Browse Exhibits (15 total)

Women's Voices: A Journey through Miami's Art History | Nov 7, 2023 – Mar 31, 2024

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Presented by the Miami-Dade Public Library System's Vasari Project 

The Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Vasari Project presents an exploration of the Miami women’s art movement. Curated by Anita Sharma, Women’s Voices: A Journey through Miami’s Art History is an exhibition that illustrates the activities of several women’s arts organizations from the 1970s to the present that significantly contributed to the cultural landscape of Miami.


Inspiration was drawn from women’s organizations, such as Women Artists, It’s Time (W.A.I.T), the Women’s Caucus of Art (WCA) Miami and Florida Chapters, as well as the artists and
spaces that defined this period: Lynne Golob Gelfman, Dr. Paula Harper, Betty Kjelson, Mira Lehr, Claire Jeanine Satin, and Ruth & Richard Shack's Records.

Women's Voices: New Perspectives in the Archive | Nov 7, 2023 – Mar 31, 2024

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Presented by the Miami-Dade Public Library System's Vasari Project 

Women’s Voices: New Perspectives in the Archive is the second of a two-part exhibition curated by Anita Sharma, founder of WAAM.This exhibition unites the distinct voices and artistic visions of artists who have participated in WAAM since its inception and features a range of artistic mediums, including photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, fiber practice, and mixed media works, offering viewers an understanding of the innovative approaches and thematic connections.

To learn more about these artists visit the online archive at wearewaam.org or visit the Vasari Project archive at the Main Library downtown, where the first of this two-part exhibition, Women’s Voices: A Journey Through Miami’s Art History further explores this rich history.

Rosemarie Chiarlone
Cara Despain
Sophia Lacroix
Mary Larsen
Susan Lee-Chun
Aurora Molina
Kerry Phillips
Johanne Rahaman
Chire Regans
Claire Jeanine Satin
Carol Todaro

Carol Todaro- Object as Subject | July 29 - Sept 30

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July 29 - September 25, 2023

WAAM is pleased to present the two-person exhibition Carol Todaro: Object as Subject and Mary Larsen: Poetic Forms at Dimensions Variable. This exhibition features a selection of artwork, archives, and ephemera that explore the artistic journeys of two Miami-based artists. Larsen and Todaro excavate and unveil the intricate relationships between text, objects, and images through their multifaceted processes in distinct ways. The exhibition opens on July 29 and runs through September 2023.

Artist, educator, and writer Carol Todaro’s multidisciplinary art practice spans several diverse mediums including drawings, prints, artists’ books, installations, and book objects. This exhibition presents an insightful look into the defining moments and evolution of her visual and conceptual language. A central theme throughout Todaro’s practice is the foundational analysis of the subject/object framework.  Beginning with her silverpoint drawings in the early 90s to the emergence of her art bookmaking practice in the late 90s, we see an articulation and keen interest in the ontological nature of objects. Todaro draws from the tradition of still life drawing to deepen her understanding of how everyday objects exist in their natural states. The responsiveness and fluidity of the silverpoint combined with watercolor allowed her to experiment with abstract and ephemeral representations of objects. 

Todaro’s exploration of creative writing and poetry is another significant development in her journey.  While teaching Book Art at the FIU (Florida International University) North Campus, she joined the Miami Poetry Collective (MPC), founded by Miami-based poet Campbell McGrath. During her time with the MPC, she pursued writing classes and workshops which led to collaborative projects with fellow members. She contributed to the MPC’s Cent Journal and designed the MPC edition of Tigertail Productions’ poetry annual.  

In 1998, Todaro produced Mattered, her first artist’s book, based on original Polaroid photographs. The theme of “object as subject’ is also evident in her bookmaking practice. Throughout her exploration of the book as an art form, she maintained a fascination with the presentation of archetypal objects that had captivated her. Gradually, the book itself became the object of her focus. The conversations surrounding the potential decline of book culture fuelled her experimentation with new techniques, materials, and bookmaking formats. In doing so, she pushed the boundaries of traditional bookmaking practices. Today, Todaro continues to radically redefine and reshape the language, format, and techniques related to bookmaking in innovative ways.

Carol Todaro’s work is in several private and public collections. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the National Museum for Women in the Arts, the Library of Congress, and the Jaffe Collection at Florida Atlantic University, among other public institutions, have collected her work. In 2018 she delivered the Annual Book Arts Lecture for the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Recent solo exhibitions include “All Along,” Under the Bridge, North Miami, Florida (2019); and “Bell, Book, and Candle,” University of Miami Wynwood Gallery, Miami, Florida (2017). Recent group exhibitions include “Spheres of Meaning,” Frost Art Museum, Miami, Florida; “The Artful Book,” LnS Gallery, Miami, and the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL (2019); and “Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here,” Center for Book Arts, New York City and traveling internationally (2014-2016). Todaro received three Faculty Development Fellowships from New World School of the Arts, Miami, Florida (2011, 2013, 2014); three Artist Access Grants from Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council/Tigertail Productions (2000, 2010, 2012) and an Individual Artist Fellowship, State of Florida, Division of Cultural Affairs (2000).

