- “Searchers in Rubble” by Joel Meyerowitz
.
Following are City Link’s picks for the week’s top art events in South Florida. For our guide to the local art scene, visit Artmurmurartguide.wordpress.com.
Joel Meyerowitz: Aftermath
Days after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, Joel Meyerowitz began photographing the devastation and ongoing recovery efforts. The resulting World Trade Center Archive, sponsored by the Museum of the City of New York, contains more than 8,000 images that have prompted 35 exhibitions worldwide.
Meyerowitz, who has authored 17 photography books, was the only photographer granted unlimited access to Ground Zero, which had been classified as a crime scene. He spent nine months photographing the rubble and the people who worked in it each day. On the fifth anniversary of the attacks, Aftermath, the book containing his images and his personal account of documenting Ground Zero, was published.
In a statement about his work, Meyerowitz said he was taking pictures for those who didn’t have access to the site and that his goal was to “provide a window for everyone else who wanted to be there, too, to help, or to grieve, or simply to try to understand what had happened to our city.”
Recently, two dozen of those images were donated to Miami Art Museum which will exhibit the photographs to commemorate the 10-year-anniversary of the attacks.
Aftermath will open with a free reception from 4-7 p.m. Aug. 18 and run through Nov. 6 in the museum’s Focus Gallery, 101 W. Flagler Street, Miami. The $8 admission fee will be waived for police firefighters and emergency personnel for the duration of the exhibition. Call 305-375-1704 or visit Miamiartmuseum.org.
- “Night Light” by Mary O’Hara
Transformations
Justin “Invi” Vilonna, Mary O’Hara, Brittany Smith and more than two dozen other local artists created nature-themed works for Transformations: Where the Stars and the Moons Play. The show will close the same way it opened — with a party. The seven-hour bash will feature an auction of the artworks to raise money for The Water Project, which helps people in underdeveloped countries gain access to cleaner drinking water, and Women in Distress, which offers support, shelter and training to domestic violence victims and their children.
The party, hosted by artist Vaughn Reynolds’ T-shirt company Sinthetic Designs, will also include music by Evan Sheres and DJ Rich Rox, interactive art, four body painters and Anthony Burks, Rei Ramirez and Serafima Sokolov painting live. The event starts at 7 p.m. Aug. 19 at Stage 84, 9118 West State Rd 84, Davie. Call 954-474-5040 or visit Stage84fl.com.
- “Party Pooper” by Andrew Nigon
Anything is Possible
Anything is Possible, a group exhibition featuring work by Raul Mendez, Susan Lee-Chun and Andrew Nigon, examines “three different perspectives on manufactured realities,” according to curator Harumi Abe.
Mendez, an artist and airline pilot, will exhibit paintings and drawings that form the foundation of a fictional world he plans to create. “Eventually the places will have names,” Mendez says in his artist statement. “The population will have faces, identities and histories … The houses will have rooms. … In essence, a fictional realm parallel to our own will come into being.”
In her video installation, “Everybody Suz-ercise,” Susan Lee-Chun explores race, identity and a fictional realm of her own. As founder of “The Suz,” a faux corporation of three egos, the artist presents a product and lifestyle in which one can “pursue ultimate happiness and fulfillment using their gym, garments, music, and choreography.”
Nigon, who recently had a solo show at Primary Projects in Miami, will explore a darker and rather disturbing reality in mixed-media sculptures made from polyurethane foam, parts of old sculptures and used clothing. The artist says his characters are trapped in “an incomplete and fractured world” that continues to fall apart even as they build it. Among his works is “Party Pooper,” which depicts a blue balloon on a makeshift string protruding from the face of a man who is sitting in a chair and seemingly decaying.
The exhibition will run Aug. 22 through Sept. 21, with an opening reception from 7-9 p.m. Aug. 25, at Broward College Fine Arts Gallery, 3501 S.W. Davie Road, Building 3, Davie. Call 305-321-7244.
- “Come and Eat” by Chris Strait
Jetsetter
Illustrator Lisa “Coma Girl” Perz, painter Katie Sottak and Norma Cockwell, who makes Norman Rockwell-inspired erotic works, are among the 25 artists who will exhibit or create art at Jetsetter, the latest monthly Art Nouveau party. The theme, according to artist and organizer Teresa Korber, was inspired by “fashionable retro-decadence, travel and tiki masks.”
As usual there will be live body painting by Georgette Pressler, sushi, drink specials and a prize for best in show. The six-hour art party starts at 8 p.m. Aug. 24 at The Lounge, 517 Clematis Street, West Palm Beach. Call 561-655-9747 or visit Artnouveauevents.com.
