A reworked element from the installation, Untitled (Sistrunk–in medias res. Unfurling the presence of Black life), 2020, shown in African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
And there was no voice in her head,
no whispered intelligence lurking
in the leaves—just an ache that grew
until she knew she’d already lost everything
except desire, the red heft of it
warming her outstretched palm.
Rita Dove, I Have Been a Stranger in a Strange Land
Spinello Projects presents I Love You, Man, the debut solo gallery exhibition by Venezuelan-born artist Bernadette Despujols. The exhibition features a suite of oil paintings depicting men who are close to the artist, on view at the Gesamtkunstwerk Building located at 2930 NW 7th Avenue. A special locals-only preview reception will take place Saturday, November 20, 6-10pm. Miami Art Week vernissage will take place Tuesday, November 30, 11am-4pm. Exhibition through January 15, 2022. Free and open to the public.
In I Love You, Man Bernadette Despujols paints the closest men in her circle. The paintings are a departure from her usual depictions of women in paintings. In previous paintings, Despujols positioned herself as the subject of her paintings although they were portraits of anonymous unconscious women sourced from pornography made by men. Holding the belief that to be a woman makes other people uncomfortable and ultimately poses a threat to men she turns her gaze and paints the cishet men in her life: friends, lovers, family. Despujols uses the portraiture of her male subjects to experience her relationships with deeper intimacy. Objectification and intersubjectivity (the relation or intersection between people’s cognitive perspectives) ebbs and flows between the painter and the painted. She objectifies the men in the paintings at times, focusing solely on one body part or their bare skin and bodies, but the men pose for the pictures with awareness and dignity. Nothing is stolen from them; Despujols may want to position these men ironically as muses but the truth is she defeats the irony of it with pure affinity and care towards the people she paints, leaving the men to decide what they want to wear and show of themselves. In the act of portraiture she experiences the vulnerability of these men through their quiet shyness or awkwardness with themselves, ways that would otherwise challenge the presumed status quo of manhood: tough, aggressive, aloof, qualities of patriarchy that, to Despujols, imprison both men and women in a cycle of violence. The paintings are formally infused with skewed perspectives, foreground and background foibles, and blank, paintless spaces furthering the playfulness she captures by being around the men she loves.
In celebration of its 35th anniversary season, Bakehouse presents Viewpoints: Expressions of an artist community, a group exhibition co-curated by visual artist Edouard Duval-Carrié and Bakehouse Curatorial + Public Programs Manager, Laura Novoa. The exhibition showcases twenty-five Bakehouse artists working predominantly in two-dimensional media, including painting, drawing, print-making, and photography. Duval-Carrié and Novoa draw on recent work to examine the creative output of a community and the way its constituent artists have navigated the changes and challenges of the last year and a half.
Recognizing the organization’s long tradition of group exhibitions and considering its current and future role as a local hub for art and art-making, Viewpoints hints at the array of individual styles and affinities coexisting in a shared space and how this diversity has come to define the spirit of the artists working, producing, and communing within Bakehouse.
Participating artists include Jason Aponte, Maria Theresa Barbist, Thomas Bils, Lujan Candria, Alain Castoriano, Rose Marie Cromwell, Gabriela Gamboa, GeoVanna Gonzalez, Adler Guerrier, Gonzalo Hernandez, Monique Lazard, Rhea Leonard, Amanda Linares, Philip Lique, Nicole Maynard-Sahar, Patricia Monclus, Najja Moon, Mateo Nava, William Osorio, Christina Pettersson, Jennifer Printz, Sandra Ramos, Nicole Salcedo, Tonya Vegas, and Almaz Wilson.
Artist book Todo Sigue Igual (detail); photo by Pedro Wazzan, 2021
[…] the viewer is taken on their own journey, mirroring the one Linares represents in Between Islands and Peninsulas, an immigrant’s story that transports you over time, space, and destinations.
Linares’ varied use of materials allows her to create works that are simultaneously delicate yet durable. She seeks to capture the contradictions of the human condition through materiality. In the artist books Todo Sigue Igual, Agua Salada, and Alternative Realities, she uses seemingly disparate mediums to convey the coexistence of the contradictory emotions and ideas. The artist books, constructed geographies of text and images, evoke the feelings of nostalgia, displacement, and disorientation Linares experienced during her own diaspora.
You might say that Haitian-born, Miami-based artist Adler Guerrier is a cultural anthropologist of sorts. Interested in place as a subject matter – both its aesthetic qualities and the role a society plays in shaping it – Guerrier employs photography, collage, and painting to illustrate the complexity of local terrain. Numerous themes frequently come to the fore – lush foliage, worn photographs, and gentle pastels excavate Miami’s Caribbean sensibility. Guerrier selects these motifs, which initially appear as nostalgic, as present interpretations of how this place came to be made. He layers them into one another to mirror the many cultures and customs that overlap in Miami.
