From colorful murals on highway underpasses to towering sculpture
on oceanside parks, dozens of artists are striking up community
conversations through public art projects for Art Basel Miami Beach,
which runs through Sunday at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
Much of the effort is motivated by the third annual fair, with some
artists creating works specifically for Art Basel and others eager to
give voice to their hometown at a moment when tens of thousands of
residents and visitors are focused on art.
Some of the most visible works will be part of Art Projects, a
showcase of bronze sculpture, mosaic murals, video projections and
other original work produced by 13 artists specifically for Art Basel.
Independent artists, both local and out-of-town, also have chimed
in to the dialogue with murals, interactive exhibits and other
creations.
Taken together, these projects create a patchwork of public art
laced with the individual perspectives of artists from South Florida
and abroad.
Miami muralist Xavier Cortada has been busy transforming dingy
highway underpasses in Allapattah, Miami and Little Havana into Miami
Mangrove Forest. His past public art projects include mosaics and
murals at the State Capitol in Tallahassee, Nike Town at Sunset Place,
the Miami-Dade Department of Juvenile Justice and elsewhere.
With every public art project, Cortada said, he aims to start a
community conversation, usually about who we are, where we come from,
and what we aspire to become.
To that end, Cortada designed nearly 300 unique mangrove seedlings
-- representative of the individual -- and several idyllic murals of
manatees and alligators in psychedelic swirls.
Cortada called mangrove seeds ``the perfect metaphor for an
immigrant and the perfect metaphor for a Floridian.''
Mangroves establish roots, he said, but they also grow in clusters
symbolic of a community. And because the seedlings were painted onto
concrete columns by volunteers from Hands On Miami and students from
Miami International Art University, Cortada sees yet another metaphor
-- of volunteers connecting neighborhoods like the intertwined roots
of the mangrove.
Cortada chose to create his murals on freeway underpasses, he said,
because these are often the concrete barriers that divide
neighborhoods.
''I needed to come up with . . . a way of unifying these disparate
places,'' he said, ``unifying these people and honoring the volunteers
that helped paint these.
``This is about giving Miami its own voice.''
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
Art Basel's public art exhibits, Art Projects, combine a variety of
perspectives from international artists exploring universal issues,
said spokesman Peter Vetsch.
The works, most of them near the Miami Beach Convention Center,
provide people with a chance to ''walk around the city and discover
art,'' Vetsch said.
Among the works in Art Projects: Sculpture by the Cuban duo Los
Carpinteros (The Carpenters), whose work explores issues of
surveillance with three, 12-foot-high watchtowers that will be placed
on the beach behind Collins Park.
Brazilian artist Raul Mourao describes his sculpture Casa/Trincheira
(House/Trench) -- made from 2,070 sandbags stacked into a 9-foot-high,
12-foot-wide, 18-foot-deep building -- as ``a house that doesn't
shelter, a trench that doesn't protect. A house without an inside,
just an outside.''
And artist Simon Lee of Brooklyn will cover the rear section of a
bus with black, plastic sheeting peppered with small holes. As the bus
moves, the holes create images that flow into each other and create a
two-dimensional image of the world outside.
''Some of them are funny. Some of them are more serious,'' Vetsch
said of the works. ``People can discover.''
Discovering communities is a central theme in Yellow Arrow, an
interactive public art project by New York artist Michael Counts.
The project invites people to place specially coded yellow arrow
stickers (available through yellowar row.org or at some local
art galleries) on favorite places and objects -- a view of the city,
an unusual fire hydrant, a local bar -- and create a text message, via
cellphone, using the sticker's code.
Persons who place stickers are also encouraged to photograph the
object and upload it to the website, where Counts is building a global
gallery.
When someone encounters a yellow arrow sticker, they call
646-270-5537, enter the unique code on the arrow sticker and receive
the text message associated with the arrow.
Jesse Shapins, a creative collaborator on Yellow Arrow, said the
objective of Yellow Arrow is ``to say the city of Miami is an artwork,
to curate the city itself.''
Counts launched Yellow Arrow in New York City in the spring and has
taken it across the country and around the world.
The Miami version of Yellow Arrow premiered Thursday, with Counts
curating an exhibit at the former Versace Mansion, Casa Casuarina,
with 75 large light boxes placed throughout the Mediterranean marvel
on Ocean Drive for a party hosted by Piaget jewelry and an
international group of art collectors and personalities.
Beginning today, the lightboxes will be placed on prominent
buildings and locations in Miami Beach, the Design District, Wynwood
and downtown Miami for the remainder of Art Basel, which closes
Sunday.
On Saturday, Counts will present an outdoor slide show of Yellow
Arrow stickers placed around the world -- from Basel, Switzerland, and
Berlin to Miami, New York and San Francisco -- at Glottman Anteprima,
a gallery on 270 NE 39th St., Miami.
Perhaps the best part about Yellow Arrow, Shapins said, is that it
will remain in Miami and other cities indefinitely.
''It's creating a structure where every person has an opportunity
to be an artist,'' he said, ``and be part of an artistic act.''
