The walkthrough will start at 2:45PM. Please arrive at the gallery no later than 2:40PM.
Pa-Hay-Okee: Land of 'Grassy Waters' opens at ArtServe on April 14, 2022
Location: ArtServe, 1350 E. Sunrise Boulevard, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33304.
In recognition of Earth Day, ArtServe will open an environmental art exhibit on Thursday, April 14 titled “Pa-Hay-Okee—Land of Grassy Water” dedicated to the urgency of preserving and restoring Florida’s fragile ecology and Everglades ecosystem.
With support from Funding Arts Broward, Pay-Hay-Okee kicks off on April 14 with a panel discussion from 6 to 7 p.m. with artists Christina Pettersson, Deborah Mitchell and Jenna Efrein, joined by Diana Umpierre of Sierra Club. The panel will be followed by an opening reception and preview of the exhibit’s artworks from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Art has become an indispensable method for increasing knowledge, raising appreciation and inspiring action on the environment,” explained ArtServe Guest Curator and ARTSail founder Ombretta Agró Andruff. “We hope that through this exhibition and its accompanying educational program, our audience will explore, fall in love with and learn to care for the life-sustaining ecosystem right in our backyard.”
The idea for Pa-Hay-Okee, a Seminole Tribe phrase meaning “grassy waters,” originated in a powerful online discussion hosted by ARTSail and ArtServe in 2020 with environmental activist Robert Mitchell that explored the environmental complexities of the Lake Okeechobee region and addressed how artists can actively help spur action on social and ecological, resiliency and sustainability issues impacting Florida communities.
Since then, Andruff has conducted expeditions through the Everglades and Lake O. region, interviewing activists, scientists and environmental experts to better understand the challenges faced by the Kissimmee-Lake Okeechobee-Everglades watershed, as it was originally known.
Together with Andruff, ArtServe curator Sophie Bonet has gathered an impactful collection of multi-disciplinary works and performances designed to inspire meaningful discussion, along with public understanding and appreciation for the plight and beauty of the Florida wetlands. Exhibiting artists include Priscilla Aleman, Alissa Alfonso, Elisabeth Condon, Jenna Efrein, Simon Faithfull, Tom Grill, Lucinda Linderman, Deborah Mitchell, Christina Pettersson and Laurencia Strauss.
“Pa-Hay-Okee” artists have captured the beauty, fragility and diversity of the Florida wetlands and the flora and fauna that inhabits them in unique and profound ways. The artists’ contributions span a variety of media, from lens-based work by Faithfull and Strauss, to fiber work and tapestries by Alfonso and Linderman, along with powerful multi-media installations and drawings by Pettersson, Mitchell, Efrein and Aleman, and delicate watercolors by Condon.
The exhibition is timed to Earth Day on Friday, April 22.
“Pa-Hay-Okee” will feature installations and engagements that promote ecological awareness and explore threats to Florida’s environment, while drawing a sense of urgency to the human impact on South Florida’s fragile ecosystem. Among those works is Efrein’s giant installation of plastic bags that physically overwhelms the viewer, unequivocally imparting the crushing devastation of single-use plastic bag pollution as merely a single component of environmental destruction.
“Pa-Hay-Okee” concludes on Sunday, June 26 (final day by appointment only). ArtServe will host a closing reception on Friday, June 17 featuring multidisciplinary artistic performances such as poetry reading and video screenings.
ArtServe is located at 1350 E. Sunrise Boulevard, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33304. Call (954) 462-8190 or email information@artserve.org.
C(h)oral Stories and Collective Actions, on view until May 15, 2022
C(h)oral Stories and Collective Actions
Curated by Ombretta Agró Andruff with Meaghan Kent
Participating Artists: AMLgMATD, Beatriz Chachamovits, Caecilia Tripp and Kerwin Rolland, Elaine Defibaugh, Lauren Shapiro, and Morel Doucet
Exhibition Dates: March 19-May 15, 2022 Location: Art & Culture Center, Hollywood, 1650 Harrison street, Hollywood, FL
Opening Reception: March 19, 5-8pm
Coral reefs are the most diverse of all marine ecosystems. Teeming with life, up to 25% of all ocean species depend on coral reefs for food and shelter. Often called the rainforests of the sea, coral reefs are among the most at risk from climate change and man-made pollution.
