Re-relating to the Environment

Juxtaposing and interlacing their personal memories, artists Jose L. Garcia and German Ruiz create portraits and landscapes of past experiences for the dual exhibition Then & There on view at FIU’s urban studios. Similarly focused on individual experience, Judy Cotton’s Natural Curiosity: An Intimate History investigates the complex and fraught relationship between humans and the environment in her ongoing series of palm tree drawings and resin cast found objects on view at IRL. From the natural to Unnatural Life Elisabeth Condon’s exhibition of new paintings uses deceptively decorative applications to explore the feminine within the male dominated history of abstract painting. This exhibition opens Emerson Dorsch’s much awaited new gallery location. Casting its eye on fashion, Dandy Lion: (Re) Articulating Black Masculine Identity, explores how black dandies have resisted stereotype and repositioned black male identity by purposefully confusing conventions of fashion and creating unique style. Guest curated by Shantrelle P. Lewis, and on view at the Lowe Art Museum, the exhibition includes both historical and contemporary images. As February questions what place there is for environmental concern, female and black identities in our future, PAMM offers a playful and poignant reprieve in Lawrence Weiner’s Out of Sight text work, a generic multilingual interactive hopscotch on the museum’s floor.