‘The Leisure Pit:’ concrete, rubber sandals, glass pool tile. Pools have always been integral to the image of Miami. Of the warm-weather city of sun and fun, of the ostentatious show of wealth that pools often convey. They are also high maintenance, requiring tons of water to be replenished constantly, and chemicals to keep them clean. We are floating here in Miami, in liquid luxury and borderline sustainability. Nicolas Lobo’s new site-specific installation at PAMM, a commissioned work with Knight Foundation backing, gets to the heart succinctly in its title: “The Leisure Pit.” We like leisure, pits not so much. It’s an amalgam addressing leisure life, drainage systems, the fragile interaction between man and our creaking, sometimes toxic, infrastructure. But the pool is the central reference point – and not only pool culture. The sculptures here were literally made in a friend’s pool. Lobo’s use of non-traditional methods and materials in his creations is what attracted PAMM curator René Morales, resulting in the latest commissioned show for The Project Galleries, a series featuring local artists that the museum has been highlighting since its move to the new building on the bay. But before you learn the intriguing process that Lobo employed in making his “Pit,” take in the initial impression, which is as contradictory as the title suggests it will be. Sculptures in ‘The Leisure Pit.’ Courtesy of the artist. Walk into the room, and you are engulfed in concrete. The soaring off-white walls and floors are concrete, as are the stacked, circular pieces that make up the two sculptures. That’s a pretty hard, or harsh, combination. For a moment you can feel like you are standing at the bottom of a drained pool, surrounded maybe by the detritus that fell in or was dumped. But the ring-shaped pieces are softened by coloring – salmon, slate gray – and on closer inspection, small sparkling tiles embedded in the concrete jump out.

As the artist walks around the sculptures, he points out other lighter elements. There is a flip-flop inside one with a brightly colored design. “That’s a Kenny Scharf flip flop,” says Lobo with a laugh. He explains that the sculptures themselves, while minimal and abstract, can take on a more figurative form. Indeed, they could be two loungers by the poolside. However, the materials, references and art-making process are an integral aspect to fully comprehending this ever-so-Miami installation.

The rings, Lobo says, are based on storm drains underneath the roads that keep our swamp from flooding too much. And perhaps drain our pools as well. When he was first approached by curator Morales to make this work, “I didn’t know what exactly I would do,” he says. The idea of pools, drains and the engineering involved had been percolating, and he started studying brochures and technical guides. But, he says, he wanted to literally involve a pool, not just picture it. He decided to make his circular molds while submerged in the water of a friend’s pool.

Pock-marked surface of the ring pieces, with pool tiles and flip-flop. Chlorine – essential to keeping these leisure ponds clean – turns out to be tough stuff. When mixed with powdered concrete and the weight of water, it makes for some seriously solid forms. Lobo, however, didn’t know exactly how the interaction would turn out. He made “a mother mold” and took it to the pool; while each piece is the same size and 60 pounds each, they have unique pock-mocks from the process, and in certain cases Lobo manipulated them more. A couple of squiggly markings were “made from French fries, and jumbo shrimp” (the fodder for poolside dining?). He put them in the settling concrete, and the chlorine dissolved the actual food. While swimming around making the pieces, he also “chipped off tiles from the pool sides. It became like a quarry.” Those were the tiles he would also add to the rings. Like Kenny Scharf flip-flops, poolside culture also includes kitsch. Aside from the ubiquitous tiki huts, private homes and hotels adorn the decks with classical-style sculptures, Egyptian and Greek being favorites. Lobo addresses this theme as well, but it is harder to find. Look way up to the top of the room – maybe you are floating on your back in this pool – and the walls are decorated with a single line of a Greek design now most associated with Versace products. The luxury brand is also closely tied to Miami, as Versace was murdered outside his Ocean Drive mansion. You could easily miss this subtle addition, but it seems like a crowning touch. Lobo explains that he sketched the design along the four walls, and then put hydro-chloride on it, so that the caustic acid literally carved the images into the walls. It is not painted, and so is faint, but it makes a powerful statement.

The man-hole size drainage rings were made from a mold in the pool. Courtesy of the artist. Versace imagery actually introduces the show. Outside of the gallery at the entrance sits the Mother Mold that was the base for all the other rings. Look at the backside, and there is sculpted the Medusa face of the famous Versace logo. But it also looks like “a giant pill,” says Lobo. That Medusa visage has been stamped on the popular ecstasy, or Molly, pills. According to Lobo, that’s another Miami “leisure” association. The industrial versus luxury thread is expressed in other ways. Picturing Lobo making his sculptures at the bottom of the pool brings to mind all the workers who make this glamorous city possible. Lobo, a native of Los Angeles, says he’s not trying to make blanket political or ecological statements with his work, but he does think exploring those contradictions of labor and leisure in our resort-like cities is important. And it could be summed up in the pool. To make those clear-blue oases, we use water, which may one day sink us; heavy-duty chemicals; and lots of cheap labor. According to Morales in his introduction, “Lobo’s tactics involve making peace with precarity, so that we may begin to recalibrate our relationships with the cities we live in, one site at a time.”   ‘The Leisure Pit’ from Nicolas Lobo, runs through Dec.13 at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; www.pamm.org.