![](https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Adler-400x280_2.jpg?w=400)
A wander through Miami with the art of Adler Guerrier
Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees, when standing in the middle of fairly dense foliage. Which is what we are doing in the artscape of South Florida today – there is a lot going on here. Even in the middle of summer there are new shows, new projects being unveiled on a weekly basis.
So it’s important to step back and see that for the second time this year, the jewel of a building that is the new Perez Art Museum Miami, which is drawing local, national and international crowds, is giving room to a solo show from a Miami artist. First was Edouard Duval-Carrié’s splendid “salon” of new works, and just opened on Thursday, Adler Guerrier’s “Formulating a Plot.”
It’s a mid-career retrospective (although Guerrier will say he’s not mid-career just yet!) of an artist who has shown consistently here and elsewhere for over a decade now (and was in the Whitney Biennial in 2008). Nonetheless, a solo show at a museum is a big deal, it’s an arrival point, and it needs to be acknowledged as such. Most artists will never get a solo show, and that Guerrier is also local means that PAMM is making a statement about its support – and trust in the quality – of local talent, and that Guerrier has hit a new level.
The exhibit should be seen starting from the wall to the left, on which hang some early photographs from the artist, who works in multiple media and who is described as a contemporary flaneur, the French term for someone wondering around his or her surroundings, noting them and simply observing them. Guerrier’s photos are snippets of Miami life, maybe a frame of a stormy sky, an urban street, a poster. With his collages, he also works with bits and pieces, some referencing historical events or cultural markers, particularly of the black experience.
In the middle of the room, Guerrier has created an installation specifically for this show, consisting of a wall and a huge lattice-work wooden fence. One side of the wall is covered in black-and-white wallpaper of native foliage – we can look at both the forest and the trees with this exhibit.
“Adler Guerrier: Formulating a Plot” runs through Jan. 25 at PAMM, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; www.pamm.org.
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