Mary Larsen- Poetic Forms | July 29 - Sept 30

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July 29 - September 25, 2023

WAAM is pleased to present the two-person exhibition Mary Larsen: Poetic Forms and Carol Todaro: Object as Subject at Dimensions Variable. This exhibition features a selection of artwork, archives, and ephemera that explore the artistic journeys of two Miami-based artists. Larsen and Todaro excavate and unveil the intricate relationships between text, objects, and images through their multifaceted processes in distinct ways. The exhibition opens on July 29 and runs through September 2023. 

Dreamlike worlds collide in ethereal terrains in Mary Larsen’s paintings and altered books. Her paintings, conceived as  “dream-scapes”, underscore a foundational interplay of text and images. Larsen uses silkscreen, ink, and paint with found and reclaimed materials, remnants, maps, and fragments in multilayered ways. The result is a palimpsest, where the real and the imagined converge in elaborate tapestries that weave together disparate elements and materials. The gesture of mapping, layering,  mark-making, erasing, and obscuring is the scaffolding that holds these worlds together.  It is an experience akin to ‘walking into consciousness’, where memory and perception intersect, and where internal and external words coalesce. The act of repurposing and reclaiming canvas, old paintings, discarded books, pages, letters, and other forms of tangible forms of knowledge symbolizes the act of rewriting or revisiting the topography of memory, where the possibilities of new histories may emerge.

Larsen’s incorporation of books, text, and poetic fragments stems from a deep affinity for poetry and prose. In 2013, while working as an art educator, she began utilizing books in workshops with women and disadvantaged youth as a means of offering the participants a powerful communication tool. The altered book series grew out of these encounters and gradually, the book became a transformative tool and medium for her artistic expression that is now emblematic of her artmaking.  In Larsen’s altered book collection, pages are transformed into visual narratives that upend time and simultaneously reveal and conceal the fragility and resiliency of our constructed worlds. Poetic fragments and musings emerge as if they were always destined to exist on the page. 

During the pandemic, Larsen produced several paintings and books as a response to the profound sense of personal and collective isolation and trauma faced by communities worldwide. The painting Under the Surface most vividly illustrates the palimpsest nature of Larsen’s art practice. At the peak of the pandemic, she took obituary pages from New York Times and delicately worked and layered them onto a reclaimed painting, evoking the effect of a crumbling monument or plaque. Larsen’s work powerfully conjures the seen and the unseen and contemplates the imprints of time, history, and inner emotional worlds.

Miami-based artist and educator, Mary Larsen, was raised in New York City where she developed an early interest in art while attending an art magnet high school. She studied printmaking and filmmaking at Hampshire College and after a successful career as an art director, completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Florida International University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. Mary’s work has been exhibited in New York City, San Francisco, San Juan, Miami, and Kyoto. Her work is in corporate and individual collections in New York, Miami, and San Juan. Her altered books are in the special collections at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, the University of Miami, Florida International University, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. As a teaching artist, she received the Ellies Art Teacher Travel grant in 2019.

Susan Lee-Chun: Remnants at Play | Feb 25 - Apr 1

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November 27 - February 15, 2023

WAAM is pleased to present Susan Lee Chun: Remnants at Play, an immersive exhibition exploring the studio archives of multidisciplinary Miami-based artist Susan Lee-Chun. Remnants at Play examines how material culture can shape and influence dominant cultural assumptions. How do objects derive meaning and accrue their own identity in a world where the proliferation of material culture is exponential? And how do cross-cultural consumption of these objects and associated rituals affect social reality? In Remnants at Play, we journey alongside a collection of artifacts, soft sculptures, found objects, textiles, and other exploratory objects that are foundational in Lee-Chun’s artmaking. These artifacts and ‘remnants’ bear witness to the various guises and fictional personas adopted by Lee-Chun throughout her practice and are integral markers of her interest and excavations in cultural and social psychology. 

 

The archival materials on view at WAAM span over fifteen years and reference bodies of work produced from 2004 to the present. By fusing installation, video, and performance-based work in playful, nuanced, and multilayered narratives, she dissects the premise of cultural formations and patterns. Lee-Chun exposes the blindspots that are so prevalent in these conversations and offers the viewer multiple vantage points to grapple with the historical biases and distortions that are inherent in the popular imagination. In her early performance-based work, the use of textiles and soft sculptures serve as a camouflaging mechanism to comment on how cultural displacement, assimilation, and acculturation can manifest in marginalized communities. Later works use a museological framework to investigate how the language of colonialism, appropriation, and exploitation operate in assigning value and meaning to objects that are exported en masse. Lee-Chun purposely obscures subject/object relationships so we can see firsthand how easy it is to succumb to misperceptions related to cultural stereotypes. 

