MIAMI ART WEEK 2017
A series of site-sensitive commissions in public areas of the Faena District Miami Beach. Immersive, site-sensitive commissions by international artists Phillip K. Smith III, Studio Drift, Peter Tunney, and artistic interventions on the Faena Forum’s façade by Miami-based artist Kelly Breez, collective Coral Morphologic, and Argentine artist Martin Borini, will activate the Faena District.
Alan Faena explains, “We have redefined the way we live in cities by building a strong community anchored in art and culture. The Faena District is envisioned as a space for a multiplicity of voices and artistics practices. For this edition of Miami Art Week we are proud to present artists working on a range of media in public space.”
Curated by Ximena Caminos (Chair and Artistic Director of FAENA ART), these public and immersive interventions keep with the mission to serve the community and create spaces for experimentation and social interaction; expanding the commitment to offer free, public programming to the city of Miami and to support local artists.
Miami based artist Kelly Breez, the science/art collective Coral Morphologic, and Argentine artist Martin Borini intervened the OMA / Rem Koolhaas-designed façade of the Faena Forum with digital video and animations. The 3D-mapped projections are invitations for the public to experience contemporary art in the public sphere as an urban architectural intervention. Kelly Breez’s existential cartoonish drawings and scrawled lettering pose questions that are both profound and comical. Coral Morphologic’s video work celebrates the synchronicity behind the sexual reproduction of the corals proposing that unlocking the secrets of coral reproduction is a culminating achievement in humankind’s quest for the colonization of planet Earth and a first step towards restoring a healthy biosphere. Their beautiful and luminescent patterns of phosphorescent corals evoke the beautiful geometry and colors of the naturally occurring forms in our environment. Martin Borini’s work approximates white noise and intervenes the façade as if there was a glitch in the system. The images are generated from small variations in a force feedback of a closed system, creating superimposing and unique images using the generative loop as content origin. His work consists of live visual performances and stage design, both under a clear state of art thinking development using original visual techniques combined in an overall process with art direction and technology.
The Faena Beach was activated by three monumental, immersive and participatory site-specific installations.
Unifying a large swath of the Faena Beach is artist Phillip K Smith III with a new iteration of the work he created earlier this year at Desert X in the Coachella Valley. What was once a sacred circle in the desert of California is here converted into an arc that seems to hold the sea, a mirrored cove that opens up towards the Caribbean. The work creates a reflective space within the beach environment—the mirrored steel structural elements disappear and meld into the pure elements of water and sky. The artwork directly engages with the ocean surrounding and the endless heavens. As the light shifts over the course of the day and the viewer moves through the installation, land, water and sky are separated, merged, and displaced, subverting one’s assumed relationship with the horizon and natural boundaries. It is a constantly morphing installation that can never be seen the same way twice.
Artist Peter Tunney has been carefully collecting for months giant pieces of the infamous abandoned casino from Atlantic City and is now converting it into a site-specific installation at the Faena Miami Beach. The artist’s access to the demolition of the casino led to an obsession with the monumental pieces from the façade and rooftop of the building which created the illusion of the self-titled, “8th wonder of the world,” the Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino. Giant chandeliers, a two-ton ornate concrete elephant and towering letters emerged out of the sand. Tunney’s installation of metal, glass, gold, concrete and steel finds extreme beauty in ruins.
Dutch duo Studio Drift, supported by FAENA ART and in partnership with BMW and Pace Gallery, premiered Franchise Freedom, a performative artwork at the interface between technology, science, and art on the beach of Faena District. An autonomous flying swarm of 300 drones, Franchise Freedom, exposes the tension between individual freedom and safety by numbers. The sacrifice made by the individual subjecting to the group gives off the illusion of freedom, creating a never ending cycle. It was the first time that a natural phenomenon was imitated by machines working with decentralized algorithms at this scale.
SHYLIGHT
Certain types of flowers close at night, for self-defence and to conserve their resources. This highly evolved natural mechanism is called ‘nyctinasty’ and inspired Studio Drift to create Shylight for Faena Beach Dome; nine sculptures that unfolds and retreats in a fascinating choreography, mirroring that of real flowers.