Alette Simmons-Jimenez of Artformz checks in with a Sleepless Night preview, artist interview and more…

This weekend on Saturday Nov. 7th, Artformz will make an appearance at Sleepless Nights on Miami Beach. Three artist’s giant inflatable sculptures from the 2008 Knight Arts Challenge winning project “Giants in the City” will be on view at the North Shore Park Youth Center beginning at 6pm.  Jon Martini’s “Bird’s Head,” Alette Simmons-Jimenez’s “Balanced Blower” and Anja Marais “Mid Evil” will be exhibited.  We’ll be there along with performances by Pablo Cano’s Marionettes , Musical Miracles “In the Heights”, and the Spanish Wrangler.  We’re happy to be out with the big guys again.  Especially since this year the Giants take a break, but hope to make an appearance back on the scene next year as the Giants Project puts together an all new cast.

Next weekend we will be opening “Money Makes Art” our winter group show that will be up till January 5th.  We’ll have a special “Guest Star” Opening Night with Elisa Turner conducting live interviews with participating artist’s all talk is about MONEY.  And get ready – Artformz will be at Aqua Art Fair in Wynwood for the Art Fair Week.  More on both next time.

Currently at Artformz our show “Carnivale of Souls” is coming to an end this month.   For “Carnivale” artists Rai Escale and Gisela Savdie worked together to show a great body of new work each responding to the other’s style.  We had a chance to chat while installing their show.  Rai had arrived from Barcelona and I caught up with Gisela between travels.   We sat down at the gallery and I asked each 3 questions.  The questions and answers follow:

AS-J: You just returned to Miami – tell me a little about where you where, and about one exciting thing you’ve been working on recently.

Gisela: I was recently in the Shanghai Art Fair where I had the opportunity to show some of my recent work through a gallery from Argentina.  I was extremely surprised with the dimension of the art scene in China. The fair had galleries from all over the world, and just the Latin American Pavilion was a whole entity by itself.  The photographs I showed there were part of the same series I am showing here in Miami, “The Carnival”, which started as a journalistic kind of work captured during the festivities in Barranquilla, Colombia, and evolved towards a more artistic one. I was very surprised that this subject resonated so deeply among the Chinese people. I even had one of my photographs figuring in the Shanghai local press.

Rai: I’ve been all summer back home in Barcelona, after spending spring here in Miami.  For the first time in years I’ve been working on some clay heads, really big ones, and really spending a happy (and obsessed) time with them. I left last week leaving them nearly finished and about to make molds.

AS-J: Can you explain in one sentence what your group of work in “Carnivale of Souls” expresses?

Rai: The series I’m presenting in this Artformz show go round the main theme of my work, which is been for long time the exploration of the boundaries of portraiture, and the use of unusual approximations and reconstructions to human soul representation.

Gisela: It shows the real and the surreal, the genuine and the farce, the true face and the mask, the fantasy and reality that lies in each human being.

AS-J: How would you compare the Miami art scene to the ones you’ve visited or are involved in – Colombia, Barcelona, or Shanghai?

Gisela: Even though there are differences among countries, there are also a lot of similarities. In Latin American countries for example, we perceive a lot of political satire and some kind of naivety within some of the art works. In China, the recent political openness gives the impression that the art world is bubbling, every one wants to say something. But in general I could say that you breathe the same atmosphere in any art fair, especially the people, the looks, and the art work itself. Maybe we are all inspired by the same masters of art, maybe because of globalization.  The Shanghai art fair could easily compare to Art Basel in Miami.  I think Miami is becoming one of the centers of art in the world since Art Basel started.  Look at the changes in the Miami Design District, and the new Wynwood district.  A few years ago there was nothing like that.

Rai: What I like about the Miami art scene is what it makes it so different from the European, which for me it’s fresh and risky, opposite of the traditional and more static approaches that you can find in Barcelona, where established galleries leave small space to surprise.

AS-J: I like that – great keywords for Artformz and Miami “SURPRISE”

For more information about Artformz click here.