Retracted.

Okay, Im going to slightly retract my last entry on my blog due to a good family friend showing me the light of South Florida, Miami.

Miami is filled with gorgeous beaches, beautiful people and it has quite the grip on the art thing as well as it is has one of the largest art districts in America. There is an 80 square block area of Miami called Wynwood which encompasses many private collections and galleries that contain everything from contemporary to classical. Not only does Wynwood house the mainstream galleries but also a lot of newer urban art and visiting artists from other parts of the country doing work there. Oh yeah, not to mention that Miami hosts Art Basel from Decemeber 1st-4th which is the United States' most important art show. People from all over the world come to Miami to attend this 4-day event.

I started my tour of Miami with an art show called Private Eye that was put on by LegalART. My 'light-shower' (Jackie Falcone) helped curate this show so this is why I attended. LegalART is Miami's first live-in artist residency program which offers legal aid to the artists to protect their art and their future endeavors as artists. The night was fun, I enjoyed the atmosphere but most of all I enjoyed the art that was up for auction...

I stayed the night in Miami and my guide took me to 2 private collections the next day.

We first went to The Margulies Collection which is in a 45,000 sq. ft. warehouse in Wynwood. The collection is owned by Martin Z. Margulies, who is a prominent art collector in the Miami area. His collection consisted of installations, paintings, photography and sculpture from all over the world. I was mostly interested in the sculpture seeing as this is what I will start studying this coming semester, but there were a ton of interesting pieces that caught my attention.

Donald Judd

Donald Judd's pieces are minimalist in nature and I think thats why they are appealing to me. Conceptually speaking I think he has nailed it with this as he does many of his pieces. Clean, open-spaced, and well constructed.

Magdalena Abakanowicz

Magdalena Abakanowicz has been creating these human figures for quite sometime now. From my research of her, I have gathered that most of the pieces like this are women and children casted out of bronze vice these which are molded from burlap and resin. Im normally not a fan of pieces that have the human figure as the concentration but these are phenomenal pieces. I really enjoy her work.

I couldn't find much info on Barbier but I will say this, I do like this installation. Again, I don't really care for human figure pieces but this got the obvious attention it should due to the decrepit superheroes.

Gilles Barbier

The second private collection we went to was the De La Cruz Collection. The space that the collection is presented in was built exclusively for this purpose, with a full wall of glass windows to let natural light in to show off the artwork. The collection had many interesting contemporary pieces and installations, some of which I could grasp the concept, some which I could not. Here are a few pieces I enjoyed.

Sarah Braman

Ugo Rondinone

Cesar Trasobares

unknown artist

The last part of my art adventure in the Wynwood district of Miami concluded with the second Saturday Art Walk. The Art Walk is when all the galleries and collections stay open until about 10pm on the second Saturday of the month. It gives an opportunity for a lot of people to see the new artwork that has been put up and its nice to get the art community together to experience each others art. Here are a few pieces that I liked and then just some randoms of inside the galleries.

A little girl throwing a Molotov Cocktail.

Random art on a wall in a gallery.

Ellis G. was visiting from Brooklyn and was showing as well. I knew exactly who this was when I saw the shadowed bike in front of the gallery from stuff i've seen in NY.

Okay, so I am going to stand true to my words and say South Florida is horrible BUTTT, I do have to say that Miami's art scene does make up for a lot of what this place lacks. I was very fortunate to be shown 'the light' and I am very appreciative of it. I actually like the art scene in Miami SO much I might apply for residency at legalART next summer. I am stoked to see the scene in Miami so big and I am even more excited to see how much better it gets when I get the chance to come back down here.

Bravo Miami!

So Frustrating.

This town sucks...This part of the country sucks...

I normally don't really hate things or show much dislike for them, haha- I lie, but South Florida is one of the most UN-inspiring, unrelenting parts of the country. The people here suck, the weather generally sucks, and everything is so cookie-cutter it’s disgusting.

The people here frustrate me the most. Everyone always has somewhere to be and they will get there by any means possible as fast as they can. They think that they are better then the next guy and that everyone else should cater to their needs. You have these people that drive their Mercedes Benz's, BMW's and Bentley's that are obnoxiously big and take up 2 parking spots. No one uses a directional. Cars cut you off if there is enough room to fit a car in between you and the car in front of you and then because everyone is using cell phones and not paying attention, you see people cut over 4 lanes of traffic to get in the turn lane to go to the mall. AHHH! So frustrating.

I don't know what it is about the people here but because they were given everything growing up they think they can take anything that is available to them. It's nauseating.

The weather is generally nice here. Maybe I was spoiled by the amazing partly cloudy, 85-90 degree yearlong weather of Hawaii, but I swear it feels like I'm breathing a cup of water every time I take a breath. It is deathly hot most days and very dangerous to ride your bike for an extended period of time. #sadface.

Every house looks like the next. It looks like someone took a 'house'-cutter and just filled it with some cement, glass, tile and some random pastel-y color of pink. Vio-la! You now have a typical house in Boca Raton that you are not allowed alter due to some ridiculous homeowner association political bullshit. I really enjoy architecture, whether it is contemporary or ancient, but there is something about South Florida that just DOESN'T do it for me. Not only is it hard on the eyes, it is also very uninspiring.

A good comparison to this town is the T.V. show ‘Weeds’, the neighborhoods they live in are spot on of how it is here. I just can’t comprehend how people can live in a place like that…I just don’t.

Every time I think about coming back to South Florida to visit my family and friends I get very excited. After spending a couple days here I then remember why I actually don't like this place. If I had no connection to the people or places in South Florida, I would never come here.

Am I being too harsh or does anyone else see these things too?