Miami News Blog

​Artist Jeanne-Claude, wife and creative partner of Cristo, passed away yesterday at the age of 74 from complications of a brain aneurism. The husband and wife were known for their large-scale projects that transformed landscapes.

Tom Healy

​There was no indication, early on, that Tom Healy would become a poet.

Growing up on a farm in upstate New York, in an environment he describes as "brutalizing in every aspect," Healy didn't get much intellectual encouragement. Mostly, he spent his time doing the hard work required on a small family farm, until one summer in high school, he got a chance to attend a program called Boys State. Run by the American Legion, Boys State functions much like a rural Model U.N., except the focus is more on national patriotism. (Bill Clinton went to the one in Arkansas). While there, Healy met a Yale graduate who told him he should apply to an Ivy League college because "they like hicks like us." Healy took the advice and applied early action to Harvard; it was actually the only college he applied to. His high school English teacher bet him twenty-five dollars he wouldn't get it in.

"And he still hasn't paid me," Healy says.

Once in Cambridge, however, Healy quickly realized how arrogant he'd been in his innocence and felt lucky to have been accepted. He majored in philosophy; took classes with noted poetry critic Helen Vendler; and ran a soup kitchen in Boston after graduating. He briefly attended a graduate program in philosophy at Johns Hopkins, but discovered in the process that he wasn't an academic at heart.

After a stint in San Francisco, Healy moved to New York City. In 1994, along with Matthew Marks and the late Pat Hearn, Healy opened one of the first art galleries in Chelsea, in an old taxi garage on W. 22nd Street.

​The work of Friends With You has already redefined "absurdly cute," and through collaborations with Kid Robot and Memobots the duo of Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III have gently expanded their burgeoning design empire into retail. Now, they're set to open their own flagship boutique in the heart of the Design District.

Their new brick and mortar outpost, to be located at 3930 NE 2nd Avenue Suite 202, is scheduled to open Tuesday, December 1, during Art Basel week with a host of brand new limited edition products, including clothes, toys, prints, and fine art. Sam and Tury themselves will be on hand for a signing at 6pm, and all attendees will receive a free Super Malfi with purchase of any other product.

Riptide is super excited to see FWY further stake their claim as an artsy force to be reckoned with in the Magic City, and can only hope one day they overtake the dark overlord Britto as Miami's signature artist. They've already installed the playground at Aventura Mall, but seriously how great would it be to see a giant Malfi outside of some shopping center instead of another Britto sculpture of a beach ball? How many of those do we really need? And maybe they could even re-design the uniforms at M.I.A. Natacha Seijas' maid would be lucky to wear some Friends With You.

Courtesy of The Beach Chronicles

​Miami gets animated in a new graphic-animated novel from creators Gianfranco Bianchi and Kevin Sharpley. The duo teamed up to create a sexy, gritty action-thriller set against the backdrop of South Beach.

Titled The Beach Chronicles, the series is the antithesis to the rampant depictions of Miami culture as being only about coke-laced, club-hopping yuppies with bad tans, and instead brings dark, edgy, fashion-forward allure to every smartly written plot. Each episode showcases upcoming local designers and artists, including everyone from KRELwear designer Karelle Levy to Mr. Clucky.

Jimmy Jean Louis, actor from NBC's Heroes, lends his voice to Jacques Jean Jille, a laid-back, fashion-forward Haitian scenester who is a reoccurring character on the show.

With all the bad news usually posted on Riptide, this is a nice change of pace. Above is a video local art/graphic design/animation duo Friends With You, consisting of Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III, made for Nick Jr., a cable channel popular with the pre-school set. But you don't have to be 4 to enjoy the whimsical nature of the promo. Titled "Move to the Music," the animation is used to introduce the channel block of the music video programming--sort of like MTV, but with far less Real World/Road Rules challenges and Speidi. Enjoy!

​Just days after unveiling the final design for its new location in Bicentennial Park, Miami Art Museum announced that director Terence Riley has resigned, effective immediately. 

Want to own art but have a hard time making decisions without some applied pressure? Want to financially support your local art community without breaking the bank? Well, Locust Projects' annual Smash & Grab fundraiser continues to be the best event for possible art owners who want to add to (or start) their collection for less than $500 but also appreciate a nice game of chance.

