Swampspace Gallery
Season Premier 2012
Southernmost Situations
presents
Free Key West
opens Saturday January 14
6-12 pm
3821 NE 1 Court
Miami Design District
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Junkuary Jam
MacroMicro
It is no small wonder that an unassuming item or person can have tremendous value . Such is the case with this pocket sized symbol of Charlotte Bornte's ruminating genius, creator of the diminutive feminist heavyweight Jane Eyre.
Dr. Frankenstar Power
Likewise it is not easy pinpoint how exactly a spark of genius is ignited, and more so where or how it is sustained for a lifetime. In the art world it obviously helps have a pedigree, a purse, and a respected critic for a partner. With all that it is also imperative to keep an eye on the sublime and a finger on the pulse of elegant non-objectivism. Helen Frankenthaler did just that; no wonder so many homely artists tend to emulate her.
Art Nights at the Mall
With increasing focus the swamp can be defined by its own highs and lows.
At one end of the spectrum there is a glorification of touted refinement from a culture that is sustained by characters who identify or appropriate our loose knit arts community. At their low end is a failed world built modern on hype and consumerism. On the high end is clarity and swampy liberation.
Occupy Cave
It is not hard to find our way past the clutter of artificiality. Even in the worst of times, the young will court, dance and trip head over heals. Such is the power of the love of art.
Legal Rehab
Even today among the ruins of Downtown, there is a transformation of which legality is undeniable. With inalienable right, the arts community is contributing significantly to the revitalization of a city lost in the tropics.
A Head of Time
Where there is push there is pull. Gains made are not always set in stone as we see in the destruction of the Midtown World Gardens. This city block was to be a magnificent passive park for the good of public commons. What happend ? Do we really need another MoviePlex.
Midtown Quiz
Q: Why does man kill trees? A: Because trees can not run away.
Much Ado about Street Art
Meanwhile back in colorful old Wynwood, the walls are closing in and Tony Goldman is doing well.
Casa de Grande Nuts
I was fortunate to stumble into the distinguished Enrique Martinez Celaya having a 5Guys burger with his curator. A fellow cuban painter and professor of all things impressive, Enrique was as expected nothing less than charming and demure. For sure Wynwood is much improved with Celaya's Whale&Star enterprise in town... non more pleased than our very own self -appointed arbiter of markets Snitzer.
Nearby neighbors throw up a bit of their own beautification. No sign permit needed.
Ouch, Out of the Back of the Truck Sale?
At the end of the day, the best things in the swamp are the ones left alone.
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Friday, December 16, 2011
What on Earth
After another brilliant Basel flashow the neon lights of Miami Beach are dimmed. But soon enough we again fire-up them old holiday season illuminations. Like a mirror of South Beach before the Arts Awakening, the neighborhood of Wynwood has also molted dramatically. Over on the mainland in the past decade, 'Little PuertoRico' has been transformation beyond the beyond. For better of worse with the year closing, perhaps some ruminations on art's place in the swamp are in order.
Watching paint dry one would think shazam-things just don't happen fast enough. But the truth is things are always changing. This is why God invented the 20% Off Sale; invented to further the flow of events. But where there is movement there is wear n tear and oftentimes some unintended transmutation. Such is the weirdness of Wynwood.
Nothing happens all of the sudden; Otto Von Jr. of South Florida proves well versed in Design District cyclical cynicism, when we discussed with elegance how moldy bricks and mortar are giving way to gleaming kubrickian faces, spaces and towers of blinding modern luxury .
Quite the conversation piece at the Design Miami Fair Entrance, this year's very pleasing Pine Lumber Sculpture Conversation Cage now disassembled and loaded on a truck in route to storage on NE 36 street.
But this post is about a neighborhood in the final throes of an ambition gone wild, the focus of the December dispatch is what on earth has happened over there in Wynwood. Like the Gold Rush of Cali past, this unassuming working class neighborhood was intended to become a museum of street art. Instead Wynwood today is a colossal hodgepodge of mash culture anthropological technicolor public venting on a scale unseen since graffiti exploded on the NYC scene 30 years ago. There is an explanation.
If you own a building in this neighborhood (or anywhere else) make haste arrange with an artist of your choosing to commission a work of art lest the place be plastered with uninvited tags and throw-ups.
I will not blame the higher forces for what on earth has happened, but i will say indeed a bodacious bomb of belligerence sure as hell went off in this pocket of floundering Puerto Rican culture and identity. Wynwood is in need of paint... mostly white.
