Sarah Crowner
Miguel Rodriguez Sepulveda
Locust can mean a tropical grasshopper, type of bean, pod bearing tree or a well established and respected contemporary visual art project space located on North Miami Avenue.
Focusing on the latter might be the best bet to get our (sub)tropically thickened minds back on track after an indolent few months hitting the seasonal refresh button.
Miami and surrounds is emerging into an exponentially explosive maturation projectile. Each year design boundaries push limits, culinary heights expand, architecture pops up and out in dizzying proportions. Name brand artists and just plain wildly creative souls are finding Miami open to suggestion.
Locust Projects has been there since 1998 nurturing this direction with a forward thrust into the unknown, providing a necessary venue in a prominent location, identifying intelligent and thoughtful depths both locally and internationally borne.
September gallops out of the gate with two new projects on site. For her first exhibition in Miami, New York City resident and Whitney Bienniel (2010) participant Sarah Crowner presents her installation titled Sunday in the Park, Sarah Crowner in collaboration with Sari Carel and EXILE Books. This synergistic work explored in Locust Project’s main gallery is her most spacious to date.
Using a theatrical standpoint, the stage like presentation utilizes design elements of the thespian arts to focus her thoughts into clarity. Curtains and backdrops bring in Crowner’s strengths of abstract paintings with sewn canvas, for which she is well known. With an affinity for 20th century design, here Crowner has drawn on ideas from the French journal Art Enfantin, offering copies of the period piece for visitors to peruse during her reign at Locust Projects.
For this artist’s Sunday in the Park collaborative installation, Crowner brings into play a group of children who will paint the stage floor, a nod to the subject matter of the Art Enfantin journal addressing children’s art and art brut, a term often defined as raw or outsider art, focusing on the pure exuberance of making art.
EmergÃia Miami, Miguel Rodriguez Sepulveda
Sarah Crowner had this to add when I inquired as to the birthing process of Sunday in the Park:
"A huge source of inspiration for this show was a surprise find: a little known but excellent magazine called Art Enfantin, published out of Cannes, France in the ’60s and ’70s, by Jean Cocteau and Jean Dubuffet, among other artists and writers. It highlighted actual painting and sculpture, poetry and drawing by young children. There were texts dedicated to the appreciation and understanding of children’s art. I believe this magazine was a natural extension of what was happening in France and Europe at the same moment, after WW2, where artists had to find a way to make art work after the horrors and devastation of the war, and sort of start over from the beginning, in a way. Many of these artists (Dubuffet, Fautrier, Giacometti) were in fact, inspired by children’s art, as well as art brut - or outsider art. It may have felt, for them, something pure and unfiltered.”
“The magazine, and the painted stage we made at Locust, express in the words of the publishers: "the radiant song of childhood, fearless freedom...joie de vivre and spontaneity that comes from the multitude of children at a time when the genius of man raises much concern.”
“You could say the moment we live in now could use a bit more joie de vivre.”
Brooklyn’s indefatigable clutch on the modern art world will be represented with the borough’s Sari Carel, a multi-media artist layering a surround sound collage into center stage. Miami based artist Amanda Keeley will add her stamp with a set of Playbill inspired prints in the premiere of her pop-up book store project EXILE, to be in situ throughout the exhibition time frame. Her mission is to “educate the public about print culture”
Make a note Sarah Crowner’s Conversation on opening night, which begins at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13, along with a closing reception performance by the Peter London Global Dance Company, “a site-responsive piece,” at 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9.
Showing in the project space annex gallery, don’t miss Tamaulipas, Mexico native Miguel Rodríguez Sepúlveda. The U.S. premiere of his Emergía Miami exhibition will open during the same time frame as the main gallery exhibition, along with a conversation with Sepúlveda. The artist uncovers shared cultural experiences in various cities as this exhibit tours internationally, exhibited so far in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Caracas and Sao Paolo. Strong symbols of identity are emblazoned with watercolor paste on skin of citizens, slowly melting away with the sweat of physical exertion before being the symbols are transferred onto cotton paper.
Sepúlveda was kind enough to offer his thoughts to us: “My work is more generally associated with an intention to create processes that help me approach and understand the phenomena in which I find myself immersed in, in daily life. These range from issues of a political nature to personal relationships.”
“Several years ago my concern was mainly to understand what and who inhabits the vast territory of Latin America, a place that unites and divides us, and how each of the 21 countries build, or try to understand, their own paradigms. Through this research, EMERGÍA began in 2007.”
Prints, photographs and videos of this study will be on hand for thoughtful presentation. Our strong connection to South and Central America will play a role in this insightful probe into the collective experiences.
Locust Projects
3852 North Miami Avenue
Miami 33127
(305) 576-8570
locustprojects.orgMain Gallery
Sunday in the Park
Sarah Crowner in collaboration with Sari Carel and EXILE Books
September 13-October 11, 2014
Opening Reception: Sept. 13, at 7 p.m. will include a Conversation with the artists
The closing performance by Peter London Dance Company will be held October 9, at 7 p.m.
Regular gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Miguel Rodríguez Sepúlveda: Emergía Miami
September 13 – October 11, 2014 Conversation with the artist moderated by Maria Elena Ortiz, followed by the opening reception: September 13 at 7 p.m.
