Friday, November 30, 2012

Deco Features: Art Basel

Posted: 11/30/12

Reported by:

Louis Aguirre

Contact:

laguirre@wsvn.com

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It's time to get your Basel on. Art Basel Miami Beach officially kicks off next week.

Miami is set to be invaded by artists, gallerists, and collectors from all over the world.

The Miami Art Museum capitalizing on the world wide audience and installed the final show in the museum's current space, before it moves into it's fancy new digs on the bay.

And this show shines the spotlight on our own SoFlo talent.

This is it, the final show at MAM. The Miami Art Museum closing its doors this time next year and moving into it's posh Herzog And Demeuron designed new home at museum park. here the MAM will be now known as the PAM, named of course after famed art lover, Pamela Anderson.

DIANA NAWI, ASSOCIATE CURATOR MAM: "When this show ends we will go dark and move into our new building which we are incredibly excited about."

Pam is also very excited about the show: new work Miami 2013 a collection of the most innovative works by the hottest artists working in Miami today.

LOUIS AGUIRRE: "Was it important for you to go out with one big last hurrah?"

RENE MORALES, ASSOCIATE CURATOR MAM: "Yeah, and that's this show. And specifically to go out with a show that is dedicated to the local art community."

Deco got a VIP preview of the show as it was being installed-- amazing! The exhibition space itself a collective mass work-- an homage to the iconic Miami cityscape .

EMMETT MOORE, ART IS FOR THE BIRDS: "The first kind of fleeting idea was to release a tropical parrot to physically interact with all the works wow."

Miami-born artist and designer Emmett Moore was selected to co-create the space. He had some wild ideas

LOUIS AGUIRRE: "So you wanted to bring a live parrot into the museum as part of the show?"

EMMETT MOORE: "Yeah, that was the idea."

Emmett wanted to pay tribute to this famous photo of the Zoo Miami flamingos taking refuge in the bathroom during Hurricane Andrew.

So Emmett improvised with this stuffed cockatoo installed just outside the museum bathrooms.

EMMETT MOORE: "I think this show has a lot of chances of being enjoyed by the local community whether you like art or not."

Venezuelan-born Miami artist Loriel Beltran says the show will resonate with us because it's so Miami.

From the provocative SoBe photographs of Gideon Barnett to his own interpretation of Miami-- made from a kitchen granite countertop.

LOUIS AGUIRRE: "So what are you saying with this?"

LORIEL BELTRAN, EVERYTHING PLUS THE KITCHEN SINK: "So it is is a cheap fancy monument that can relate to the crisis in 2008. The pieces come from foreclosed homes."

Artist Moira Holohan expressed herself by animating pics of her body smushed up against Plexiglas to create a very familiar effect.

DIANA NAWI, ASSOCIATE CURATOR MAM: "What she does is actually quite unique. She just did what so many of us do when the boss is away..."

LOUIS AGUIRRE: "She put her butt on the copy machine and she Xeroxed her butt..."

DIANA NAWI: "So there's a real kind of play with that everyday impulse.

LOUIS AGUIRRE: "I do that all the time, hahah."

Maybe Pam can send us some special Xeroxes for the next show?

DIANA NAWI: "Miami is an amalgamation of cultures, and I think that's a huge part of being a Miami artist. You can't necessarily look at one local artist and say their work is super Miami. When you put a bunch of local artists together, you can say this is so Miami as a whole, and that's a big part of the show."

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