| Miami’s captivating cultural chorus leadsby example
Bravo for museums and galleries! They belong to exciting initiatives raising high the baton for the culturally curious. A symphony of sights, sounds, and ideas overtakes the city. As I live and breathe, Miami is now a stimulating place for ideas to ferment in the outrageously varied cultural feast we find from South Beach to the streets of Little Havana to the city’s western reaches near Florida International University.It’s like another education– even for those of us who have been there, done that with writing papers for college. These lively learning opportunities are free or cost just pennies compared to the cost of a college education. How can you resist?
Begin your fall with a bang by sprinting to see “Speed Limits” at the Wolfsonian-FIU. It’s an astounding exhibit with so much to see and talk about that you’ll want to plan a return trip. I’m already planning mine with my terrific ArtTable pals. This remarkably-designed show will make you actually feel the consequences of our ever-accelerating need for speed when drivers navigate extra-expressways constructed around the world. And it does more than that by helping us contemplate the currently contradictory desire to slow things down, to give our bodies a rest from fast food, life in the fast lane, and texting till we drop. No wonder “The Wolf” calls itself the museum of “thinkism.”See www.wolfsonian.org
Take part in how Miami is a nexus for new ideas, and your ideas will help this nexus grow. Continue your cultural education by taking in the talks at the very fab independent bookseller Books & Books, found in several locations here. See www.booksandbooks.org At the Coral Gables store, you might encounter intriguing ArtTable panel discussions by exceptional Miami people-in-the-know on a host of artcentric issues. See www.arttable.org
Explore unique treasures of Little Havana, such as the Tower Theater. Galleries there actively educate curiously artcentric folks who want to learn more about artists of today and the past. Cremata Gallery has devised engaging evening programs inspired by its exhibit devoted to the exquisite art of Lydia Rubio, who lives in Miami. See www.crematagallery.com and www.lydiarubio.com Visitors to Maxoly/Latin Art Core gallery can purchase a new book by Ramón Vazquez Diaz about Victor Manuel Garcia. He’s one of Cuba’s famed Vanguardia painters who transformed art history as it happened in Havana—also Paris and New York—in the first half of the 20th Century. See www.latinartcore.com
Spaces for seeing and thinking about art in Wynwood and the Design District continue to impress. Truly remarkable is the capacious Wynwood studio, Whale & Star, complete with its own library founded by multi-talented artist Enriquez Martinez Celaya, who brings notable speakers to town informing all of us. See www.whaleandstar.com Yet another Celaya coup: his paintings are on view this fall at Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York.
Don’t miss lectures offered a short drive away at the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space. See www.delacruzcollection.org Consider visiting artist studios and exhibits at Bakehouse Art Complex. It also offers lively programs: one recent event, inspired by an ArtTable panel discussion in May at Books & Books, was packed. See www.bacfl.org
The very western part of Miami, home to the main campus of FIU, differs dramatically from the reclaimed swamp it once was. Take, for instance, the spunky and adventurous Farside Gallery near FIU. Its wonderful talks and panel discussions will give you much to ponder. For info call 305-264-3120.
The Frost Museum at FIU deserves a standing ovation for truly brandishing the baton in Miami this fall. Opening in October is “Embracing Modernity: Venezuelan Geometric Abstraction.” It promises a much-deserved look at how artists, including Alejandro Otero, brought international acclaim to their country as pioneers, particularly in Paris, during the 1940s through 1960s. The Frost’s free Target-sponsored Wednesday night programs are always worthwhile, but note this especially outstanding event: in October Jonathan Friedlander teams with the Frost and FIU School of Music to speak about creativity in art and music. See www.thefrost.fiu.edu
This autumn, I’m clearly falling hard for art in Miami.
Come fall with me. |
 Alejandro Otero, Model- Project for Park Avenue, New York, 1982, Mixed media, 46 1/2 x 15 x 15 in. Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, Miami.Otero is much admired for his dynamic sense of form.. |
