There's no arguing that our robust art scene is growing to year-round proportions. Consider the new Art Wynwood, opening President's Day weekend (Feb. 16 through 20) and boasting more than 50 galleries representing 13 countries from around the globe. Its organizers have packed the fair's roster with a dozen Miami galleries to showcase our evolution. Fingers crossed that sales materialize to convince skeptics that South Florida has the muscle to sustain a viable market year-round as well.
Until then, there's plenty of eye candy to take in during February's edition of Wynwood's wildly popular art walk. Beginning at 6 p.m. this Saturday, expect to be rocked by a combination of new shows that take on subjects ranging from the naked truth about erotica in art to the spirit of rebellion and a girl gone bad.
Here are our best bets for this month's Second Saturday dance card, which promises plenty of action and an occasional sucker punch.
Bad As I Wanna Be
Jessy Nite answers the bell with her first local solo show, presenting a brash series of multimedia works in which Nite, with ruthless street swagger and a sharp feminist edge, channels the spirit of youthful rebellion while dropping the hammer on the rich and drug-addled. On view are paintings from Nite's Money-Hungry series that evoke notions of bored, champagne-swigging, and pill-popping designer-clad housewives next to home-baked, blinged-out cookies studded with rare gems. Primary Projects 4141 NE Second Ave., Ste. 104, Miami. Visit primaryprojects.com.
The Naked Truth: Nudes and Erotica in Art
Pan American Art Projects, one of the local galleries participating in Art Wynwood's inaugural year, is rolling out the big artillery with a group show exploring the representation of nudity, sex, and eroticism in art the past century by mostly dead Latin American males. The gallery is also looking to rope-a-dope with you with Big Bang, a savory video piece by Cristina Lucas riffing on notions of the creation of the universe. The Spanish artist hired a professional sex worker to appear in her video and write the words "big bang" with a brush clutched in her vagina. It goes without saying that spectators should use caution if inspired to repeat the feat later at home. Pan American Art Projects (2450 NW Second Ave., Miami), Call 305-573-2400 or visit panamericanart.com.
The Politics of Time, 1001 Dreams of Occupation, Magnetic Poetry
The Dorsch delivers three solid shots to the breadbasket with shows starring a rotating life-size camel, a cave, and a suite of hand-painted QR codes. Offerings swing from "1001 Dreams of Occupation," Magnus Sigurdarson's computer drawings inspired by French colonial-era postcards depicting life in the Sahara and photography and video documenting his one-man "protest" in Opa-locka, to "Magnetic Poetry," Carlos Rigau's installation and sculptural works delving into vodou, Palo, and Afro-Caribbean ritual, to "The Politics of Time," Kyle Trowbridge's geometric abstractions embedded with hidden words that can be scanned by smartphones. Dorsch Gallery (151 NW 24th St., Miami) Call 305-576-1278 or visit dorschgallery.com.
archiTECTONICS, The Mantuana of Clemencia Labin
Julie Davidow has turned her sights away from science with "archiTECTONICS," her new series of complex paintings focused on the relationship between the architecture of contemporary art museums and the artwork one typically finds inside these institutions. Her solo features canvases mapping elements of design and construction, often evoking the grid or Modernism's sacred stone which became part of Western visual culture for most of the 20th century. Lowenstein is also presenting "The Mantuana of Clemencia Labin" in which the Venezuelan artist seeks to beguile the imagination with ineffable works speaking to humanity spiritual condition and richly textured with the codes and symbols of pop culture. Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts (2043 North Miami Avenue, Miami) Call 305-576-1804 or visit dlfinearts.com.
Short Stories
Guillermo Srodek-Hart is a storyteller with a keen eye for capturing places that seem frozen in time, not unlike fossils conserved in amber, and who traveled to remote townships in Argentina to create photographs of a haunting, poetic nature. His complex, richly colored compositions portray scenes stripped of inhabitants, but where the dusty, cluttered shops and faded bars he depicts creak with evidence of human consumption and invite viewers to dream up their own narratives for what the award-winning artist sees as the nature of the invisible and our "own transience in this world." Dina Mitrani Gallery 151 NW 2nd Avenue, Miami. Call 786-486-7248 or visit dinamitranigallery.com.
1st Anniversary Survey"
The Robert Fontaine Gallery, one of Wynwood's crowd pleasers during the past season, is popping the champagne cork to celebrate its first b-day in the nabe with a broad look at a program that ranges from the origins of the American Pop Art movement to today's urban interventionists. On view at the space you'll find one of Bansky's "gangsta rats," displayed next to a nifty painting of a foppish bloke wearing a pig mask by Josafat Miranda. Robert Fontaine Gallery 175 NW 23rd Street, Miami. Call 305-397-8530 or visit robertfontainegallery.com.
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