Courtesy of NeckFace/Norman Lendzion

​When we recently caught up with NeckFace, the elusive graffiti goblin was busy conspiring with the crew helping him create his nightmarish opus at O.H.W.O.W., on the corner of NW 32nd Street and Seventh Ave.

The 25-year-old West Coast street artist has been in town since August preparing for "Devil's Disciple," his premiere solo Miami show.

NeckFace, whose work has appeared in magazines and galleries since he was a teen, and is also emblazoned across skateboards, sneakers, and T-shirts from Los Angeles to New York, London, and Tokyo, has already created a local ruckus even though his creepy exhibit won't open until Halloween night.

His huge street murals and deftly executed drawings evoke all manner of references ranging from Big Daddy Ed Roth, the creator of the Rat Fink character, to a doodle-addled Hieronymus Bosch or a young Tim Burton and even the hellfire-and-brimstone images often found in the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages.

To generate buzz for his sprawling 10,000-square-foot exhibit, he created a dummy in the gallery window last month, rigging it to look like a bloody murder victim and covering its noggin with his own hair to make it appear real. The stunt immediately landed NeckFace's handiwork on the local news.

Rendering of Herzog & de Meuron's design for the Miami Art Museum

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via RW Chicago's Flickr / CC2.0

The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago

​The public got its first real glimpse of what the facade of the Miami Art Museum's new digs will look like yesterday. Nothing about the proposed building designed by the architecture firm of Herzog & de Meuron really screams anything uniquely Miami, but it sure does look like an art museum. In fact, it looks an awful lot like one art museum in-particular.

​If you're young and male and highly educated, you've inevitably viewed the sea as a potential testing ground, an antidote of sorts to the education you didn't receive. And most likely, you chickened out, or we'd have read about it, because nearly every piece of literature about an intellectual picking up an oar has been a tremendous success: Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast, Melville's Typee, Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World, Robert Stone's Outerbridge Reach, and so on and so forth.

Miami-born and -bred artist Justin H. Long's new solo show at Twenty Twenty Projects, "From Sea to Shining Sea," doesn't attack this theme head-on; rather, it fleshes out the imagination and simultaneously reclaims the sea for the romantics. Because, let's face it, living in Miami makes the sea either a political construct (Haitian and Cuban illegal immigration) or a banal symbol of bourgeois excess (flotillas of drunk lawyers). Is it an antiquated notion to sit on the beach and dream of sailing to foreign lands? If I have Facebook friends in Chile, does that preclude the desire to sail around Cape Horn? If I've seen it done on the Discovery Channel? If I own every season of Deadliest Catch?

Natalie O'Neill

Atomik

​Atomik, a hot-tempered graffiti bomber, shakes a can of yellow spray paint and nods toward a pair of toothless Haitian men. "These guys won't mind if I tag their dumpster," he says and then scribbles his moniker onto the rust-blasted box. In an alley near NW 71st Street, the onlookers fold their arms and watch.

The stocky Kendall-bred graphic designer -- whom Riptide agreed not to name because, well, we like outlaws -- has been arrested five times for tagging rooftops, trains, and buildings. He's been chased by police dogs and hunted by helicopters. But his most recent beef isn't with the cops.

Atomik is the Kanye West of the Miami graffiti world: crazy talented, but with a reputation for pissing on other artists. After six years at the top of the well-known graffiti crew MSG -- or Miami Style Gods -- he's leaving. The reason: He and the founder, Crome, had a blowout over how to handle a turf war.

Crook, the cofounder, says, "It's like... your parents splitting up."

via Diaspora Vibe Gallery

Aimee Lee

​Ah, autumn. There's no indication of it yet in the weather, but 'tis the season to be viewing new art. Here's what we'll be making a priority at the Second Saturday Art Walk in Wynwood and at Art + Design Night in the Design District.

"The Machine in the Ghost" by Paul Pfeiffer, 7-10 p.m.
World Class Boxing, 170 NW 23rd St.
Check out our write-up by Carlos Suarez de Jesus, but if it's at W.C.B., you know it's going to be good. Paul Pfeiffer's videos are essential viewing.

