Is Narrative Necessary? Find Out Tomorrow Night at MOCA

Christy GastAs soon as we type the N-word, most of you are going to skim on by this post. So we won't type narrative (damn! OK, we won't type it more than once). Let's just call it the ability to tell a good story. Anyway, three Miami artists will tip...

By Amanda McCorquodale

September 28, 2010

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As soon as we type the N-word, most of you are going to skim on by this post. So we won't type narrative (damn! OK, we won't type it more than once). Let's just call it the ability to tell a good story. Anyway, three Miami artists will tip their genius brains together tomorrow night for MOCA's The Necessity of Narrative, the first in the museum's discussion series called Spotlight.

This week's program will explore how narrative (damn!) informs their respective mediums: Lucas Leyva, founder of the Borscht Film Festival will give a talk titled "On the Ramifications of Dr. Ian Malcolm's Advanced Chaos Theory." University of Wynwood founder and intense Lady Pythons fan P. Scott Cunningham will cover poetry's entire history in about five minutes, and visual artist Christy Gast will straddle the ever-vexing topics of Hélène Cixous and authorless folk ballads.

Gast, who has a show opening at De La Cruz Collection this December,

recently delved into the narrative (shit, we give up) of two Utah dudes

who freaked and built an ark - just in case God's wrath turned to water

again.

And here's a narrative moment captured in a poem called "January Monster."

It was written by Zachary Schomburg, a Portland poet who recently visited Miami for a University of Wynwood reading and craft talk.

It is January.

It rises up out of the ice

and puts on

a pair of pants

then outgrows

the pair of pants.

It lives in a house

then outgrows

the front door.

When it breaks

through the roof

you see

its silhouette

against

a red light.

You think it will bite

your face off

but it will not bite

your face off.

The Necessity of Narrative starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday night at the

Museum of Contemporary Art (770 NE 125th St., North Miami). Admission is

free for MOCA members, North Miami residents, and City of North Miami

employees; $5 non-members. Reservations are suggested and may be made at

305-893-6211 or [email protected]. Visit mocanomi.org.

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