Carol Damian
2020 Art Circuits’ Critic’s Choice art writer

Carol Damian, Ph.D. is an Art Historian and Independent Curator specializing in the Art of Latin America and the Caribbean.  She is the former chairperson of the Art and Art History Department and former Director and Chief Curator of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University.

 

ART CIRCUITS CRITIC’S CHOICE DECEMBER 2020

December is ART WEEK time! We look forward to over-dosing on art every year in December and it may look a bit different, yet we still enjoy our visual pleasures! The fairs may be virtual, but the artists are hard at work transforming our city. Perhaps it is the Design District that will shine brightest, as all the other art spots continue to showcase the best of Miami. Art Circuits can take you on the road to experience it all. Some stops to make:

MUSEUMS

MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art / North Miami

 

Life and Spirituality in Haitian Art

 

November 18, 2020 - March 14, 2021

 

Selection from the Betty and Isaac Rudman Trust Collection A section of paintings from Haiti created between 1940 and 1970 features works by Hector Hyppolite, Philomé Obin, Wilson Bigaud, Jacques-Enguérrand Gourgue, and other renowned masters from the first and second generation of artists associated with Port-au-Prince's Centre d'Art. Also includes works by some of their contemporaries and pupils. Curated by Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig.

Hector Hyppolite, Une Jeune Dame, n.d.Mixed media on wood. Betty and Isaac Rudman Trust Collection

Coral Gables Museum

Alien Nations 2020

December 1, 2020 - March 14, 2021

 

A group of artists who convey different forms of alienation and look at a myriad of issues that are affecting the psychological state of the individual and the different groups within which we live. Nearly two dozen creatives, both emerging and established, many with connections to South Florida, exhibit works in a broad range of media. Curated by Bartholomew Bland, Executive Director, Lehman College Art Gallery, and Yuneikys Villalonga, Chief Curator, Coral Gables Museum.

Beverly McIvers, “Reality”, 2020. From the Series: “COVID 19”. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and the Coral Gables Museum.

Caribbee Club: Wind Trails Nights
Valeria Yamamoto

November 16, 2020 - January 2021

 

Wind Trails is part of the recurrent local art series, The Caribbee Club, and features work by artist Valeria Yamamoto. Between abstraction and figuration, Yamamoto’s work is inspired by a study of organic forms found in the natural.

Valeria Yamamoto. Composition II, 2018. From the series: Sleeping Waters. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and the Coral Gables Museum

Museum of Graffiti

Angel Ortiz

The Museum of Graffiti celebrates its one-year anniversary with a series of events and new works by Angel Ortiz, known by the tag LA II or LA2. A New York City veteran of graffiti art, Ortiz is best known for providing the lettering style and embellishments used in Keith Haring's paintings in the 1980s.

Angel Ortiz, known by the tagLA II or LA2, Wacky Robot

Biscayne World

An exhibition by Miami icon Ahol Sniffs Glue (David Anasagasti), known for his sleepy eyes painted all over the streets of Miami for several decades. The new work is a love letter to Miami and its cast of characters, from three years of riding the bus up and down Biscayne Boulevard.

Aho Sniffs Glue, (David Anasagasti), Untitled, 2020

GALLERIES

Locust Projects

Mette Tommerup: Made by Dusk

November 21, 2020- January 23, 2021

A new large-scale installation by Miami-based artist Mette Tommerup inspired by the Nordic Goddess, Freya, the untamed goddess of love, war, beauty, gold, and transformation.

Mette Tommerup, Made by Dusk (detail), 2020

Clandestina

MONIKA BRAVO: VICTORY OVER THE SUN (13)

On view through December 06, 2020

This intervention in an empty space can be viewed from the outside through the windows and becomes alive at different times of the day. The work emerges differently in each space, with each choice of material and how it will be projected.

Monika Bravo, Duration, 2017, Glass mosaic and ceramic-printed glass

Emerson Dorsch Gallery

Frances Trombly: All This Time

November 19, 2020 - January 16, 2021

New works by Frances Trombly who insists on the primacy of the act of making and that she is choosing to do it. It is in the making that she shows us that draping, dying, spinning and weaving can be stripped bare, to their most essential, and made beautiful.

Frances Trombly, All This Time, 2020

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Juan Carlos Maldonado Art Collection

ERNESTO BRIEL: Iridescent Geometries

November 19, 2020 - March 20, 2021

Ernesto Briel, Untitled, 1967, ink on paper, 19 x 31 in.

Kendall Art Center

FINE ARTS ON THE PLATE

November 27, 2020 – February 26, 2021

An exhibition of ceramic plates by 50 Cuban artists, the majority local artists, who move beyond the decorative plate’s traditions to turn it into fine art expressing a diversity of styles and technical skills.

Rubén Torres-Llorca, Plate #5, 2020, 15 in. Hand painted ceramic