"Everyday Travails" by Adler Guerrier, 7-10 p.m.
David Castillo, 2234 NW 2nd Ave.
One of a select few hometown artists to be featured in the Whitney Bienniel, Guerrier never disappoints.

"Fieldwork" by Richard Höglund, 7-10 p.m.
Gallery Diet, 174 NW 23rd St.
Amazingly intricate large- and medium-scale drawings, some of which are based on mapping Spinoza's Ethics.

"Cutting Edge Framing", 6-9 p.m.
Cutting Edge Framing, 11 NE 39th St.
We're really looking forward to this D.I.Y. exhibition from some of our favorite locals. (See our post from Wednesday). Also, don't miss the afterparty at Terri and Donna's.

"Native Intelligence" by Aimee Lee
Diaspora Vibe, 3938 North Miami Ave.
The opening for this show was actually Thursday, but most people probably waited until Art + Design Night anyway. This show feature's large-scale installations that are impressive upon first viewing but also reward extended staring.

"New Work" by Jenny Brillhart; "Recorded Eyesight" by John Sanchez, and "Venting" by Richard Heden, 7-10 p.m.
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24th St
All three artists are worth checking out, but we're particularly excited by Brillhart, a recent transplant to the Miami scene.

The Dalai Lama's Shoes, 2005, Kirlian photograph, 40 x 40 inches.

​When "The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama" opens this Friday night at the Frost Art Museum, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate won't be in town for a swig of the complimentary Chablis.

"We tried to get him to come for the exhibit, but he wasn't able to," says Jessica Delgado, the museum's communications and marketing manager. "But we do have his shoes on display," she laughs.

Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury used a process called Kirlian photography to "capture the energy field" emanating from the spiritual leader's kicks on view at the Frost.

The upcoming exhibit was organized by the Committee of 100 for Tibet and the Dalai Lama Foundation to explore art as a medium for inspiring visitors to pursue peace in their individual lives and in their communities. More than 40 works by artists ranging from blue-chip talent such as Chuck Close, Laurie Anderson, Bill Viola, Jenny Holzer, Anish Kapoor, and Marina Abramovic to actor Richard Gere have been corralled for the show.

But Gere, a practicing Buddhist and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama, must be swallowing his tongue in the wake of the news coming from the White House today.

Tomas Loewy

Incense and peppermints and beach balls.

​

Romero Britto may be oblivious, but he's the artistic equivalent of H1N1: The man is Miami's own personal artsy-fartsy epidemic. Though it seems there are still some people in Miami-Dade in charge of public artwork who prefer the man's stuff (e.g., Midtown, off I-95 downtown, Bal Harbor, etc.), the vast quantities of Britto in this city are approaching virgin-comic-book-collector levels of fetishism and insanity. It's as if Miami is the mother's basement of some crazy, Jarritos-addled Britto geek.

The newest Britto sits at Fifth & Alton in South Beach in front of a multi-tiered shopping complex owned by developer Jefferey Berkowitz, self-proclaimed nepotistic Britto nut. And guess what? It's not fluorescent! Just kidding, of course it's fluorescent! Here are five reasons to egg the new Britto sculpture -- in a nondestructive fashion.

via

​Artlurker caused quite the brouhaha yesterday by publishing a fake interview about an artist who was constructing a "rape tunnel," in which he promised to rape anyone who made it through. 

Via Lani Beloso

​Think of Jackson Pollock standing above a blank canvas, holding a jar of paint. Then wave a wand and turn him into a giggly half-Filipino gal from Miami. Her name is Lani and she has big eyes and exceptionally pink cheeks. Can you picture her? She's pretty, right? OK, now for the trippy part: Substitute Pollock's paint for thick red blood -- Lani's own freaking menstrual blood.

It sounds like a scene from House of 1,000 Corpses, but it's what a lot of Lani Beloso's art looks like. Before you run for the barf bag, consider the Brickell-based painter's reason for the somewhat gnarly medium. Ever since puberty, Beloso has had a disorder called menorrhagia. The condition causes long and painful periods. (Imagine Andre the Giant scraping your innards out with a spoon.) Beloso bleeds four times as much as the average woman and is sick three days per month. "Through life, I haven't been able to talk about it," she says. "So this is disclosure: I'm turning my pain into art."

