Articles: 2016
Five More Poets
Poetry from Miami reflects the diversity of the city itself. We don’t just mean writers’ nations of origin, ethnicity, and subculture. There is no single style one could identify as a Miami school of poetry. There are no factions either. One dip of the stick into the poetic wetlands and up comes narrative drama, fragmentation, spoken word, formalism, and more. Such factions and schools are foolish anyway. Miami is an organic case in point. — Annik Adey-Babinski — Michael Martin ArtSpeak Poetry Editors Caroline...
read moreOur Lady of Clarity
Editor’s Note: Although ArtSpeak has published fiction by James Gilbert in the past, we have decided to become more systematic in our approach, and we are pleased to introduce a new fiction section featuring short stories, excerpts from novels, excerpts from works in progress – all written by people with connections to Miami and South Florida. For our first offering, ArtSpeak fiction editor Jamie Eubanks selected a chapter from a novel in progress by Fabienne Josaphat, author of Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow. We meet Mary...
read moreSixth Annual New Work Program Performed by the New World Symphony
The New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy (NWS), performed its sixth annual New Work program on April 29th at the New World Center. The New Work programs are dedicated to commissioning and premiering new pieces from high-profile and developing artists across a range of genres — combining music with theater, dance, poetry, video, lighting and other art forms. The program included a brand new stage production of Niccolò Castiglioni’s Inverno In-Ver, the premiere performance of an orchestral version of Oscar...
read moreZero Net Energy
LET’S MAKE MIAMI A NET ZERO METROPOLIS !
The built environment accounts for the lion’s share of climate changing carbon emissions, whether as energy consumed by buildings, or by cars moving through our cities’ streets, or as habitat lost to development. To be better stewards of the Earth, we need to ask how we can reduce the amount of resources used to construct and operate our built environment.
The Surf Club Now, 21st Century
The venerable Surf Club in Surfside, Florida, recently reopened as an ultra-luxury complex that includes a Four Seasons hotel, condominiums, two restaurants, and four swimming pools to complement its 900 feet of beachfront. The ’30s era building was purchased by developer Fort Partners from the remaining members of the club, restored to its former grandeur, and is now enveloped by glass towers designed by modernist architect Richard Meier. It could be argued that the project is recapturing the upper crust...
read moreThe Surf Club Then, 20th Century
In 2012, I had the opportunity to interview Charles Gilatt, the oldest living member of The Surf Club. Charles Gilatt: The wind used to whistle through The Surf Club because originally they didn’t have a roof over it. There was a main walkway, but it was open-sided toward where lunch was served. After World War II, Winston Churchill used to sit in the lunch area with a bottle of scotch. I was a young man, but we were told, ‘Don’t talk to Mr. Churchill. He doesn’t want to be talked to.’ The manager of the club...
read moreThe Accidental Dönmeh
Editor’s note: In 2016, Alfredo Garcia submitted a story to ArtSpeak about Jonatas Chimen, a Brazilian-born and raised artist, who moved to Miami at the age of 16. Though Chimen was Catholic, he was soon being asked if he was Jewish. That question, and the elusive response of his family, launched Chimen on a ten year journey, culminating in the knowledge that his family was forced to convert from Judaism to Catholicism in 1492 during the Spanish Inquisition. Chimen gathered all of the paperwork he had amassed...
read moreHead Wraps
Editor’s Note: In 2016, ArtSpeak published a video interview with artist Firelei Báez, whose exhibition at the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) featured large-scale portraits of Black women wearing headscarves. During the video interview, Ms. Báez discussed the historical significance of headscarves, noting that around the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804, AfroCreole women in Louisiana were forced to keep their heads covered. In resistance, the women adopted elaborate headscarves and created a subversive form of beauty. ...
read moreFinding Purvis Young
“All my life in Florida, you know where the train tracks is: Colored Town….I been used to seeing the railroads. I’m scared that I might go to another part of America and they ain’t got no railroads! [laughs] I love railroads! I put it in my artwork. Railroads. Run-down houses. It’s all in my artwork.” Walk into the special collections archive at Florida International University’s Green Library and ask to watch VHS no. 1568. Purvis Young appears in the video, sitting in a familiar pose —...
read moreHow Berenice Abbott’s Photographs Look to a 21st Century Photographer
When I delved into photography in the mid-1970s, Berenice Abbott became known to me as one of the greats of modern photography. Her work informed and influenced my early work and still interests and inspires me forty years later. Now, having had a successful career of my own in photography, when I study Ms. Abbott’s photographs on exhibit at The Wolfsonian-FIU, I do not find them as aesthetically compelling as some of her renowned contemporaries like Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, Robert...
read more