Frost Art Museum FIU Announces Art Basel Lineup

The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, the Smithsonian Affiliate in Miami, announces a stellar lineup of three new exhibitions and this year's signature event for Art Basel season. For the museum's 14th annual Breakfast in the Park (the official Art Basel event on Sunday, Dec. 10 that is free and open to the public every year), Los Angeles-based artist Daniel Joseph Martinez has been invited to Miami as this year's guest speaker.

The14th Annual Art Basel Breakfast in the Park Presents: American Artist Daniel Joseph Martinez

(Sunday, December 10 from 9:30 a.m. - noon | Free event, RSVP required in advance)

An official Art Basel week event, Breakfast in the Park draws hundreds of art collectors, patrons, gallery owners, cultural luminaries and artists from around the world, many of whom are visiting Miami for Art Basel. Each year a noted sculptor is invited to speak. This year, Los Angeles-based Daniel Joseph Martinez has been invited to Miami as the guest speaker. Guests enjoy a complimentary outdoor breakfast, informal lecture and guided tours of Florida International University's Sculpture Park and the exhibitions in the museum. View the Sculpture Park's artwork here. Presented in partnership with West Kendall Baptist Hospital.

Throughout his career, which spans nearly four decades, Martinez has tackled questions of race, identity and the body in his multidisciplinary work.

Martinez has represented the U.S. in 11 biennials worldwide, including the Venice Biennial, Mexico City Biennial, and two Whitney Biennials.

His sculpture, A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love; or Where you Goin' with That Gun in Your Hand: Bobby Seale and Huey Newton Discuss the Relationships between Expressionism and Social Reality Present in Hitler's Paintings (2007) graces the museum's front entrance (pictured above, a gift from Dennis and Debra Scholl.

Continental Abstraction

Highlights from the Art Museum of the Americas

(On view through February 18)

These works illustrate the rich cultural and visual history of geometric abstraction as it evolved across the Americas. The Art Museum of the Americas' partnership with the Organization of American States, was founded with the premise that the arts play a social role in fostering democracy and freedom of expression during times of upheaval. Features more than 40 works by Latin American artists who experiment with form and materials, investigating through an abstract lens themes of migration, exile, poverty, freedom and creativity. This museum has historically served as the cultural diplomat for the Organization of American States, and was the first museum of modern and contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Art in the United States. Their collective goal is to foster strong cultural connections to nurture artistic trends between the U.S. and Latin America.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, the museum collected work by young and emerging Latin American artists, often launching their international careers (including Manabu Mabe and Maria Luisa Pacheco, who today are considered Latin American Masters). Continental Abstraction spans six decades, and includes photographs, prints, installations and sculptures by 26 artists from 20 countries including: Gyula Kosice and Rogelio Polesello from Argentina; Rudy Acoria and María Luisa Pacheco from Bolivia; Manabu Mabe and Tutaka Toyota from Brazil; Marcos Irizarry from Puerto Rico; and Tony Capellan from the Dominican Republic.

Continental Abstraction has been organized by Museo de las Artes de la Universidad de Guadalajara for the Guadalajara International Book Fair in collaboration with the AMA | Art Museum of the Americas of the Organization of the American States. Guest curated by Marisa Caichiolo and Laura Ayala, University of Guadalajara. At the AMA it was coordinated by Adriana Ospina Curator of the Permanent Collection. At the Frost Art Museum, it was coordinated by Maryanna Ramirez, Manager of Strategic Initiatives, and Klaudio Rodriguez, Curator.

"There is no greater international moment for Miami than Art Basel season, and this year more than ever, Miami's position as a portal to South America and the Caribbean is reflected in our headline exhibitions at the Frost Art Museum FIU," said Jordana Pomeroy, the Museum's Director. "Our winning trifecta showcases a passionate world of art, three Latin American exhibitions that transform our galleries with a powerful and far-reaching scope of artists."

"Our museum is committed to bringing global knowledge and international cultural awareness to Miami's doorstep, to FIU's students and faculty, and to the leaders and influencers from the art world who come to Miami every year for Art Basel week," adds Jordana Pomeroy.

Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic

(On view through January 28)

This unprecedented retrospective culminates its national tour in Miami at the Frost Art Museum FIU, featuring more than ninety of Soriano's paintings, pastels, and drawings (plus never-before-seen ephemera from the artist's home studio in Miami). This exhibition focuses on the multiple influences that nurtured and inspired him, or as Soriano once rhapsodized, energies where "the intimate and the cosmic converge."

Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic, curated by Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta was originally organized by the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, in conjunction with the Rafael Soriano Foundation. The exhibition also travelled to the Long Beach Museum of Art prior to the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU. The exhibition explores the artist's full trajectory, spanning three distinct periods: his early Cuban geometric abstract style, his transitional period in the 1960's and 1970's reminiscent of surrealist biomorphism, and closing with the luminous and mystical imagery of his mature period. His work resonated with his contemporaries Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta and Rufino Tamayo.

Soriano was born in the province of Matanzas, Cuba in 1920. He fled the Cuban revolution in 1962, emigrating to the U.S. where his work dramatically evolved and received even wider international acclaim. His earlier works (from the 1940s and 1950s) in this retrospective were painted in Cuba, and are internationally renowned as some of the world's most prominent examples of Cuban geometric abstraction, with bold colors and striking geometric planes.

The paintings from Soriano's transitional period (1960s and 1970s) that are also featured in this retrospective show the emotional hardships of fleeing his native country. When Soriano exiled to Miami with his family in the early 1960s, he originally intended to be able to return to Cuba. The stark realization that he could never return was too much for Soriano, and this emotional strain stopped him from painting for two years. Finally, in 1964, Soriano was able to create again after what he referred to as a spiritual re-awakening which led to his next phase, known for his elements of surrealist biomorphism.

The final section of the exhibition, his mature period, reveals the full evolution of the artist's journey (1980s and 1990s). In these paintings, organic biomorphic images dominate with their luminosity and permutations of color portraying Soriano's spirituality and his mystical visions of the universe and other realms.

The works in Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic are from: the Rafael Soriano Family Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American States, Long Beach Museum of Art, Lowe Art Museum, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, Zelaya Rodriguez Collection, Dominic and Cristian Velasco Collection, Brillembourg Capriles Collection, and various private collections.