of permanence about it -- for now.
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"This type of space gives me room to mature and grow," he says, "and just being able to have enough space for storage is something that I haven't had for awhile."
Opening Reception of "Americana" at Spinello Projects, 2930 NW Seventh Ave., Miami. Saturday, September 8, 7 p.m. to midnight. Exhibition runs through Saturday, October 6, 2012. Visit spinelloprojects.com.
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