Susan Lee-Chun was born 1976 in Seoul, South Korea, and currently lives and works in Miami. Since studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2004, MA), Susan Lee-Chun has exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad – Herning Kunstmuseum, Denmark; Pacific Asia Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Miami Dade College’s Museum of Art + Design, MOCA Detroit, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, and MoMA PS1. She has held residencies at the Bemis Center in Omaha, NE, Three Walls in Chicago, IL, and McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, North Carolina. Her work is in private and public collections, including the Perez Art Museum, Miami and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.

 

Kerry Phillips: A Kept Thing | Oct 22 - Nov 18

WAAM is pleased to present the second part of Kerry Phillips' Accidental Collection Archive, A Kept Thing. In this participatory exhibition exploring Phillips’ living archive of objects and documentation spanning twenty years, we invite you to collaborate and contribute the memory of your own “kept thing”.

In the first part of the series, (Un)forgetting, Phillps underscored the often overlooked, unpredictable, and incidental nature of the archival impulse. How do we gather, collect, and accumulate objects? And how do these collected objects convey personal/collective memory over time?

In this second part, A Kept Thing, Phillips focuses on how meaning and value are ascribed to objects which often have little to no value apart from their ability to conjure a cherished moment, person, or place. She invites viewers to consider, reflect and share their experiences with an object-turned-treasure by following these steps:

1 - Think of something that’s become a treasured kept thing.
2 - Draw it.
3 - Write the memory of why you treasure it.
4 - Leave your response in the jar when you visit.

We also invite you to participate in the online collecting of "Kept Things" and their stories by filling out this form.

Your contributions will be included in the online archive- A Kept Thing.

Kerry Phillps: (Un)forgetting

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June 25 - Sept 10, 2022

WAAM is pleased to present the studio archives of Miami-based artist Kerry Phillips. Kerry Phillips: (Un)forgetting Part I transforms WAAM into a living archive of objects and documentation that spans twenty years. (Un)forgetting underscores the often overlooked, unpredictable, and incidental nature of the archival impulse. How do we gather, collect, and accumulate objects? How are meaning and value ascribed to objects? How do collections assume their own unique identity?  And how do these collected objects convey personal/collective memory over time? Phillips presents us with a nuanced, playful, and meaningful look at the ontological resonance of objects and the ways in which they coexist in a world that humans manipulate. We all possess special mementos, keepsakes, and objects that have personal value. We might preserve family heirlooms that are passed down from generation to generation, record oral histories of our relatives, save hand-written letters or save unclassifiable items in junk drawers. These acts of recording are potent transmitters of memory.

Phillips' mediates the transmission of memory through both tangible and intangible means. Her appreciation of the inherent power of objects and/or experiences transcends rigid assumptions. Throughout her artistic practice, Phillips has blended a social and performance-based approach that examines and mines site-specific histories. The act of excavation often includes a form of ‘archival processing’. Each space or site presents a unique set of qualities that reveal a natural intellectual and temporal order. The act of discovery, organization, arrangement and classification embodies the unveiling of the potential of that site. By connecting the act of processing both the physical/ immaterial, with performative and participatory practices, she creates ‘living archives. This ‘archival performativity’ manifests in diverse and unexpected ways throughout her artmaking.¹ WAAM presents a meta-archive of sorts, that traces and contextualizes her hybrid practice of “collecting”. 

Phillips playfully honors the ‘lost & found’ in her Berlin photo series that documents objects she found but was determined to not pick up. At the Deering Estate in Miami, she recaptions historical photos with fictional titles that disrupt archival naming conventions. The construct of home as a shifting space is explored through her farm tour interactions. Phillips takes participants on a guided tour of her father’s farm in Texas in a parking lot in Hollywood, pointing to and describing areas of the farm as if they were actually present. The themes of home and family are highly influential in her work. She credits her grandmothers with inspiring her practice deeply. While one was an avid collector who kept and accumulated things, the other was a prolific storyteller. Items gathered from her childhood home including her mother’s linen calendars, photographs, carpet fragments, old tools, lamps, and other miscellaneous items are often used in her installations. Remnants from participatory projects such as collections of memory jars that visitors can leave a memento in and piles of throw cushions amassed over the years, evoke a sense of comfort and the familiar. We are pleased to invite you to discover the act of (Un)forgetting at WAAM on view from June 25 to September 25, 2022.   