Inspired by the powerful beauty and fragility of corals, six artists will present their unique and diverse bodies of work to recognize the urgency of preservation. The artists, joining as a “chorus” of creative voices, seek to encourage awareness and action to try and preserve and sustain this very special, and very necessary ecosystem. The exhibition will be accompanied by hands-on workshops and educational programming.
The exhibition is curated by Ombretta Agró Andruff with Meaghan Kent. Italian-born and Miami-based Agró Andruff is a freelance curator and environmental activist. She has curated internationally for more than 20 years, most recently at Atchugarry Foundation in Miami. Her passion for the Florida waterways inspired ARTSail, a nomadic residency and research initiative that investigates creative climate change inquiries. Agró Andruff is on the board of IKT International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, and organized its first US-based Congress in 2019 in Miami, with a post-Congress in Havana, Cuba.
This exhibition is funded in part by Funding Arts Broward (FAB!) and ARTSail. Special thanks to Jane Wesman and Donald Savelson for their support.
Read my Op Ed published by the Miami Herald on November 1, 2021
Thrilled to share my Op Ed which explores the phenomenon of King Tides and Sea Level Rise through the magic of art created by Simon Faithfull.
Click HERE or on the image above to read the article.
SIMON FAITHFULL: FATA MORGANA opens at Atchugarry Foundation, Sept 10, 6-9pm
This will be the first US institutional solo exhibition by the Berlin-based artist and the first time we have the opportunity to share with the public the outcome of one of our ARTSail residencies. The exhibition will run through November 7, 2021.
Featuring a combination of work created by the artist in response to his residency, in 2017 and 2018, along with a few earlier works, through a series of photographs and films, the exhibition takes the audience on an aquatic journey spanning from the wetlands of Big Cypress, to the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico, all the way to the Nordic Sea and the Adriatic.
From the Curatorial Essay:
"It’s 5:30am on Jan 15, 2018, the skies are still dark as we are gingerly riding down Tamiami Trail, the 275 miles long road that cuts across the Everglades connecting Florida’s east and west coasts (Tampa to Miami, hence its name). Our destination: Marco Island - where we are chartering the boat that will take us for the second time to the site that has captured Simon’s imagination since he first discovered it while doing some prep-work for his residency with ARTSail, the Dome House of Cape Romano.
This is the second part of the artist’s residency, approximately 6 months after his first visit to Miami. When the Dome House appears on the watery horizon, about 35 minutes into the spirited ride on the Gulf’s choppy waters, it looks like a case-study of a Fata Morgana (defined in Wikipedia as: “a complex form of superior mirage visible in a narrow band right above the horizon”). Only this is not a mirage, but the very real remnants of a luxury villa built by Bob Lee, a retired oil producer (the irony should not be lost here!) in the late 1970s, and abandoned after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. As we get closer, we realize that only four of the six domes that were standing just 6 months earlier, are still above water…Hurricane Irma, in September 2017, took its toll on the structure, and for the 5 of us on the boat, this is an all too real snapshot of the deadly combined effects of coastal erosion, sea level rise and higher-intensity hurricanes, all by-products of climate change, that most South Floridians are well too aware of".
ART & Real Estate Panel, December 2020, hosted by Haute Residences
I was honored to be invited to participate in this enlightening virtual panel looking at the history of the important relationship between art and real estate and its present status.
Thank you Haute Residence and Kreps DeMaria PR & Marketing for the opportunity!
Profile on Inspicio Online Magazine
Thrilled to share a profile that was recently published on FIU online magazine Inspicio, which provides in-depth portraits of the movers and shakers of Miami vibrant cultural life. Click here to listen to the interview.
ARTiculating Sustainability: Resilience in the Climate Crisis?
One of the key events organized during the IKT Miami Congress in April 2019 was the Symposium hosted by the Perez Art Museum Miami. Entitled “ARTiculating Sustainabillity: Resilience in the Climate Crisis?” it investigated issues of resilience and adaptation through the lens of cultural production.
Click on the image below to download the Publication produced for the Symposium.
