Mickey, Ariapita Avenue, 2011

I am thrilled to announce that several photographs from Mobile Portrait Studio have been published in Nueva Luz, En Foco’s photographic journal. This issue was edited by Carla Willams, and also includes works by Rachelle Mozman and Oscar Palacios. Also, I now have a photographer’s page on En Foco’s site.

The essay by Williams, “Photography’s Pluralism” discusses our works as “a compelling range of contemporary visual strategies, all of which possess an immediacy within contemporary discussions about the image” (28). About my work specifically, she writes that “It is the interaction in the moment, the willingness of strangers to stop and engage in the photographic act with the photographer -that makes this project so meaningful and necessary” (28-29). Williams also shows a connection between Mobile Portrait Studio and Lorraine O’Grady’s September 1983 performance Art Is… at Harlem’s African-American Day Parade. She writes, “Although not widely known, O’Grady’s recently resurfaced project can be likened to Pardo’s in their mutual disavowal of the consciousness of the art world; in each, the artists are primarily seeking an engagement with art in a public space from a non-art audience.” (29).

I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who participated in Mobile Portrait Studio. This series was realized through a collaboration with artist Rodell Warner and facilitated by the efforts of Christopher Cozier, Nicholas Laughlin, and Sean Leonard of Alice Yard and the hospitality of Patricia van Leeuwaarde Moonsammy.

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.

From the Press Release: ARC Magazine, in collaboration with the African and African Caribbean Design Diaspora, presents a collection of contemporary works by 20 established and emerging visual artists and photographers from 13 countries, including Suriname, Curacao, Trinidad, Grenada, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Barbados, St. Kitts, Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana, The Dominican Republic, The Bahamas and Cuba. This collection investigates the awakening of the artists’ experience in order to unite, and at times criticize, stereotypical representations of ‘Caribbeanness’. Download the Press Release to continue reading.

* Special thanks to all of the willing participants in Mobile Portrait Studio, the collaborative efforts of the folks involved with Alice Yard, and especially Rodell Warner for collaborating on this part of the project with me.

A few months ago, Meredith Porte and her crew from ArtStreet visited the Deering Estate. They interviewed the artists in residence, watched us work and teach classes, and shot video of the estate. Luckily I made the editor’s cut and I am featured in this month’s episode. Please disregard when they mispronounce and misspell my name. You already know me, my name is Lara, not Laura. Spread the word accordingly. In the clip I focus mainly on my work with maps and mapping including Mapping Miami and the drawings I’ve been working on lately. The rest of this month’s episode features Bakehouse artists, Music and Art Therapy, and the Miami Circle. Watch it this week and next.

Airing Schedule (for Miami’s local WLRN, channel 17)*:

Saturday, July 16th at 9:30 pm
Thursday, July 21st at 10:30 pm
Saturday, July 23rd at 10:30 pm

*If you’re not in Miami and can’t see it on TV, I’ll keep you posted and let you know if I’m able to locate or create a copy online.

I’d like to invite you to my virtual studio tour. Since September 2010, I have had a studio at the Deering Estate at Cutler Bay as part of their Artist in Residence Program. The estate was once the private estate of Charles Deering, and is now a Miami Dade County Park. Deering was a supporter of the arts, so the estate continues that legacy by hosting artists in residence as well as classes for children and adults. Since I have been working out of this studio I have continued working on Mapping Miami, begun Mobile Portrait Studio, and worked with different processes including drawing, silkscreen printing, photography, and collage as I develop new works. One of the best parts of having my studio at the Deering Estate is the location and the surroundings. It’s situated on the Biscayne Bay with acres of land filled with mangroves, swamps, birds, and other animals. There’s a sign that warns of crocodiles, but luckily I haven’t encountered any. I have, however, seen a family of manatees that are frequent visitors of the keyhole boat basin.

About the works in progress:
Working with historic and contemporary maps, I’ve created imaginative mappings of space and land in the Miami and South Florida area.  The ideas involved in these maps relate to my work with Mapping Miami, but from a more fictional point of view. In Mapping Miami, I work very hard to confirm the facts, but in these maps, it is more about how we look at, experience, and interpret space and place. I was filmed for WLRN Art Street while working on these pieces.

Some other recent studies and sketches are drawn from old family slides I inherited from my grandfather after his passing. I’m working with these simplified images to produce mixed media works. As with the mapping works in progress, I’m interested in imaginative and fictional stories.

I’ve also produced a few studies using silkscreen for text-based pieces that are in development.

Hope you enjoy this virtual tour of my studio!

The working title of my dissertation is “Artists, Aesthetics, and Migrations: Caribbean Women Artists in Miami and the Aesthetics and Politics of Cultural Production.” As many of you know I have spent the past few years doing preliminary and in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in Miami. I have interviewed and spent time with artists and many other people involved in the arts, and I have attended and participated in countless art events and activities in Miami as well as in the Caribbean. For the next year I will be working on bringing that all together in my dissertation.

This is a fieldwork photo from Fall for the Arts at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami this past September.

Thanks for your support! I look forward to sending you updates from DC.

Here are the details:

Miami is a city in constant flux, whose landscape is redefined every few years. In the context of Archetype Vizcaya, this roundtable invites several artists to present and discuss with the public their current projects on Miami and its shifting geographies. Participants include Kevin Arrow, Naomi Fisher, Adler Guerrier, Nicolas Lobo, Gean Moreno, Ernesto Oroza, Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez, Lara Stein Pardo and Cesar Trasobares. Moderator: Flamina Gennari-Santori, Vizcaya’s Deputy Director for Collection and Curatorial Affairs

Tickets $5; free for Members, Seniors and Students with ID.

Archetype Vizcaya explores what happens when things are taken from their original context and given new purpose and meaning. Ernesto Oroza has created a “map” that invites visitors to discover things generally unseen. Through a provisional gallery on plexiglass, he challenges us to question what is original or authentic. And, in a compilation of amateur videos from the Web, Oroza shows how Vizcaya is “used” or appropriated by its visitors.

Archetype Vizcaya is on view through May 29, 2011.

For more information, please call 305-860-8423 or 305-250-9133.