MOCA Leads Us To Art Basel Miami Beach 2016
By: Hope Wilkos, Writer
We have all been craving that crazy cultural breeze that blows into Miami every year in the November-December time frame. This artistic phenomenon invading the stylish southern metropolitan city, home to a host of celebrities, is known as Art Basel Miami Beach. With it comes a diverse sense of creative energy to ignite South Beach and all its surrounding areas.
This year, Art Basel kicks off in Miami Beach on December 1st and runs through December 4, 2016. It is the perfect opportunity to view amazing masterpieces from famous and emerging artists, in addition to films and stimulating performances in a jam-packed four day extravaganza. The event is one of the largest of its kind in South Florida, drawing a very extensive audience from all across the world.
With the curiosity building and a wave of excitement continuing to infiltrate the ocean air, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, is kicking off Art Basel Miami Beach week in its own unique manner. On Wednesday, November 30, 2016, MOCA will present an exhibition called ‘The Other Dimension’, an innovative and artistic presentation which addresses the constant human concern for universal communication through forms, symbols and codes. The exhibition is a must see and since it continues all the way through January 22, 2017, there is plenty of time to put it on your ‘to do’ calendar.
‘The Other Dimension’ is the work of Cuban-born, Miami artist Antuan Rodriguez and the exhibition will be curated by Jorge Luis Gutierrez. As part of the event, a meet and greet with the artist will take place on Wednesday, November 30, 2016 from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Born in Villa Clara, Cuba, Rodriguez graduated from the Universidad Felix Varela with a specialty of Fine Arts. With an intense training in visual arts, he left Cuba for France to continue his training and education in art. He also holds a Master’s degree in Bronze Casting under the direction of sculptor Joseph Castell and was granted a Fine Arts Scholarship to receive his Master’s degree specializing in Iron and Resin at the Atelier D’Ros Mari in Valencia, Spain. Since then, Rodriguez designed and produced many prestigious exhibitions around the world, including Base Paint, during Art Basel Miami Beach in 2010.
“The Antuan Rodriguez exhibition is the latest in MOCA’s storied succession of cutting-edge contemporary art presentations,” said Colebrook-Williams. “Our mission continues to be to present diverse programs and serve the entire South Florida community. MOCA is equally proud of the international outlook it is able to present with support from regional artists, especially during the Art Basel Miami Beach season when the eyes of the global art world are focused here.”
There is an interesting complexity that makes ‘The Other Dimension’ one to enthrall art enthusiasts. The Other Dimension reveals an artist who sees the universe from a range of diverse scientific, philosophical and cultural perspectives, all integrated into one single approach. The exhibition will be presented in seven differentiated rooms, symbolizing five narratives that are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct. Rodriguez’s inventive artistic layout among the exhibition spaces makes The Other Dimension a participatory show for all audiences.
“Within this framework, exhibition visitors encounter Antuan’s works in an expressive itinerary of installations — mixed media and video – which interprets human thought and reality in the combination and variants of myth, metaphor and archetype,” says Gutierrez. “Antuan’s pluralistic perspective itself constitutes a middle-ground between created and realist approaches to meanings, which leave viewers with more paths to follow and tales to spin.”
“You won’t see Rodriguez’s unique art presentation anywhere else in South Florida,” MOCA’s Interim Director Natasha Colebrook-Williams said. “He will transform the gallery space into a territory of interaction, a space with many questions and not necessarily many answers.”
The Other Dimension follows the idea of the exhibition as a space of discovery, a continuum of stories presented by the artist. As such, Rodriguez’s artworks never seem to cease, as if there is always more to come. Artwork made from objects of use, fragments, parts, and add-ons are characterized more by their components than as a methodological strategy.
The Other Dimension will present five narratives composed of:
1- Words that Kill – Transition Narrative (Poetics of Connectivity)
2- Changing Our Fables (Political Belief Systems)
3- On the Verge of the Other Dimension
4- The Other Dimension
5- Archeology of Paths (The Archive)
Which are followed by:
6- Om Mani Padme Hum (video room)
7- Precarious Balance: Left or Right (installation in the MOCA courtyard)
The Museum is located at 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami, FL 33161. It is open Tuesday–Friday from 11 a.m.–5 p.m., Saturday 1–9 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m.–5 p.m. (closed Mondays and major holidays). For more information, visit mocanomi.org or call 305-893-6211. If you have never attended Art Basel, make sure and take the time to see what the buzz is about beginning on December 1st, 2016.
Photo Credit : Antuan Rodriguez.