Kerry Phillips earned an MFA from the University of Arizona and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the Orlando Museum of Art, Locust Projects, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Oolite Arts and Bridge Red Projects. She has exhibited and completed residencies in Ohio, Vermont, New York, North Carolina, and internationally in Berlin, Krakow, Mexico, and France. Her work is held in the collections of the Orlando Museum of Art, The Girls’ Club, and Mosquera Collections. She lives and works in Miami.

¹Birkin, Jane. "Art, work, and archives: performativity and the techniques of production." Archive Journal 5 (2015): 1-14

Aurora Molina: The City Beautiful is Turning Ugly | A/A - Online

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Aurora Molina was born in La Havana, Cuba, in 1984. She emigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen, where she opted to pursue an education in art. Molina received her Associate of Arts in Visual Arts from Miami Dade College, a Bachelor in Fine Arts specializing in Mixed Media from Florida International University and a Master's Degree in Contemporary Art at the Universidad Europea de Madrid completed in 2009. She currently resides in Miami, Florida, where she works as a full-time artist, represented since 2011 by Bernice Steinbaum Gallery.

Using the tools of embroidery, sculpture-making, drawing, photography, and video, she uses the potential of fiber art to communicate ideas about social and political issues. Her multifaceted platform provides a sustained and powerful critique of a society that “dismisses” the most vulnerable as they become invisible and hidden from everyday life.

Rosemarie Chiarlone - Imprints

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March 11 - May 16, 2022

WAAM is pleased to present the studio archives of Miami-based artist Rosemarie Chiarlone. The exhibition Imprints takes us on a journey of the artist's studio practice from the 1990s to the present and illustrates Chiarlone's experimentation with design, textual imagery, materiality, and structural forms. To Imprint, is to mark or stamp or make an impression. The nature of an imprint is itself subject to change, as, over time, an imprint can fade, erode or disintegrate. Chiarlone alludes to the ephemerality of the physical and the psychological through visual exploration and deconstruction of language. Textual landscapes on paper, hand-made books, textiles, and organic materials present the viewer with maze-like poetic excursions. In her hand-made books, letters are delicately perforated to form graphic images in relief. Often made in collaboration with poet Susan Weiner, each book unfolds to reveal emblematic words that reference gender, political and social issues. Whether sewn, perforated, or punctured, each word is imbued with a dynamic agency that contains multiple meanings. Chiarlone’s books deftly challenge conventional formats and function on multiple levels including sculpture and installation.

The exhibition includes a selection of books, works on paper, documentation, printed materials, and ephemera. We see the artist’s early interests in fusing book-making techniques with textiles in To Live the Dress, a fabric-bound book laden with dress-making patterns, and To Dress, which is an homage to the youthful play of “dress up”. We also catch a glimpse into Chiarlone’s studio archives. Sketches, paper studies, patterns, and fabric samples illustrate not only the artist’s process and experimentation within the book arts tradition but also point to how she has innovatively redefined how audiences engage with the form and function of books. The exhibition is on view at WAAM at Dimensions Variable from March 11 to May 7, 2022. The exhibition opens on March 11, from 6 to 9 pm.


Rosemarie Chiarlone studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at Florida International University with a BFA and a Master’s degree in the arts. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally.  Her works have most recently been on view at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA and the Center for Book Arts in New York, NY.   She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions including Galerie Verein Berliner Kunstler, Berlin, Germany; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; University of Gloucestershire, England; University of Kyoto, Japan; Universidad de Costa Rica and the Museo de Artsy Diseno Contemporaneo, San Jose, Costa Rica; McMullen Museum of Art, Boston, Massachusetts;  Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL;  Art and Culture

Barbara Young: Journeys in Radical Librarianship

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Nov 19 - Jan 30, 2022

WAAM is pleased to present Barbara Young: Journeys in Radical Librarianship in collaboration with the Miami-Dade Public Library System (MDPLS) Vasari Project archives on July 10. The library’s Vasari Project archives were co-founded by Young and art historian and the Miami Herald art critic emeritus Helen L. Kohen twenty years ago.

This exhibition celebrates and recognizes Miami-based art librarian and curator Barbara Young’s pivotal contributions to Miami's art and cultural landscape. Her unique multidisciplinary approach to librarianship and far-reaching advocacy made the visual arts more accessible to neighborhoods throughout Miami-Dade. During her tenure at the MDPLS, Young radically redefined how memory institutions disseminate public knowledge by widening access to the arts through the tireless promotion of the creative achievements of artists and communities who are traditionally left out of mainstream art discourse.

This exhibition highlights selections from Young’s own personal papers and the Vasari Project that illustrate her expansive and innovative curatorial practice and art activism across the MDPLS. Through archival documentation including exhibition brochures and catalogs, photographs, newspaper clippings, and ephemera, we also journey into the art historical activities of Miami-Dade from the late 70s to the early 2000s.