Ramiro Lacayo Deshón (Managua, Nicaragua, 1952) is one of the most interesting Central-American painters working these days. Lacayo began in the art world as a writer and filmmaker. In the mid-1970s, during the insurrection against dictator Anastasio Somoza, he joined the Leonel Rugama cinematographic brigade, which documented the armed struggle of the [...]

Lelia Mordoch Gallery - Miami
By Janet Batet
One of the most typifying traits of our contemporary society is the accelerated pace of the modernization we face daily. In this process, where innovation is the key to success for consumerism, the market creates a fictitious need that keeps us in perpetual anxiety. This concern, which certainly meets [...]

In spite of the growing push toward dematerialization of works of art since the pronouncement of the death of art at the end of the nineteenth century, the path toward the immaterial has been historically inhibited by the still dominant notion that it silences art, and that in one way or another translates it into [...]

101/exhibit - Miami

By Janet Batet

Marcus Antonius Jansen is an urban artist. Chronicler of the metropolitan lifestyle and its surroundings, Jansen is interested in exploring the contemporary human condition trapped in the knotty system of the city. “Zeitgeist,” his exhibition at the 101/exhibit gallery, is a vast survey on the latest production of the artist.
Jansen’s childhood [...]

By Janet Batet
On Tuesday, May 12, South Florida environmental activists invaded the beaches of Miami Beach in an extraordinary procession. Dozens of activists broke through the peaceful, clear cloudless sky, covering tourists with sheets of black plastic, which like a gloomy cloak astonished them by inopportunely interrupting their sun bathing. Their performance -an effective allegory [...]

Pan American Art Projects - Miami

La possibilité de vivre commence dans le regard de l’autre.
Houellebecq

By Janet Batet
We should start off by admitting that the old identity-alterity controversy is merely an eccentric illusion opportunely adopted in the past by post-colonial nationalistic politics, in which the individual was labeled as an integral part of a geographically localizable group, [...]

Frost Art Museum, Miami
Through January 10, 2010
By Janet Batet
I have always been obsessed by the controversial ways in which memory manifests itself, keeping us away from the torrid endless suffering and the madness, and all this thanks to forgetfulness.
Gujarat, 2002- The Hindu-Muslim riots and massacres left at least a thousand dead in this industrialized state, [...]

Art Space Virginia Miller Galleries, Miami
By Janet Batet
Under the suggestive title “Joyas Latinoamericanas” (Latin American Jewels), Art Space Virginia Miller Galleries, in Miami, offered us a balanced account of the contemporary art in the region. The presence of great figures, such as, José Clemente Orozco and Francisco Toledo (Mexico); Gina Pellón and Wifredo Lam (Cuba); [...]

By Janet Batet
One of the most interesting polarities that governs the contemporary urban story is duality –an area not devoid of tremendous tension- comprised of public space and private space. This opposing notion, inherited from the Greek polis and consolidated by the Roman Empire, signifies for the West the founding and modeling –at a symbolic [...]

Brooklyn Museum, New York
June 26 - September 20, 2009
By Janet Batet
Yinka Shonibare is undoubtedly one of the most relevant contemporary artists. His dramatic oeuvre, colorful installations recreating scenes from history and art, discusses top current issues such as identity, post colonialism, cross culture and trans-identity.
The Brooklyn Museum offers to us the delightful exhibition “Yinka Shonibare [...]