Sure, you could argue her work is a tad narcissistic. ("I want some empathy for what I go through!" she declares.) But also she deserves credit. This isn't some sailboat-on-the-wall collection that folks will soon forget. Her show -- appropriately titled "The Period Piece" -- opens October 10 at GAB Studio (105 NW 23rd St., Miami). It seeks to make something useful out of "a painful, useless burden."

​It should give you a sense of my early-morning brain-dead-ness that while reading through the "art" section of my Google Reader, I browsed through a post from locally focused art blog ArtLurker about a "rape tunnel," only to be disappointed to find it was not actually about Miami or a Miami artist without thinking, Wait. WTF, a rape tunnel?

Well, Gawker ran with the story today, before realizing it might not actually be a story at all.

The post purported to interview an artist named Richard Whitehurst, who was planning on pulling off an exhibition in Ohio with this mission statement:

I've constructed a 22 ft tunnel out of plywood that leads into the project room. There is no way in or out of the project room except for this tunnel. As you travel through the tunnel, it gets smaller and smaller, making it so that you have to crawl and put yourself in a submissive position in order to reach the tunnel's destination. At the end of the tunnel the subject will find me waiting in the project room and I'll try to the best of my ability to overpower and rape the person who crawls through.

Problem is, Google turns up nothing on Whitehurst; the author, Sheila Zareno; curator Caroline Miffen; any of the art galleries mentioned, including William Strunk Jr. Museum of Contemporary Art (Strunk is the co-author of The Elements of Style, by the way); Alexandria Asheton Gallery; Seward Projects Space; Akron Culture Committee; and the 4D Gallery in Columbus.

I guess it's possible the entire Ohio art scene, if such a thing actually exists, has somehow stayed off the Internet, but not likely. To make matters fishier, ArtLurker has gone completely offline (we'll paste the original piece after the jump, at least until ArtLurker comes back online).

Update: A visit to the site reveals the hosting account has been suspended.

The picture of the purported "rape tunnel" included in the post actually comes from this site, and is a wind tunnel. So yeah, verdict: Bullshit.

But wait, is it art?

For several weeks, I've been reading passionate plea emails to save the $11 million in funding for Miami-Dade cultural programming, all of them written by the heads of well-established, reputable organizations such as the Miami Art Museum, the Wolfsonian, and Vizcaya. Because the funding they receive from the county is crucial seed money -- used to secure all the other grants and donations they apply for -- the loss of county funding would be devastating for all 400 organizations, and deadly for most, so the tone of the emails is professional, pleading, and desperately sincere: "Please show up to the September 17 budget hearing and pledge your support in two minutes or less; be cordial; and don't complain about the raises Alvarez and Moss have handed out."

The stakes are too high, in other words, for the truth.

And the truth is that this entire charade the county is forcing arts organizations and their supporters (social service organizations too) to play along with is demeaning and a waste of everyone's time. Essentially, they're asking people such as GableStage's Joseph Adler, Miami Art Museum's Terry Riley; and Florida Grand Opera's Robert Heuer to take time away from their busy schedules to come and beg for the pittance of money required to run their organizations, while simultaneously amassing as many supporters as possible to give testimony. The implied equation: (two minutes of testimony) x (# of testimonies) = dollars received is pseudo-democratic at best, thuggish at worst.

Luciano Goizueta's la-olla de oropoel, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 75", 2009

​Despite the dismal economic climate and a gloomy weather forecast, last Saturday night's Wynwood gallery walk season kickoff opened with a roar, featuring expanded spaces, stellar shows, and even some brisk sales.

"I was worried that the torrential rains would put a damper on the evening," said Lyle O. Reitzel, the Santo Domingo-based dealer who opened his eponymous Wynwood annex a few years ago. "I was surprised to see such a huge turnout considering the weather. This was by far the best opening ever at our space."

During the summer, Reitzel rolled the dice and expanded his Miami gallery to twice its former size. He now has close to 3,000 square feet of exhibition space and inaugurated a pair of shows to celebrate the occasion.

One of the exhibits is a group show featuring names such as José Bedia, Luis Cruz Azaceta, José García Cordero, and Edouard Duval-Carrié.

