LnS Gallery is proud to announce the inclusion of represented artist, T. Eliott Mansa into the permanent collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. The impacting assemblage, Victory of John Henry, (2020), has been acquired by the PAMM through the generous donation of Max König.

Victory of John Henry, (2020) references the legendary race of the African American folk hero, tasked with hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel, against a steam drill machine. This narrative connects the importance of the role of African American labor to Western expansion and the financing of the industrial revolution. Victory of John Henry, (2020), consists of materials associated with mourning in Black Atlantic culture, such as sea shells, teddy bears, dolls, plastic flowers and foliage. Through this material usage, Mansa acknowledges and centers the memory of the ancestors as well as those lost to state violence and social injustice.

LnS Gallery announces the inauguration of Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic, the first survey of Soriano’s invaluable work in Madrid, Spain taking place at Casa de América. The exhibition is curated by Elizabeth Goizueta of the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College. Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic, is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue, and will be on view from March 24 – May 26, 2023.

The tale begins with moments from the artist’s early years investigating Geometric Abstraction, and shows the progression to his mature style in a biomorphic language that becomes synonymous with the cosmic imagery of Soriano’s practice.

Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic, was made possible through the collaboration of the McMullen Museum of Art and the Rafael Soriano Foundation. LnS Gallery & the Rodriguez Family are proud to have supported this project along with the Fortress Storage to make this historic exhibition possible.

EXPLORE

Room for the Living/Room for the Dead is a touching site-specific installation project commission by Locust Projects, funded in part by the Oolite Arts Ellie Creator Award, received by T. Eliott Mansa in October 2022. On view November 29, 2022 – February 04, 2023.

The immersive and interactive installation merges the concept of Florida / Family rooms as a home’s casual, social hub for gathering, entertainment and play, with that of less-used living rooms that served as shrines for treasured family photos and heirlooms. Inspired/influenced by the artist’s friend and writer Noelle Barnes’ living room and the artist’s own memories of sunken living rooms of the 1970s, the artist considers the cultural phenomena of the living room as unlived, unoccupied, untouched spaces that children and guests were prohibited from using.

As an alternative, many people used ‘Florida/Family rooms’ to entertain company and watch television. Meanwhile, in the ‘unlived’ living rooms, many elders wrapped the furniture in protective plastic. For Mansa, these living rooms were treated as shrines–a space honoring one’s ancestors and those who have traveled beyond this plane. With this installation, the artist seeks to collapse the dichotomy between the ‘Living Room’ as shrine, and the ‘Florida/Family room’ in a way that creates ‘a room for the living’ as much as ‘a room for the dead’.

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A special acknowledgement to LnS Gallery represented artist William Osorio on being selected for a 12-month residency at The Bakehouse Art Complex. The Bakehouse Art Complex offers affordable studios, shared workshop spaces, and artist advancement among other amenities, to professional emerging and mid-career artists of local, national or international origin.

Bakehouse is one of the oldest artist-serving organizations in Miami, with studios of varying sizes, two galleries, a classroom, print room, photography lab, ceramics facilities, and woodworking, and welding areas. These spaces, unavailable outside of university campuses, has and continues to enable artists to work, make, discover, learn, and share their practices and work with each other and the broader community.

A special acknowledgement to LnS Gallery represented artist T.Eliott Mansa on being selected as one of the winners of the 2019 The Ellies Awards provided by Oolite Arts. “For an exhibition that honors the African-American victims of state violence, using objects from grassroots roadside memorials, while referencing African sculptural art forms and the vernacular yard sculptures of the South.”

The Ellies are Miami’s Visual Art Awards. They celebrate the individual artists who are the backbone of Miami’s visual arts community. The Creator Awards look to support working artists with grants that help realize a significant visual arts project.

A special acknowledgement to LnS Gallery represented artists Michael Loveland and William Osorio on being selected for the Oolite Art’s Home + Away Residency. The Anderson Ranch Arts Center and Atlantic Center for the Arts offer a chance to bring a little bit of home to an opportunity for artistic growth in another city. Each is a residency takeover: Oolite Arts will bring a dozen Miami artists to both Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colo., and Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., so they can foster new connections with each other and with the international art world. During these two residencies, the dozen Miami artists at each location will experience the inspiration of new settings and special programming, while exchanging ideas and forming collaborations with their fellow Miami artists.

The exhibition Unquiet Harmony: The Subject of Displacement examines individual and global perspectives from which artists have engaged with issues surrounding migration. Featuring works by painter Carlos Alfonzo, multimedia artist Tiffany Chung, and the artistic collective SUPERFLEX, this installation focuses on personal, environmental, and economic factors that prompt the translocation of individuals across land and sea. In so doing, this group show facilitates conversations about inclusion, community, and belonging in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

“Reconstructing Identity”, presented by The Miami Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora (@miamimocaad) at the Historic Ward Rooming House.

