Don't Miss the Retrospective of Lynne Golob Gelfman's Work During Miami Art Week

Curator Tobias Ostrander pops onto the screen from his home in Mexico City. The former chief curator and deputy director for curatorial affairs of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is currently the Estrellita B. Brodsky curator at large of Latin American art at Tate Modern. Throughout his eight years with PAMM, Ostrander curated a bevy of memorable exhibitions, including "Grids: A Selection of Paintings by Lynne Golob Gelfman" in 2018. The exhibit is particularly special to the curator since it was one of the artist's last before her death in 2020.

Nearly six years after he curated "Grids," Ostrander was invited to be one of two curators for a retrospective of Gelfman's work that'll be shown during Miami Art Week at 1108 Lincoln Rd. "Constructive Arguments: Aesthetic Dialogues With the Work of Lynne Golob Gelfman" opens on Monday, December 2, and will remain on view through Sunday, December 22.

Gelfman was known for her artistic take on grids. She loved this geometric shape and played with its dimension in every way imaginable. Her technique was unique in that she often let natural elements, like Miami's humidity, influence her paintings.

"I liked to paint rooftops when I was a little girl... and those were sort of the grids," said Gelfman in a 2020 interview with PAMM. "What I really love about the systems and the grids is that I sort of feel like the trickster. I follow the rules of the game, and then I can break them. I really like this idea of not being an artisan but being a worker... of doing something a little bit mischievous."

Ostrander worked closely with the Estate of Lynne Golob Gelfman and Natalia Zuluaga, chief curator at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, to put on "Constructive Arguments."
"Natalia and I both think of Lynne as this sort of connector," Ostrander says. "She was extremely influential on many younger artists and peers within a Miami context. But she also had a very interesting sort of network of close friends and artist friends that expanded beyond Miami. And so Natalia and I thought it would be interesting to do a show that showed her network and included younger artists from Miami as well as older, more established figures, like Eugenio Espinoza and Olga de Amaral."

The exhibit will feature several of Gelfman's works paired alongside pieces by eight contemporary artists, all of whom were either close personal friends or knew the late artist during her lifetime. These include Olga de Amaral, Loriel Beltrán, Eugenio Espinoza, Gloria Garcia Lorca, Aramis Gutierrez, Cristina Lei-Rodriguez, Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, and Frances Trombly.

Some of the works showcased are collaborations between Gelfman and the artist. For instance, Ostrander explains that Trombly, known for her weaving technique, wove over an existing piece of Gelfman's and that collaboration will be displayed as part of "Constructive Arguments." In the 1990s, Gelfman created a group of objects with Espinoza, who will also be featured in the exhibition.

Other artists, like Beltrán, created new work for the exhibit and as an homage to his former mentor. "There's also a lot of conceptual shared dialogue between all of these artists and their works," Ostrander adds.

The exhibit is spread across five rooms, each highlighting a unique trait. One room features work on grids and structures, another on fencing, and another on pieces done in collaboration with Gelfman.

"When people see the exhibition, they'll see how we're creating particular conversations in each room," Ostrander explains.
The curator smiles as he remembers his old friend. He looks off to the corner of his desk before returning his gaze to his computer's camera. Creases appear in the corner of his eyes as his smile widens, and he says, "If anybody new came into town, she would reach out and have a dinner for them and connect them to artists and other curators and critics. That's what she did for me when I got to Miami."

"The title 'Constructive Arguments' really references a few things," explains Ostrander. "One is that Lynne really brought people together, you know, for discussion or for arguments. She was a great hostess and loved to host other artists and curators."

Gelfman was born in New York in 1944. She studied art at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Columbia University. She moved to South Florida in the '70s and remained a Miami-based artist until her death in 2020.

Ostrander says part of Gelfman's legacy is her impact on the Miami art world. She spent nearly 50 years living and working in Miami, a city many see as transient.

"Many artists work here for a period of time, and then they go somewhere else," Ostrander says. "Lynne really committed herself to both her practice and to Miami. She became a real ambassador for Miami's potential as a city of artistic production."

Gelfman was active in the art world and even painted the day before her death. Throughout her career, she helped to put Miami on the map as a place where artists could live and work successfully.

"Constructive Arguments" not only aims to stir up a dialogue about the work of great artists, but it hopes to showcase Gelfman's impact on Miami and the art world as a whole.

"If you study the history of her work, you're really studying the history of the art world in Miami. We wanted to embrace that legacy and that energy going by showing the impact that Lynne had on this community of artists and the community of Miami."

"Constructive Arguments: Aesthetic Dialogues With the Work of Lynne Golob Gelfman." Noon to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, December 12–15 and December 19–22, at 1108 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach; lynnegolobgelfman.net.