Start massaging your art belly because this weekend's buffet of openings is going to stretch your ocular capacity. (Mixed metaphor disaster...Campbell McGrath, I have failed you!)

Tomorrow is the first Second Saturday of the fall season, as gallery owners and artists return from vacations, fellowships, etc., and the schedule is packed. In essence, September is Art Basel Miami for locals--most places are putting their best foot forward now...and their best commercial foot forward in December.

So without further ado or YouTube, on to our recommended stops!

Photo by C. Stiles

​Jose L. Carrera, 38-year-old artist, family man, and founder of OchoPlacas Tattoos, died of natural causes this past Sunday morning. Carrera was an immensely talented artist who began his career in the street and first cut his teeth on body art while incarcerated, eventually opening the thriving tattoo shop on Eighth Street.

According to employee Leo Valencia: "Everything Jose did was for his kids and his parents. And hopefully his legacy and efforts will continue."

New Times profiled Carrera this past July in the story "Tattoo U."

There will be a service for him at 5 p.m. today, Tuesday, September 8, at Bernardo Garcia Funeral Home (8215 Bird Rd., Miami).

via GenArt.org

According to a Gawker tipster, the winner of this year's Gen Art Film Festival hasn't been paid yet.

​If anyone has been obviously hurt by the recession, it's been Gen Art. When things got tough, sponsors became scarce, and as a nonprofit, Gen Art depends on them. This is perhaps why we've seen its diminished presence in Miami. Its local office was closed earlier this year, with business now being run out of its New York office. In fact, at June's Shop Miami, it was painfully obvious the organization was suffering.

But according to a Gawker tipster, the recession isn't the only reason the organization is in trouble; plenty of mismanagement from its executives is also to blame. The tipster calls the organization a "tax fraud," and despite the nonprofit's mission of supporting emerging artists, some winners haven't yet to be paid.

But the biggest accusation is reserved for co-founder Stefan Gerard. The tipster tells Gawker: "Gen Art ran out of money long before the economic crisis. The return of Stefan Gerard, brother of CEO Ian and cofounder, plunged the company into mismanagement in 2007 and vendors stopped being paid in early 2008."

photo courtesy miamiguitartown.com

guitar painted by artist Jeannette Pomeroy Parssi and autographed by the Allman Brothers Band

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While the man is doing all that he can to thwart the arts in Miami (we kid, man, don't hurt us), Gibson Guitar is injecting a bit of it into every corner of the city. Remember when the flamingos took to the streets of Miami in colorful defiance? Gibson is giving that idea a Rock and Roll spin with Guitar Town; 70 guitar sculptures and showcase guitars that have been embellished by local artists are exhibited at parks, buildings, and other locations throughout the city. Some are 10-feet tall, some are the more traditional-sized Epiphone guitars, but all make a statement whether it's "I'm cute" like the candy-pink confection signed by Katy Perry or "I'm bad ass" like the one that bears a technicolor Miami skyline and the Allman Brothers' John Hancock. " The Miami GuitarTown project is one of the most vibrant and colorful art project I have seen," said Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar. "We are thrilled to join the many visual and musical artists who participated in this  project  and look forward to raising substantial funds for the  local charities while attracting worldwide attention to a city that is known for its creative and colorful personality."

This public arts project is doing more thna make our streets rock a little harder. On  September 26, 2009 the guitars will be auctioned off with proceeds benefiting the GIbson Foundation, which administers Miami GuitarTown and has completed this project in Nashville, Austin, Orlando and London. If you want a guitar covered with toy soldiers making up a dope camouflage print, prepare to get your auction on. Check out details and a map of guitar locations at miamiguitartown.com.  

Wikicommons

"Puppy" by Jeff Koons, Bilbao

Miami Art Museum is two-for-two in 2009 lectures.

On March 15, the museum delivered artist Richard Tuttle, and next Sunday, August 2nd at 3 p.m., it'll host Thomas Crow.