IKT Congress to be held in Miami in April 2019
"Iterum Tensio" at Bakehouse Contemplates Tension as an Agent of Change →
"Iterum Tensio," an exhibition curated by Ombretta Agrodebuting Thursday, February 1, at the Bakehouse Art Complex's Swenson Gallery, is a meditation on this subtle equilibrium. Presenting the work of local ceramic artist and Bakehouse resident Lauren Shapiro alongside that of sculptor and mixed-media artist Ryan Roa, "Iterum Tensio" embodies the premise that tension can produce two entirely different outcomes and aesthetics.
"Iterum Tensio." Opening reception 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday, February 1, at Bakehouse Art Complex, 561 NW 32nd St., Miami; 305-576-2828; bacfl.org. Admission is free. The show will remain on view through March 4.
Read more on : http://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/iterum-tensio-by-lauren-shapiro-and-ryan-roa-at-bakehouse-miami-10030118
The Miami River Show, January 21st 2018 @ Hibiscus Gallery, Pinecrest Gardens
The exhibition takes its starting point from The Miami River Project, a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project conceived in 2008 by Xavier Cortada, never fully implemented, and the curator’s interest in the river and the city’s relationship to it; and was developed over 6 months of exchanges and conversations between the two.
Through video animations, photographs, digital prints, old postcards and nautical charts, the artists in the show explore the river’s history, its current hyper-gentrified condition, in which old fisheries, boat-yards and “mom and pop’s” eateries cohabit along the river’s banks with trendy restaurants, sleek yacht clubs and multi-million luxury condos, as well as the condition of its waters.
Laurencia Strauss and Gustavo Oviedo are both investigating the history of the river, using a combination of found postcards, photographs and videos, from its origins in the Everglades, the Tequesta archeological sites that have been discovered on its banks, to the water falls that used to dot its course before it was channelized, causing irreparable damages to the quality of its running waters.
Lori Nozick presents drawings and collages executed on found maps; while Barbara Bollini pays homage to the river and its inhabitants with “In Reverse”, a short animation that starts with a speculative future of the state of Florida in 2050 and moves backwards portraying how the natural water flows of the Miami River and the Everglades have been affected since the 1900’s. Lastly Xavier Cortada continues his investigations of diatoms (single-celled micro-algae organisms encased in a silica shell) often used by scientists to monitor environmental conditions, past and present, and water quality. Working with Evelyn Gaiser, Matt Smith and other researchers at FIU School of Environment, Arts and Society, Cortada is presenting digital prints created from images he took of present-day diatoms and those that lived in the river during two historical events which took place at the mouth of the river: the first dating back to 1566 which memorialize the encounter between Pedro Menendez de Aviles and a young member of the Tequesta; the other from 1896 commemorating the city founders Julia Tuttle and Henry Flagler and the vote that took place in 1896 to approve the creation of the City of Miami.
This exhibition is presented by ARTSail, a nomadic residency and research program that seeks to provide artists and cultural producers with the opportunity to research and explore the extensive coastlines and waterways that surround Miami. ARTSail was launched in 2016 in partnership with the ArtCenter / South Florida and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, under the direction of independent curator Ombretta Agró Andruff, thanks to the award of a Knight Arts Challenge Grant in 2015. For more information: www.artsail.info
Conversation with Adrienne bon Haes, Andrea Spiridonakos and Saadia Khabab at the Bakehouse, Nov 28 at 6PM
Social Fabric(actions) is a “first” in many ways: the first-time for the curator to organize an exhibition solely ‘inhabited’ by the creations of fashion designers; the first time for Spiridonakos and Khabab to exhibit in an art gallery setting; and the first time for the two artists to engage in a collaboration.
Saadia Khabab lives in Doha, Qatar, yet her Pakistani heritage has had a fundamental influence on her artistic practice. The patterns she used to create the designs presented in the gallery pay homage to the incredibly rich and complex ‘truck’ art, a Pakistani tradition with an extraordinary history dating back to the days of the Raj.
Andrea Spiridonakos, born and raised in Connecticut, lives in Miami. Before becoming interested in fashion design, she was a professional ballerina, performing throughout the US and Europe. The intrinsic dynamism of her collections is a clear testament to her fascination and understanding of how the body moves and inhabits the space around it.
The two have been in conversation for over a year, a dialogue that led to the creation of the joint installation that welcomes the audience as they approach the gallery, merging the visions of these two gifted and unique creative talents.
