Photo: Pedro Pan exhibit, with a wall video testimonial in the foreground. Of the many traumatic stories that have surrounded the history of Cuban exile since 1959, none resonates as much as Operation Pedro Pan. That’s because it involved thousands of children sent from Cuba, unaccompanied, to the United States–many of them understanding they might […]
Article · August 5, 2015 by Anne Tschida
Lynne Golob Gelfman’s large-scale canvases mesh with the space. When Dimensions Variable, an artist-run alternative gallery and 2011 Knight Arts Challenge winner, first opened up in September of 2009, it lived up to its promise of being an offbeat, off-kilter space. Set in a former storefront in the Design District, the gallery was really just […]
Article · July 24, 2015 by Anne Tschida
Image from outer space, slide at O.M.M. Climbing up the back stairs of a building in the Design District on North Miami Avenue, you pass by a door with flags signifying some kind of Buddhist center on your way to the newly opened offices and work space of Obsolete Media Miami, which is shortened as […]
Article · July 15, 2015 by Anne Tschida
Painting/collage from the “Going Home” series, Marina Gonella. Sometimes, it’s strangers in a foreign land that can see their surroundings in the most unfiltered manner, who can have a literal point of view that is not formed by a native history. The evocative paintings of Marina Gonella, raised in Argentina, have that essence. An alum […]
Article · July 7, 2015 by Anne Tschida
Installation by Michael Vasquez, “Neighborhood Reclamation.” Two terrific exhibits at Miami Dade College’s Museum of Art + Design (MOAD) in the Freedom Tower guide us through various stages of building and decay, from room to sprawling room. While Florencio Gelabert and Michael Vasquez work in very different media – Gelabert is a sculptor and Vasquez […]
Article · June 22, 2015 by Anne Tschida
Above: A view of the Guccivuitton installation. Photo Studio LH00Q, courtesy of ICA, Miami Everything about the Guccivuitton exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami is disorienting, both physically and conceptually. That’s intentional, coming from the artist collaborative that runs an alternative space in Little Haiti, and whose name, Guccivuitton, is a take on the […]
Article · June 1, 2015 by Anne Tschida
Rodriguez-Casanova: “A Corner Structure Assemblage,” 2014 When events collide, the stars align, we call that happy coincidence, “serendipity.” That’s what happened with a newly-formed Miami-Havana exchange program called Dialogues in Cuban Art, says the organizer and curator Elizabeth Cerejido. The project won a $60,000 Knight Arts Challenge grant in 2014, which was quickly matched by […]
Article · May 22, 2015 by Anne Tschida
The historic Downtown building that houses MCAD, AIA Miami and the Downtown Miami Welcome Center. Even before entering the Miami Center for Architecture & Design (MCAD) in Downtown, you know you are in for something special. The 1912 building sits in the heart of what remains of the historic center of Miami, still populated by […]
Article · May 18, 2015 by Anne Tschida
Rona Yefman’s “The Reading Room” video. Visual poetry is one of the newest genres in the art world. Combining text or voice with the moving image is on the frontier, just where Rhonda Mitrani wants her space, The Screening Room, to be. That’s why the first project after receiving a Knight Arts Challenge grant to […]
Article · May 11, 2015 by Anne Tschida
The facade of the iconic original home of the ArtCenter. At the ArtCenter/South Florida, it’s time to say goodbye. Not to the organization or the art, but to the flagship space at 800-810 Lincoln Road on Miami Beach. Opened back in the 1980s, it’s one of the first and oldest art institutions in South Florida. […]
Article · May 1, 2015 by Anne Tschida
‘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 […]
Article · April 24, 2015 by Anne Tschida