In March, we reported on the release of Miami Graffiti, a photography book by New York husband-and-wife duo James and Karla Murray that captures the unique culture and handiwork of some of our finest street artists. Tommorow, the work of those same graff artists- and the photographers- will be honored in a fancy-schmancy opening at a Los Angeles Art gallery. It kind of tickles us to think of affluent art-collector types washing cubed cheese down with pinot grigio as they study photos of the "vandalism" our politicians have vowed to eradicate. Check out the promotional video above, which interestingly eschews much footage of murals and instead shows some cool shots of real Miami.

Wikicommons

Christ, after reading too much Eric Hobsbwam

I never liked the Biblical story of Jesus overturning the moneychangers tables. Why punish small business owners for setting up shop where they know there'll be optimal foot traffic?

A bunch of Miami businesses you know and love are taking a similar approach this Saturday for the (hopefully) inaugural Art & Design Market and Lounge of Wynwood.

Piggy-backing on the popularity of the Second Saturday Wynwood art walk, the market is opening up shop inside the Wynwood Social Club at the corner of NW 2nd Ave and 25th Street (right across from Joey's) beginning at 1p.m. The participating vendors are: Cloak Inc, KREL Wear, Sweat Records, imoderni, Designed by Diana, Gi and Pindo, Green Veranda, Bella Skin Inc, Mod Rob for Urban Garden, Gabriel & Anat Vanessa Ichak Design Studio, the Tricia Fix Collection, Art from Gianfranco & Guliano Cavallo and Oyla Melinkova, and Be Feathers and Art Simona.

Entrance is free until 5 p.m., when the market begins to incorporate the lounge element, which means live music from Fabian Hernandez and Fenevia and DJ Ben Shaul, plus a complimentary bar sponsored by Grolsch and Hptoniq.

Need another reason? A portion of the proceeds will go to Fonkoze, a microfinance organization in Haiti.

So what's it going to be, Jesus? Your compassion or your filthy Marxist principles?

via Toothpaste for Dinner

For all its recent advancements in the field of art, the key piece that Miami is missing is a top tier art school. Local developer Craig Robins, founder of Design Miami/ and a key figure in bringing Art Basel to Miami Beach, is looking to change all of that with his controversial and potentially revolutionary free art grad school. 

Unlike at Columbia and Yale, there won't be any formal M.F.A. degrees awarded to those who complete the two-year program, which will revolve around a topical theme that changes with each entering biannual class. Accordingly, don't expect to see the "resident artists" hunker down in front of easels and live models. "Most art is conceptually based now. It's art based on an idea," says [Yale instructor Steven Henry] Madoff. "It didn't turn out that the twentieth century's most influential artist was Picasso. It turned out it was Duchamp ... We don't need to do foundation courses, how to draw, how to sculpt ... You don't need three credits for American Art History From 1945 to the Present."

Though, some had problems with its focus on conception over technique, while the staff at UM's existing MFA program wondered why Robins wouldn't just support the existing program. Believe me it needs it. I took a few photo classes while at UM, and the classrooms were practically sheds -- especially compared to the lush leather chair filled, board room-like classrooms of the business school.

Seems that during his time in Miami Shaq didn't get out much to Wynwood, as he seems to think Peter Max is the best artist since Picasso. I'm sure fans of Rauschenberg, Warhol, Pollock, de Kooning and just about every major artist to emerge since Picasso unveiled Guernica would have something to say about that. 

via Art.com

Sarah Jessica Parker's production company and the production team behind hits such as Project Runway and Top Chef have been talking about a similar series set in the art world, and this month they're finally casting.

P. Scott Cunningham

Where's the rum, Miami?

Last night, Miami International Aiport in cooperation with American Airlines and Miami-Dade County (and thanks to the efforts of the Odebrecht Corporation), unveiled two 50-foot long murals by acclaimed Brazilian artist Carybé.

Despite the ceremony feeling like a scene out of The Wire (too many speeches and too many of them in the "Clay Davis"-style), and the fact that all the beverages were non-alcoholic (didn't they know the press was coming?), the moment retained its aura of importance. And how it could it not? How many times do great works of art get rescued from New York City, restored and re-hung in Miami? Not often.

For the whole story of how the murals were rescued just 30 days from their scheduled demolition, see our Night & Day write up or watch the video at the site dedicated to the project.

Please also see our slideshow for beautiful images courtesy of Odebrecht and MIA's Division of Fine Art and Cultural Affairs.