The site of the impetus swarm the original Locust Project thrives on auto-pilot while the new incarnation in the Design District searches of the next level of re-invention and a new home amid the ruins of self mutilating cut concrete and steel jumble.
Crass for Clunkers, we Wynwood your ride.
Unstoppable overexposure. Many locals don't visit SoBe anymore either.
But venture just a block off the beaten path and you will see the detritus of a city in shambles from economic instability and lopsided public policy. How little can i get that for...
Venture far beyond the areas of concentrated efforts by our dynamic developers like Goldman and Robins, Miami is on the brink of cultural bankruptcy where despair is just a red-light ticket away and most folk cling to the comfort of their couch except those who brave the pavement on Art Walk Second Saturday in Wynwood.
While the intelligential set politely discuss the nuanced broad trends in this current arts awakening, infusing the anointed few with visual and performing arts funding is their true focus. For better or worse the mass culture folk are not waiting for permission from the adults. Artists are taking to the street with paint cans and expressing visions of their place in the swamp. Question begs, when is enough enough; to what end is the Wynwood blossom a whither.
This holiday season, everybody has one. What's your Brand?
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Sunday, November 6, 2011
the Bucky Stops Here
Swampspace Gallery
presents
The Ephemera of ABMB
an event horizon
Opens
November 29 - December 4, 2011
"Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it."
Buckminster Fuller
Miami was once resplendent swamp sparsely inhabited by resilient enigmatic characters
whose visions transformed the tropic into a mecca for modern living.
Ten years ago the interruption achieved temporary singularity
with the arrival of Art Basel Miami Beach.
Today Swampspace is pleased to announce
Bucky's Seven Year Itch in the dawn of
technological singularity.
Proceeds Benefit DASH
Miami Design District
3821 NE 1 Court - Miami, Fl 33137 - swampstyle@gmail.com
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Saturday, November 5, 2011
blogtoberlust
A bit tardy with an October post due to a medical emergency #$%&@ mortality averted, here is the belated commentary.
20% Off Special
There was a time in Miami's past art history where a handful of interested parties were the only ones concerned with the appreciation and capitalizing of art. Today the circle of friends may be bigger but so is the multitude of the uninterestd. For a thorough briefing of hysterical presidents look no further than the gracious Helen Kohen's moldy Vasari Project, an accumulation of local art industry ephemera organized by our public library system.
Ad Space Available
As Miami today leaves behind the ancient history of art and prepares for the bold uncharted now-ness of the tenth outrageous recurrence of another outlandish Art Basel Miami Beach fair, there is an air of rancid anticipation. Some would like us to regard fine art as a matter of life or death, but that is just not the case. Art may be perceived indispensable much of the time but it will never shed its frivolous nature. If a priceless painting is crashing down, get out of the way.
Hubble Bubble Trouble
Don't get me wrong. I am one of those who live, breath, eat, sleep, talk about and actually make art all twelve month of the year. But honestly the white gloves of a museum pale in seriousness when compared to the latex gloves of a hospital. A pricy Anish Kapur wall sculpture can also be seen as just a really fancy shaving mirror for the well heeled of golden beaches.
Full Moon Rising
A collection of distressed sports balls can take on the value of precious cultured pearls. Their epoxy luster drip with the rich new expression of what art is. What determines their shape is the secret nourishment of intention and purpose, of function and fact. Contemporary art is like the fad diets of south beach where a steady diet of deep art appreciation is the sustenance of champions.
Classy Kabuki
In light of the lust for celebrity and a willing submission to rigid social structure, our current cultural machinations border on farcical. The rule of vanities is that all to often it is really easy to find ample example of self imposed labeling and prescribed behaviourism. Who among us is saving their fifteen minutes of fame for just the right moment as timing is indeed everything.
Anthropopulists
To be fair, Miami is loaded with fascinating oddities and unique personalities in a constant stream of events. It takes a special kind of sleuthmanship to inform and archive our ongoing social mania trivia. Just ask the persistent and consistent folks at Soul of Miami.
Allas, a word or two,
A pan-headed screw,
Don't call us Cheapo,
Cause we shop at the Depot,
Economy of words,
Is not just for nerds,
Anymore.
Mystical and the Mister
Miami's own hieronymus bosch Franky Cruz and modern day bucky fuller Robert Chambers at Baxter's Book Party, Diet Gallery Wynwood.
A lovers kiss adorns Inflorescence. Available at Diet.
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