Last Week (or so) of Show at LegalArt in Miami
Reminder: last week to see my piece in the show, “Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds” at LegalArt (1035 N Miami Ave., Miami, FL). The show closes on January 31. My piece, Markings, Mappings, and Other Thoughts from Mapping Miami, is currently on view on the 2nd floor.
Installation View of Markings, Mappings, and Other Thoughts, from Mapping Miami, site specific installation, dimensions variable, paper, ink, graphite, pins, and ribbon, 2011.
About the work:
Markings, Mappings, and Other Thoughts is a visualization of the information and research process involved with Mapping Miami. Mapping Miami is a public art and archive project about Miami’s artistic past, focusing on the 1920s – 1950s. The project “maps” Miami through geographic sites where artists lived and worked. This installation includes print outs of photographs and other documents such as notes from books and articles, information about the artists, and transcription of archival sources. It charts the evolution of Mapping Miamisince it began in 2008, and weaves a map of Miami’s cultural arts history. Also shown with the installation are Mapping Miami cards, each depicting a different artist, a place where they lived or worked, and information about them and that place. So far there are cards for Katherine Dunham, Desi Arnaz, and Zora Neale Hurston. There are a limited number of these cards that will be available for gallery visitors to take with them. There is an email list sign up so that those interested can keep up with the project as it continues to grow.
About the exhibition:
In the spirit of the Fluxus tradition, Omar Lopez-Chahoud has invited local and international artists, collaboratives, situationists, and curators to present projects in the form of publications, events, discussions, performances, situations, and other actions. These groups and individuals will activate the space in a way similar to the Happenings of the Fluxus Movement, inspired by an anti-art and anti-consumer enthusiasm.
Participants in this exhibition include: Augurari Editions, Rodolfo Andaur, Hackworth Ashley, Spring Break, Monserrat Rojas Corradi, Cat Dove, Viking Funeral, Andrea Galvani, Jay Hines, Scott Hug, Karlo Ibarra, Carlos Irijalba, Brookhart Jonquil, Jason Keeling, Kristin Korolowicz, Liz Magic Laser, Nicolas Lobo, Gean Moreno, Richard Mosse, Ernesto Oroza, Gaston Persico, Manny Prieres, Print and Paste Collective (FAU), Megan Riley, Tom Scicluna, Joaquin Segura, SOMA, Natika Soward, Lara Stein Pardo, Suzanne Stroebe, Third Streaming/Yona Baker, Cecilia Szalkowicz, TM Sisters, Pinar Yolacan and others.
“Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds” revisits the liberated attitude towards the creative process that defines the Fluxus movement. This project coincides with significant exhibitions happening at MOMA, NY; the Grey Art Gallery; NYU and at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, in collaboration with Performa 2011. This leads us to reflect on the similar attitudes between Fluxus actionists and a younger generation of artists as well as the socio-economic context in which these responses arise.
The title of this exhibition makes reference to a piece by composer John Cage, a notable influence on the Fluxus work of Lithuanian-born artist George Maciunas. Maciunas (1931–1978) organized the first Fluxus event in 1961 at the AG Gallery in New York City and the first Fluxus festivals in Europe. The Fluxus art movement in the 1960’s and 1970′s was characterized by a strongly Dadaist attitude, promoting artistic experimentation mixed with social and political activism. Often celebrated anarchistic change, Fluxus members avoided any limiting art theories and spurned pure aesthetic objectives. Their activities resulted in events or situations often called Aktions (works challenging the definition of art) and included performances, guerilla or street theater and concerts of electronic music, many of them similar to what in America were known as Happenings.
I want to extend my thanks to Blackbird Arts and Research, Arts of Citizenship at the University of Michigan, Deering Estate at Cutler, HistoryMiami, University of Miami’s Special Collections, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among many others, for their support of Mapping Miami.