"Car Looking at the Moon" by Pedro
Vizcaino
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By Leyden Rodriguez,
Tall Rickards, and Adler Guerrier. On view through February 12 at the Green Door Gallery,
212 N Miami Ave, 305-377-3467.
No Tengan Miedo By Xavier Cortada. On
view through January 27 at the Latin American Museum, 2206 SW 8th Street, 305-644-1127.
The Palace of the Lost Children By Pedro
Vizcaino. On view through February 14 at A+ Resources Fine Art Gallery, 7242 Biscayne
Blvd, second floor, 305-758-9667.
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The Green Door Gallery used to be a derelict
construction spot among a monotonous row of secondhand stores on North Miami Avenue. It
came to life when Gary Fonseca and Mino Gerges (both students at the New World School of
the Arts) decided to change things around. These young men wanted something new, something
that stood out against the cheap bazaarlike environment that rules downtown. "We
worked nonstop," says Fonseca. "On weekends we saved money, and on Mondays we
came back to support the space." Both he and Gerges quickly learned the tricks of
building renovation, not without, as Gerges puts it, "a few 220-watt shocks from the
AC." Little by little the place came back to life, and they opened their first show
in March 2000. Today the Green Door Gallery is a downtown center for artistic
effervescence.
The showroom, which takes up the entire second floor,
is literally and metaphorically spacious, as it gives young talent the room to develop and
grow. After seven shows the space has introduced the works Alberto Hernandez, Bhakti
Baxter, Martin Oppel, Allysa Browne, Jay Ore, and Zappalo Michele. The play Zap,
written by Natasha Tsakos and directed by Raquel Almazan, will open February 8.
One evening earlier this month we checked out "pro,"
which includes works by Adler Guerrier, Tall Rickards, and Leyden Rodriguez. Iconoclasm
reverberates throughout the exhibition, in which the three artists portray themselves as
characters in their works. "pro" examines the issues of what counts as
"inside," "professional," or "valid" in today's art world.
In his photographs Rickards uses his own image as a
subject of protest. Back Against the Wall Is Only a Metaphor is a series of color
prints showing the artist (here posing as a boxer) getting whacked against a brick wall by
an invisible adversary. The dramatic sequence reveals frustration and anger over the
etiquette and bad faith of the art market. Rickards also discloses white-collar games of
desire and fetishism in his series Feet on Boss's Desk, in which he and a young
female executive take turns playing the roles of the seducer and the seduced (the female
frontal shots help ease the weirdness).
Rodriguez's BFA, MFA is made up of nine fake
certificates of achievement signed by well-known Miami curators and patrons. These framed
documents, ostentatiously displaying seals of excellence, communicate a basic tension in
our professional culture: Though art is about talent, it sometimes includes empty
validation.
Guerrier simultaneously indulges in and demystifies
the stereotype of the flâneur (that Baudelairian wandering dandy) in The Suit
Makes the Man, a series of color photographs. We follow the artist, dressed as a
businessman and carrying a briefcase, as he aimlessly walks through the empty downtown
streets at night. The sequence invites a reflection on racial solitude within the
confining spaces of urban America. Guerrier's other piece, It Was What Chomsky Said
About Prometheus, seems less cohesive by comparison.
Particularly enjoyable was Interview 2001, a
video interview conducted by local curator Fred Snitzer (playing himself) in which
Rickards, Rodriguez, and Guerrier get a shot at venting their frustrations with the art
market. Because the video legitimizes the very process they seemingly put into question,
this piece remains puzzling. It successfully expresses the maddening circularity of any
critique of the market -- and reminded me of the protected witness in the movie Traffic
as he tries to explain to the feds why putting one dealer out of circulation would only
work to the benefit of another.
Another interesting opening was Xavier Cortada's "No
Tengan Miedo" ("Have No Fear"), at the Latin American Art Museum.
Combining both painting and installation, the exhibition echoes the pope's famous appeal
to the people of Cuba during his historic visit to the island. In paintings such as Abuso
(Abuse), Paredón (Shooting Squad), and Comunión en la Plaza
(Communion at the Square), the artist combines a flair for epic figuration and
drama.
Cortada's figurative paintings take a fresh look at
modern Cuban traditions brought to exile, but his art also is informed by the styles of
Mexican muralists. And though mural painting can be overtly didactic at times, Cortada
brings to these themes an air of emotional immediacy. His assemblages seem less
successful. Although their titles display idiosyncratic wit, they look a bit dislocated
and cluttered, as if the artist hasn't been able to put the idea at the level of the
object. Cortada could heed the minimalist counsel, "Less is more." When he does,
his work flows. Revolución is a seditious piece for both Miami and Cuba. A
miniplunger with four wheels attached translates as a caustic ideogram, suggesting the
popular expression revolver la mierda (to splatter the shit), which Cortada
believes has been Cuba's reality for as long as one can remember, before and after Castro.
On the other side of town, A+ Resources Fine Art
Gallery opened "The Palace of the Lost Children," a beautiful show by
Pedro Vizcaino. With a sort of kaleidoscopic expressionist gesture, Vizcaino invites us
into an imaginary world where red scissors, UFOs, helicopters, airplanes, and tanks come
to life. These artifacts (produced by what looks like scribbles) seem to invite a
friendship with the audience; they speak an extraterrestrial language alien to our day and
age. Vizcaino uses cartoon dialogue boxes, but he doesn't write in them. They remain empty
of words, filled with the Prussian-blue sky where Vizcaino's children wish to escape.
Unlike the sugary gloss we often find in today's overloaded pop references, Vizcaino's
images are bittersweet. In his hands these pop allusions exhibit a odd innocence. He
achieves a realm that doesn't exist and hasn't for a while.