Wander and Errancies at Crisp-Ellert Art Museum

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Untitled (blck longevity on the Matanzas) i, 2020, Enamel paint and xerography on paper. Courtesy of the artist and David Castillo Gallery, Miami.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Adler Guerrier: Wander and Errancies

March 6 to April 18, 2020

We are pleased to announce our upcoming exhibition of new works by Miami-based artist Adler Guerrier. The exhibition, entitled Wander and Errancies, will include photographs, prints, collage, and objects that are informed by a line of thought set adrift in Saint Augustine. The artist will give a walkthrough of the exhibition on Friday, March 6 at 5pm, followed by an opening reception until 8pm.  

Guerrier speaks to Saint Augustine as being “the most Florida of all places,” not only in terms of its geography or territory, but also in its relationship to history. During his research, the artist explored how those historical narratives give structure to what we know about Saint Augustine, as well as how they continue to shape our perceptions of the city.  He is drawn to Fort Mose and Lincolnville, in particular, as places in which emancipatory gestures and the strives of the Civil Rights movement contended to claim the space for the thriving of black social life. This exhibition proposes to tap the still resonant energy in those places.

While in residence at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum in Fall 2019, Guerrier walked through Saint Augustine’s historical neighborhoods, visited various local historic sites, and undertook research about the history of our city. As the artist wanders he documents details in the landscape, often through photography, which become the basis for other prints and drawings. For Guerrier, the act of drawing is also an act of wandering, allowing for the development of the poetics of a particular place or landscape. 

Guerrier also takes inspiration from Saint Augustine’s popular ghost tours and is fascinated by the way in which the city has created its own haunted atmosphere, perpetuating its phantom myths by telling variations on the same  stories over and over again.

Adler Guerrier, born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, lives and works in Miami, Florida. Guerrier received a BFA from New World School of the Arts/University of Florida. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including Coffee, Rhum, Sugar, & Gold: A Post Colonial Paradox at Museum of African Diaspora, Dust Specks on the Sea Contemporary Sculpture from the French Caribbean & Haiti at Hunter East Harlem Gallery, and Adler Guerrier: Conditions and Forms for blck Longevity at California African American Museum. Guerrier recently organized the group exhibitions Between the legible and the opaque: Approaches to an ideal in place, presented at Bakehouse Art Complex and Notices in a Mutable Terrain at Fundación Pablo Atchugarry.

Guerrier’s practice is best known for works in photography, drawing, and installation, that explore the poetics and politics of place.

We are grateful to The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida for their support of the CEAM Artist Residency through a grant from the JoAnn Crisp-Ellert Art Fund.

The Crisp-Ellert Art Museum is located in an accessible building. If you are a person with a disability and need reasonable accommodations, please contact Phil Pownall at 904-819-6460. Sign Language Interpreters are available upon request with a minimum of three days’ notice. 

For further information on our programming, please visit the website at www.flagler.edu/crispellert, or contact Julie Dickover at 904-826-8530 or crispellert@flagler.edu. The museum’s hours are Monday through Friday, 10 am to 4 pm, and Saturday, 12 to 4pm, while classes are in session.

Elizabeth Withstandley’s Searching for the Miraculous

A trilogy of video-installation works by Withstandley that uses Bas Jan Ader‘s final work, “In Search of the Miraculous”, as an entry point for a new experiential journey. The exhibition opens tonight at AC Institute.

Searching for the Miraculous is a trilogy of video/installation works that uses Bas Jan Aders final work, “In Search of the Miraculous”,  as an entry point for a new experiential journey. The works explore identity, time, transcended experiences, and the romantic vision of a quest for something better.  The project uses video, audio, music and sculptural elements to create a contemporary version of the trilogy. It starts with  a cinematic short, then a connected journey between two people and finally concludes with a journey of a pair of glass jars floating across the sea.

Elizabeth Withstandley is from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She is one of the co-founders of Locust Projects, a not-for-profit art exhibition space, in Miami, FL. 

Her work is routed in conceptual art taking the form of video installations and photographic series. Artifacts, individuality, and music are all central themes in her work. In addition to exhibiting her own work she has organized a number of exhibitions including Smoke & Mirrors at the Torrance Art Museum, 20/20 at Locust Projects and a the 2019 residency project, work from artists at The Curfew Tower.

Nádia Taquary

The55Project and Bakehouse presented works by Nádia Taquary, [who] “raises questions related to the knowledge and practices of the traditions of Afro-Brazilian jewelry. In her work, she uses wood, gold, silver, beads, conch shells, and other materials representative of colonialism and African religions, investigating their symbolism and highlighting their hope for freedom in a transatlantic slave context.

By revisiting these symbols of African heritage, Taquary transforms them into empowered and affirmative sculptures that evoke the necessity to bring forth dialogues on the African Diaspora.”

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The works of Nádia Taquary (born 1967, Salvador, Bahia; lives in Salvador) investigate the practices and traditions of Afro-Brazilian jewelry and body adornments. By using materials representative of both colonialism and African religions, Taquary investigates their inherent meanings and symbolism while exploring representations of freedom in an Afro-Atlantic historical context.
Oríki: Bowing to the Head pays reverence to the Yoruba culture-Ori meaning “head” and ki meaning “praise.” The sculptural hairstyles not only act as a metaphor for ancestral thought, but also point to the influence of African heritage seen in contemporary hairstyles. Living in Salvador-one of the first slavery ports in Brazil and now considered the center of Afro-Brazilian culture—provides Taquary with a rich history embedded in her daily life, allowing her to examine how ancient hair-braiding methods from African tribes, such as Fula and Himba,
are kept alive as a form of resistance, affirmation, and identity formation today.
As part of the Solo Project presented by The55Project, the artist spent three weeks in a studio space provided by Bakehouse Art Complex (BAC), where she further developed the Oríki series, creating the three sculptures seen at the center of this installation. Working in this space, which is adjacent to the Little Haiti neighborhood, the artist produced new works inspired by encounters she had while exploring the local diasporic experience and investigating how these
histories are translated into Miami’s black community.
Evoking both the beauty and symbolism of these ornate hairstyles, she celebrates African heritage by translating it into a contemporary language in her work, creating empowering and affirmative sculptures that conjure the necessity to bring forth dialogues on the African diaspora.


Text by Jennifer Inacío.

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Paulo Darzé Galeria. A two-person show at Leme Galery with Ayrson Heráclito. A text on the show by Francisco Madeira. Catalogue from the artist’s exhibition at the Agnès Monplaisir Gallery. Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis at Fowler Museum. Praises in a blog by Marcilia Castro.

AB – Untitled (Remaining)

Further than Memory, Intimate Distances, solo exhibition, by Amanda Bradley, at Artmedia Gallery.

Untitled (Remaining) is a photograph of a wall, in a house, in Belize, marked by past joy and deep loss.

Show opens Thursday, November 14, 2019 through February 15, 2020.

350 ne 75 st, Suite N°103-2 Miami, FL  33138 305 318-8306 www.artmedia.gallery