Place Versus Purpose

It takes laser focus to distill a vision to its unadorned essence. In 2007, Julie Davidow channeled her inner alchemist to strike gold when she co-authored a coffee-table tome with photographer Paul Clemence. Their book, Miami Contemporary Artists, showcasing more than 100 South Florida artists driving this city’s cultural evolution, has become a popular point of reference for those eager to get a pulse on our dynamic art scene. But now Davidow has turned her focus to a series of complex paintings, concentrating on the relationship between the architecture of contemporary art museums and the artwork one typically finds inside these institutions. You can see the results beginning at 6 p.m. during the Second Saturday Art Walk at Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, where Davidow will unveil “archiTECTONICS,” a solo show featuring a suite of canvases mapping elements of design and construction. Lowenstein will also present “The Mantuana of Clemencia Labin,” in which the Venezuelan artist seeks to beguile the imagination via ineffable works that speak to humanity’s spiritual condition and are richly textured with the codes and symbols of pop culture. A few blocks north, at the Robert Fontaine Gallery, catch the popular space’s “1st Anniversary Survey,” documenting a program that ranges from the origins of the American pop art movement to today’s urban interventionists. On view will be one of Banksy’s “gangsta rats,” displayed next to Josafat Miranda’s nifty painting of a foppish bloke wearing a pig mask.
Sat., Feb. 11, 6 p.m., 2012