Miami – Nari Ward and the “Global Positioning Systems” Group Show at the Perez Art Museum, On View Now

December 13th, 2015

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Nari Ward, We the People (2011), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Positioned just off the MacArthur Causeway in downtown Miami, the Perez Art Museum stands as a striking icon of Miami’s new art world caché, and seems to be a favorite auxiliary stop among Art Basel fairgoers each December.  Its lush, airy Herzog de Meuron design and expansive gallery spaces host one of Art Week Miami’s more popular evening events with its annual commission performance.  This year, the museum has opened its doors to a series of impressive exhibitions during Miami Art Week, including a group exhibition titled Global Positioning Systems, and a retrospective dedicated to Jamaican-born artist Nari Ward.

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Nari Ward, We the People (2011), detail, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nari Ward, Scandal Bag: History Feeds Mistrust (2015), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nari Ward, Savior (1996) and Pushing Savior (1996), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nari Ward, Glory (2004) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Ward, the NYC-based artist whose diverse aesthetic interests have led to a wide body of work investigating racial identity, commodity culture, poverty and international politics, has mounted a diverse exhibition here, alternating between photography, found objects, sculpture and installation.  Culling together his pieces from found objects and repurposed structures, Ward turns his raw material into subversively complex exercises in identity and geography.  His Happy Smilers installation, for instance, repurposes one room as a discount store, filled with discarded firehouse, used furniture and a suspended fire escape, a juxtaposition that explores the dissonance of his arrangements against the bright lights, color, and music of the space.  In another work, he creates a stars and stripes tanning bed, which would burn a stark American flag pattern on an intrepid user.  The work bore a distinct sense of the subtle alienations of modern global capitalism, as cultural touchstones lost their ground in the face of their utilization as more broad, culturally vacant objects, leaving only an ominous sense of distance from the work, or its compositional elements.

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Nari Ward, Jacuzzi Bed (2013) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nari Ward, Happy Smilers: Duty Free Shopping (1996) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nari Ward, Happy Smilers: Duty Free Shopping (1996) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nari Ward, Mango Tourist (2011) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nari Ward, Canned Smiles (2013) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

In the other exhibitions spaces, the museum had selected a group of works exploring similar notions of distributed identity and pluralities of meaning, interpretation and time.  Titled Global Positioning Systems, the pieces on view often posed shared touchstones and spaces: cities, landmarks and geographic regions, as sites of varying cultural construction and interpretation.  In one work by Penelope Umbrico, the artist had compiled a vast selection of pictures of the sun from hosting site Flickr, manifesting a hypnotic wall of orange, blue and yellow hues that underscored the multiple vantage points and perspectives of the single celestial body.  Elsewhere, Nicolas Lobo’s The Leisure Pit, shown in one of the space’s project galleries and closing next week, combined casts from storm drains with other works underscoring the intersections of rave culture with the iconography of high-end fashion, resulting in a strange structure that felt tied to both urban infrastructure and the interlinked threads of modern urban life through a minimal use of material.

Both exhibitions, exploring diverse threads of the globalized experience in the 21st century are on view now.  Ward’s exhibition closes on February 21st while Global Positioning Systems is ongoing.

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Lawrence Weiner, A Wall Built To Face The Land & Face The Water At The Level Of The Sea (2008) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Simon Vega, Tropical Mercury Capsule (2010) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Jeff Wall, Intersection (2008) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Sheela Gowda, And that is no lie (2015) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Penelope Umbrico, 28,524,323 Suns from Sunsets from Flickr (Partial) 08/03/2015 (2015)
Penelope Umbrico, 28,524,323 Suns from Sunsets from Flickr (Partial) 08/03/2015 (2015) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Nicolas Lobo, The Leisure Pit (2015) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (742-4) (1991) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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John Ahearn in collaboration with Rigoberto Torres, Double Dutch (1981-2010) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Danh Vo, We The People (Detail) (2011-2013) Edouard Duval Carrié, After Heade - Moonlit Landscape (2013)
Danh Vo, We The People (Detail) (2011-2013) and Edouard Duval Carrié, After Heade – Moonlit Landscape (2013) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Allora & Calzadilla, Bieké o Muerte (2001/2006) via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

 

All images Courtesy of Sophie Kitching

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Perez Museum of Art [Exhibitions]

 

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2015 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Art News, Featured Post, Show. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.