The very notion of “modern” in art rests on a historical fallacy. At the height of European colonialism, the movements of fauvism and Cubism adapted the “primitive” as an emblem of artistic liberation from bourgeois academic clichés. The primitive set them free, but they supplied the iconic stereotypes. One example…
Little has been said about the ubiquitous effect of irony in much of today’s art. Irony allows detachment, a trend that may have started with Dada, the first anarchic movement in modern art history. After a catastrophic first world war, Dadaists had good reasons to resent absolutes. When Genezyp Kapen,…
Beauty, once one of the most desired terms in the art lexicon, might be on the verge of extinction. We don’t describe things as beautiful anymore. Our evaluations tend toward fleeting states of mind, reflecting habits, places, even casual encounters. Saying “fun” or “cool” does the job when we want…
The Green Door Gallery used to be a derelict construction spot among a monotonous row of secondhand stores on North Miami Avenue. It came to life when Gary Fonseca and Mino Gerges (both students at the New World School of the Arts) decided to change things around. These young men…
The Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Making Art in Miami: Travels in Hyperreality,” featuring 22 emerging local artists, is a timely acknowledgment for the arts in this city. In the catalogue that accompanies the show, Bonnie Clearwater, MOCA’s director, puts it aptly: “Miami has witnessed ambitious museum exhibitions programs with an…
Ramon Alejandro’s “Baralanube,” at José Alonso Fine Arts, makes us see how tradition still can find its way into a novel production. “Baralanube” includes most of Alejandro’s original drawings; collaborations with contemporary exile Cuban writers such as Nestor Diaz de Villegas, Antonio José Ponte, Felix Lizarraga; and even that infamous…
Karel Teige was born in 1900. He was a modern man but not just because of his birthday. The Czech critic, designer, poet, theorist, graphic artist, and agitator showed symptoms, through his work and politics, of that twentieth-century malaise, the condition of constant crisis, guilt, and cynicism that colored the…
It’s obvious that Miami is a diverse city. But is it fair to say that we live in a pluralistic one? Pluralism entails independent groups developing their cultures and interests within a common community. This means people have to see themselves as part of a bigger picture. Not an easy…
By force of habit, we can live in a city and come to accept the degradation of our surroundings. Urban changes take place slowly, and we may not notice them because we move around these environments as part of our daily lives. Suddenly we realize the beauty is no more…
American Art Today: Fantasies and Curiosities” at the Art Museum at Florida International University is a rich and well-crafted show. Director Dahlia Morgan has explored the idea of the fantastic in art, the so-called uncanny, which seldom is addressed in today’s often faddish and overly didactic curatorial establishments. Not to…
With the long hot summer almost a muggy memory, Miami gets to turn its attention to cooler pursuits, such as a revved-up arts scene. The pace of activities already has quickened, and — good news — the quality of exhibitions has improved. This was evident on a Saturday night in…
Cuban artist Lazaro Sigler’s “Las Criaturas de la Isla” (“The Island’s Creatures”), at Domingo Padron Art Gallery in Coral Gables, is an absurd little show because it uses absurdity to dissect a much harsher world. But we almost missed it on a Friday night, after a circuitous first-of-the-month tour of…
Since the beginning of modern times, artists have embraced art as a vehicle for social change. Modern art often has been used as an instrument of critique against the injustices of the status quo. Yet it also can be a valuable commodity to the same establishment art seeks to fight…
The issue of Latin-American art — what it is and if our city is a center for it — comes up in Miami art circles almost daily. For many artists Miami, for better or worse, feels like a Latin-American city within the United States. Language and cultural ties make this…
“Levity & Gravity” is the latest exhibition at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery. It’s an extensive show with works from artists Ricci Albenda, Max Goldfarb, Jennifer Monick, and Peter Sarkisian, and Miami artists Robert Chambers, Karen Rifas, Eugenia Vargas, and Wendy Wischer. Curated by Amy Cappellazzo and Tiffany Huot, the show…
Artists never make art in a void, but autobiographies are more concrete in some peoples’ works than in others. Such is the case with the newly opened Blue Door Art Studio’s “The School of Unlearning” (“La Escuela de Desaprender”), an installation by the intriguing Paloma Figueiro, a 24-year-old Cuban-Brazilian artist…
There is no doubt about it: Little Havana is bubbling over. The 6street visual arts collective phenomenon seems to have spread. Even a cautious observer would have been impressed by what happened on Friday, May 26, when about seven blocks of SW Eighth Street — between Twelfth and Nineteenth avenues…
The cultural impact of the new economy on our world has some interesting manifestations. Take airports, for instance, in this era of hypertravel. To relieve the tedium, they house all kinds of imaginable amenities for a population whose personal lives are subordinate to business demands, embodied in the business-class traveler…
Fifty years into the Twentieth Century jazz became the true voice of black and white urban America. There is something about jazz that embodies the sum and substance of the American city: It is seductive, direct, and purifying (for proof check out or reacquaint yourself with Charles Mingus’s “Boogie Stop…
Andy Warhol’s art encapsulated the presumed banality of late twentieth-century American culture. He also exemplified the aesthetic ideal of the dandy: Life and work became one. Self-indulgent and reticent, Warhol, toward the end of his life, constructed for himself a quasi-autistic persona. Either praised or vilified, with Andy there was…
We’ve been seeing some interesting stuff happening at the New Gallery, the only art gallery on the University of Miami campus. In the past the exhibition hall was used mainly to showcase students and faculty. Then, in November 1999, the art department, to provide a much needed direction and curatorial…
It’s 9:00 on a breezy night in early spring, and the sounds of live music and people chatting announce this first studio crawl, a way to acquaint the public with the 6street visual arts collective. They make up a quarter-block of artists’ studios off South Twelfth Avenue that stand alone…
