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.

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

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Lehmann Maupin’s “Friends with Benefits,” installation view. All photography by M. Peralta for Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

“Friends with Benefits,” Lehmann Maupin‘s summer group show on view at their location at 201 Chrystie Street, is a correspondence between generations that reveals the concerns of each. The gallery asked five of their artists–Tony Oursler, Angel Otero, Tim Rollins, Mickalene Thomas, and Nari Ward–to ­­request work from young artists they would like to support. Curated by Carla Camacho and Drew Moody, the result is an appealing disjunction of artistic histories, showing contemporary artists engaged with the concerns of a former generation while also reflecting on the artistic currents of their own time. The exhibition’s starting point, as described in the press release, is the notion of “the gallery community as a fertile space,” which takes a positive stance on the white cube as a place where older artists can encourage the work of younger artists.

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