The exhibition is curated by Donnamarie Baptiste (@dm_baptiste) and features: Christopher Carter, Duwane Coates, Morel Doucet, Adler Guerrier, Rhea Leonard, Francisco Maso, Kandy Lopez-Moreno, Sharon Norwood, Onajide Shabaka, Asser Saint Val, and (LnS Family) T. Eliott Mansa.

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Asad Raza, Gabriela Rangel, and Rina Carvajal organized by MOAD and Americas Society.

Featuring works by Niv Acosta and Fannie Sosa, Etel Adnan, Carlos Alfonzo, Kader Attia, Belkis Ayón, Yto Barrada, Daniel Boyd, Tania Bruguera, Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste, Agustín Cárdenas, Maya Deren, Manthia Diawara, Melvin Edwards, Juan Francisco Elso, Öyvind Fahlström, Simone Fattal, Theaster Gates, Andrea Geyer, Sylvie Glissant, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Koo Jeong A, Wifredo Lam, Glenn Ligon, Lani Maestro, Roberto Matta, Julie Mehretu, Ana Mendieta, The Otolith Group, Amelia Pelaez, André Pierre, Walid Raad, Raqs Media Collective, Anri Sala, Antonio Seguí, Elena Tejada-Herrera, Pierre Verger, Jack Whitten, and Andros Zins-Browne.

Curated by Jonathan David Katz

Featuring works by Carlos Alfonzo, Ralph Arnold, Shimon Attie, Amos Badertscher, Joan E. Biren, Rashayla Marie Brown in collaboration with Brianna McIntyre, Roger Brown, Jerome Caja, Nick Cave, Tianzhuo Chen, John Dugdale, Bob Faust, Gilbert & George Maria Elena Gonzalez, Hervé Guibert, Harmony Hammond, Keith Haring, Lyle Ashton Harris, Sharon Hayes, Richard Hofmann, Peter Hujar, Bill Jacobson, Deborah Kass, Greer Lankton, Attila Richard Lukacs, Harvey Milk, Kent Monkman, Carlos Motta, Zanele Muholi, Alice O’Malley, Carl Pope, Marlon Riggs, Jacolby Satterwhite, Leonard Suryajaya, Gail Thacker, Keijaun Thomas, Arthur Tress, Del LaGrace Volcano, Sophia Wallace, and Martin Wong.

A pre-eminent example of Alfonzo’s form system lies in the context of scenography and theatrics in A Tongue to Utter, in concert with Ballerinas, a suite of 3-dimensional sculptures born of and mirroring the painting’s imagery. Following the artist’s intention for the works to be presented together as a theatrical performance in a public space, they were first exhibited in a landmark 1989 show at Lannan Museum. “Ballerinas shouldn’t be closeted in a private garden; their figures should be released to dance audience,” said the artist of his fully-realized mise-en-scène. Across the massive canvas which serves as tonal backdrop, three ballerina figures perform a darkly feverish, energetic dance amidst the disembodied forms characteristic of Alfonzo’s work. In kinetic dialogue with the painted forms, the three dancing sculptures embody a lighter, more joyful reflection; the layered elements further advance the artists messaging through his theatrical use of forms, the brutality of which one must take note. The artist uses piercing instruments to convey martyrdom, violence, and to communicate his political messages: the stabbed tongue is symbolic of the censorship endured by Cuban artists, the dancer’s leg punctured by nails references the oppression of creativity.

In a historical opportunity, these works are today rejoined for the first time in more than 25 years, poised to resume their formidable, dynamic performance on a public scale.

Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Cuban Legacy Gallery at the Freedom Tower presents Cuban Streams: 1855 – 1965, a multimedia installation by Miami artist César Trasobares. The installation features captivating and immersive video projections that highlight historical photographs of the island nation from the collection of Ramiro A. Fernández.

An exhibition featuring over thirty artists, including Sinuhe Vega Negrin. The exhibition aims to address the influences and implications of the sport in different societies and Contemporary Art. This exhibition responds to the multilayered aspects of the game of soccer, or fútbol. Engaging social and political issues or depicting common humanity built around the sport, these artists reflect on the role of the game with society. Coinciding with the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, the international men’s soccer tournament, this exhibition not only commemorates the spectacle of convening nations but also reflects Miami’s diverse population through the sport’s transnational nature.

The Aesthetics & Values seminar of the FIU Honors College examines the vital role visual art plays in the social and cultural dialogue surrounding controversial issues. This annual project provides students with the opportunity to research, curate, and organize an on-campus exhibition of contemporary Miami artists, including Jennifer Basile whose work is pictured above. 

“10,000 Years of Miami is the artist’s reflection on his journey of self-discovery, and his rediscovery of Miami’s rich and diverse history. It is our hope that this exhibition challenges the notion of what the popular perception of Miami is and its reality; that it engages us all in self-reflection and brings awareness of our interconnectedness.” By Gendry Sherer, Director & Curator, Airport Fine Arts & Cultural Affairs. JW Bailly’s exhibition “10,000 Years of Miami” is in the Central Terminal Gallery just past the Concourse E security checkpoint. When traveling, the exhibition is accessible from Concourse D or E. See more images of the exhibition here.