SAGAS ON THIN ICE on view at Bakehouse Art Complex through Jan 30, 2018
The six artists and collectives in this exhibition use a broad range of media to comment, highlight and take an activist stance against those who threaten the stunning yet fragile Icelandic ecosystems, and document how climate change, often fueled by human actions driven by economic interests, is impacting the natural environment, at home and abroad, with potentially disastrous consequences.
Iceland prides itself for being at the forefront of energy sustainability: 90% of households uses geothermal water to heat houses; almost 100% electricity comes from domestically renewable sources such as hydropower and geothermal; however, while these stats make Iceland look like heaven on earth for any environmentally-conscious individual, all that glitters isn’t gold. The increasing debate over the negative environmental impacts of both hydro-electric projects and geothermal developments, have bolstered protests amongst the public and pushed the search for alternative energy solutions such as wind power and tidal energy.
As one of the worst Atlantic hurricane seasons in history concludes with tens of millions of people significantly affected across the Caribbean and the American southeast and northeast regions, as well as the ongoing effect of sea level rise, this exhibition brings to the fore in poetic, and sometimes ironic ways, a new context for the climate change debate.
I am woman, hear me roar!
Click on pink banner for information about the exhibition and the featured artworks
Miami (EE.UU.), 15 feb (EFE)(Imágenes: Pablo Ramón).- Una fundación de Miami está empeñada en sacar a los artistas de sus "madrigueras": ya los ha subido a bordo de catamaranes y kayaks para que creen obras que tengan el agua como tema y ahora planea ponerlos a trabajar como funcionarios municipales.
Fundación Artcenter saca a los artistas de sus estudios para aprovechar su talento
US foundation aims to get artists out of their workshops
ARTSail launches, One Drop at a Time
Ombretta Agró Andruff (ARTSail's Curator) with artist Mark Koven
First ARTSail Resident artist casts his net
Diana Lowenstein Exhibits Daniel Domig
Trilateration Show
"In geometry, trilateration is the process of determining absolute or relative locations of points by measurement of distances, using the geometry of circles, spheres or triangles. In addition to its interest as a geometric problem, trilateration does have practical applications in surveying and navigation, including global positioning systems (GPS)" Wikipedia.
The Diana Lowenstein Gallery is pleased to present Trilateration: Andy Coolquitt, Tamar Ettun, Michael Loveland, a three-person exhibition curated by Ombretta Agró Andruff, Diana Lowenstein Gallery's curatorial advisor. French-born, New York-based Julien Gardair's painting cut-outs will be on view in the project space. An opening reception will take place on Friday April 15th, 6:00-9:30PM. The gallery will host a conversation with the artists and the curator prior to the opening reception, starting at 6:00PM The exhibition will be on view through May 28th, 2016.
Trilateration brings together the work of Austin-based Andy Coolquitt; Israeli-born and New York-based Tamar Ettun; and Miami-based Michael Loveland. While the artists share similarities in their art-making process and modus operandi, the artworks featured in the show all have strong individual personalities that set them apart, and yet are able to engage in a fascinating dialogue amongst each other. The use of everyday objects and humble materials such as kitchen rubber gloves and utensils, scraps of fabric and house carpet, as well as street signs and commercial billboards, is the common denominator that inspired Trilateration, however each artist combines, dissects and reassembles urban and domestic debris in unique and distinctive ways to create the sculptures, videos, photographs and installations that inhabit Diana Lowenstein Gallery.
Coolquitt creates objects and installations as a means to highlight how humans relate to each other and to the spaces around them, how architecture, objects, and environment interact to manipulate space and dictate experience. Ettun, through her objects and performances addresses the space between: "davka (Hebrew for 'deliberately') and awkward: a purposeful, awkward art that attempts to question and recompose movement with sculpture in the absurdity of the everyday. By composing objects and movers Ettun creates a sense of what she calls a “handheld history". Loveland's paintings and sculptures are inspired by the aesthetics of grassroots PR, buffed graffiti tags to homemade political posters and hand painted business signs. Beginning with repurposed vinyl billboards and found graphics, Loveland obliterates the original image through processes of “painting out,” masking and erasure that changes the signage’s original meaning to another level of communication. Each one of the artists is presenting existing works as well as new ones created specifically for this exhibition.
For images and/or more information, please contact: info@dianalowensteingallery.com