A pop-up maze in a pop-up forest is coming for Art Week; Miami gets to keep the trees
The iconic fragrance Chanel No. 5 is celebrating its centenary with a gift to Miami: a full-size labyrinth opening Art Week that will be free for visitors.
Immersion artist Es Devlin will create “Five Echoes,” a circular installation ensconced in a temporary forest in the Miami Design District’s Jungle Plaza. The massive sculpture measures 100 feet in diameter, with walls rangstrike a chord.
“How do we connect with nature here? Many of us move here trying to find that connection,” she says. “A show like this can bring about questions of the way you look at things and the impact that has in your life.”
“For the Time Being” spans six decades and features at least 50 pieces from throughout the world: “Some are from Iceland’s museums and private collections. We are bringing works from Europe — from Berlin, from Spain — and we have borrowed works from collectors in the United States.”
This will mark the first American museum exhibition for the artist, according to MOAD.
During a phone interview from Amsterdam, Fridfinnsson discusses one particular 1971 diptych that’s in the exhibition: a pair of photographs entitled, “Drawing a Tiger.” One image depicts the artist as a boy in 1952, sitting on a bale of hay and sketching a tiger. The adjacent photograph captures the artist in the same pose, but as an adult. Fridfinnsson uses this example to describe the exploration of self.
“I’m 9 years old and I am drawing this tiger and it’s a good drawing. Then, 20 years later, I’m in the Netherlands and I’m this grownup with hippie long hair,” he says. “You can see that the kid is completely motivated in the moment, but the adult … ”
Look closely at the drawing paper in front of the adult artist and notice it is blank. A 2019 article in the international magazine, Artforum, says the second photograph “reveals a hint of agnosticism.”
Carvajal explains that the beauty in the artist’s work is his poetic restraint: “He never unveils what is behind this storytelling, but leaves it open for the viewer to attach their own meaning to it.”
The second exhibition, ing from 3 to 22 feet high, and will be activated with sound, light — and naturally, scent — components.
Once the labyrinth is dismantled, the 1,000 trees and plants used to create the temporary “forest” will be replanted in parks throughout Miami-Dade County.
Iconic fashion designer Coco Chanel grew up in the French countryside surrounded by woods — scents that helped inform her sensibilities and the creation of the No. 5 fragrance. Nature is also a key
“Mongrel,” is a site-specific, immersive installation that taps into the artist’s past, including his childhood memories as a Cuban refugee. Upon arriving in Miami, Pardo was processed with his family at the historic Freedom Tower, which now houses the museum. He now divides his time between New
York City and Mérida, Mexico.
“He has a strong connection to the building where we are located and to Miami,” Carvajal says. “This is a very personal project for Jorge.”
Finally, there’s Beltrán’s “Constructed Color,” which inaugurates MOAD Projects, a new series focused on Miami artists.
The artist, whose studio is in East Hialeah, creates abstract paintings using a technique in which he builds cubes then pours layers of paint to create solid blocks. After it sets, he slices the cubes of paint and applies them onto wooden panels and other surfaces.
“I started making the layers of paint 12 years ago or more, and then, the process is complicated, so I came to a roadblock. I started exploring other things,” Beltrán says.
But he couldn’t shake the idea of the blocks: “I wanted to reconnect with this work. Really figure it out.”
The exhibition at
MOAD, he says, is the result of what he has been theme for Devlin, whose mirrored maze “Forest of Us” is on view at Superblue Miami.
“If works of art can help us to see ourselves as part of the biosphere and symbiotically fused with it, if we can start to see plants and animals as equal protagonists as ourselves in life, I believe we have a better chance of making the fundamental behavioral shifts that are necessary not only to avoid climate chaos, but also to live in a more just, equitable, and joyful way,” said Devlin in
“exploring for the past five or six years, so it is definitely new work.”
Though he and the other two artists all are different in their works and approach, “we all have certain sensibilities that connect us,” Beltrán says. “Hreinn’s work is poetic and sentimental, and connects with the way my paintings feel, especially when you see them in person. He deals with time, too, like I do.
“Jorge Pardo has this fractal sense and his ideas of memory and place in a statement.
Coco Chanel stood for timeless style, and her signature Chanel No. 5 fragrance has lived up to its reputation. After 10 decades, it remains one of the world’s best-selling scents, according to beauty publications.
“Five Echoes,” by Es Devlin, Nov. 30 - Dec. 21 in the Miami Design District, 3801 NE 1st Ave., Miami. Free.
AJane Wooldridge: 305-376-3629, @JaneWooldridge environment. These are the things that roughly connect the three of us.”
Artist Jorge Pardo will join curator Lynne Cooke at the museum to discuss his work at 3 p.m. Sunday. Art historian Juan Ledezma will speak with artist Loriel Beltrán about the exhibition during an online event at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. Both talks are free but require registration.
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