Photo by Justin Namon/f90photography.com

​View photos from Artopia 2012 at Villa 221 here.

The Big Mango got shellacked with a savory dose of the surreal and no, we're not talking about the Dali exhibit in the Design District that's left some eyebrows raised.

Instead it was the Miami New Times' 4th Annual Artopia bash that had tongues wagging and drew a crowd of hundreds enjoying live music, quirky performances, avant fashion and the announcement of our three MasterMind Award winners at eve's end.

This year we had the most submissions ever --nearly 150-- vying for the three $1000 grants.

The MasterMind Awards recognize creative mavericks who contribute to elevating the local scene with their work and this year's finalists included visual artists working in diverse fields, filmmakers, furniture designers, record label bosses and others who have left heavy footprints on Miami's booming cultural life.

Check out our 2012 MasterMinds and how they plan to spend their modest "genius" grants.
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Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. As we approach Artopia, our annual arts soiree where we'll announce the three Mastermind winners March 8, we're profiling each of our nine 2012 finalists. For tickets and more information about Artopia, visit the website.

​​Jillian Mayer

One could easily claim that no other visual artist is representing the Big Mango with as much attention-commanding presence as Mayer has during the past year and a half. Her collaborative video Scenic Jogging was one of 25 chosen from 23,000 submissions from 91 countries for the Guggenheim's YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video in October of 2010.

Mayer, who is a native of our city, has her finger firmly on its pulse and wouldn't trade these climes for a bigger stage.
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Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. As we approach Artopia, our annual arts soiree where we'll announce the three Mastermind winners March 8, we're profiling each of our nine 2012 finalists. For tickets and more information about Artopia, visit the website.

​The End/Spring Break

For some trying to crack the code behind this quirky art project it can seem tantamount to unraveling a riddle wrapped inside an enigma. For one, observers are often left wonderstruck that the intrepid group of cultural instigators has been able to organize and host over 100 art happenings, film screenings, art talks and poetry readings since its inception less than two years ago and all without a space to call home.
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Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. As we approach Artopia, our annual arts soiree where we'll announce the three Mastermind winners March 8, we're profiling each of our nine 2012 finalists. For tickets and more information about Artopia, visit the website.

Courtesy of Chris Donaldson

Drugged Conscience Records label boss.

​Drugged Conscience Records

When metal band Thou decided to release Kingdoms back in 2009, they chose Chris Donaldson to execute the packaging for their three-cassette boxed set. "They are from Baton Rouge and I knew them from playing with them on tours," says Chris Donaldson who started the Drugged Conscience label back in 2006. "But that was the first time I worked with them on a release," he adds.

The result of his collaboration with Thou was one of the striking opuses that make bands, collectors and even the casual music lover fans of Donaldson and his indie label.
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The mention of his name sparks confusion in everyone who's unfamiliar with Miami's favorite fringe artist. Ahol, a.k.a. Alouishous San Gomma, is probably best known as the Hialeah born-and-bred street genius guy whose ubiquitous graffiti slathers those bulbous-yet-droopy cartoon eyeballs everywhere from the one-time home of Bar in Wynwood, to the side of a wall facing I-95 near I-195. More >>

It's no coincidence that Artopia, our annual art rager, has never been hosted by the same venue twice. This year, we need your help to alienate the neighbors and keep that honorable tradition alive for the fourth year running. So pull on your hot pink Lederhosen, swipe on your metallic face paint, and lace up your drinking shoes for Miami's hottest art soiree.

This year your Artopia ticket buys you a night of art, music, film, fashion, food, and of course booze.

Here's a quick insider guide on how to navigate the event.

You can thank us Friday afternoon (because Friday morning would be asking for too much).
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Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. As we approach Artopia, our annual arts soiree where we'll announce the three Mastermind winners March 8, we're profiling each of our nine 2012 finalists. For tickets and more information about Artopia, visit the website.



TM Sisters

Synchronized swimmers flail in unison, splashing to digitized, dripping Scandinavian fjord music. Meanwhile, aggressive, hot-blooded spandex-clad speed skaters circle an audience huddled at the center of the installation, one stepping out of the crowd to show off a few trick moves against a wall pulsating with neon shards of light. The swimmers come back with more emphatic aqueous gestures, not to be one-upped by their loose-limbed rolling counterparts. It's a show-off face-off, and there is a story behind it, as artistic duo The TM Sisters explained.
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Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. As we approach Artopia, our annual arts soiree where we'll announce the three Mastermind winners March 8, we're profiling each of our nine 2012 finalists. For tickets and more information about Artopia, visit the website.



Antonia Wright

There's something about neatly yet precariously assembled objects that gives people the naughty urge to demolish them. Maybe it stems from childhood, when elaborate sand castles, Lego cities, and card towers were as much fun to destroy as they were to build. We suspect that's where native Miami artist Antonia Wright's original instinct came from when she began staging her performance art piece "Job Creation in a Bad Economy." In it, the artist and collaborator Ruben Millares carefully stack hundreds of books, which they then proceed to aggressively plow through, sending volumes of painstakingly organized words flying through the air with the pure brute force of their flying bodies.
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Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. As we approach Artopia, our annual arts soiree where we'll announce the three Mastermind winners March 8, we're profiling each of our nine 2012 finalists. For tickets and more information about Artopia, visit the website.



Audio Junkie
Hailing originally from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, brothers Eduardo and Gregorio Alvarez are the co-creators of Audio Junkie, an ongoing video journal that examines the ancient human obsession with sound. The pathway for this exploration is documentation of and interviews with local musicians. The bros are also bandmates; their musical moniker is The Jellyfish Brothers.
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