The Department of Art and Art History in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami (UM) has announced the relocation of its current presence in the historic Wynwood District. After moving into the Wynwood Building at 2750 NW Third Ave., Suite 4, the name of the space will change from the Wynwood Project Space to the University of Miami Gallery.
“The University of Miami Gallery offers a prominent collaborative space for the public to access and enjoy the work of our Art and Art History faculty and students,” said Leonidas Bachas, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
“Innovative venues like the gallery deep- en our cultural ties to the community, and help our college to remain at the forefront of creative expression, inquiry and scholar- ship,” he added.
“The department is excited about moving our off campus gallery to the Wynwood Building,” said Professor Lise Drost, chair of the Art and Art History Department. “It is headquarters to a number of other galleries and arts-related businesses.”
UM originally moved into the Wynwood Project Space on NW Second Avenue in 2007 — five years after Art Basel Miami began the mass revival of art in South Florida, and launched the first annual Cane Art Fair at that location. Altogether, four Cane Art Fairs were held in the Wynwood Project Space, coinciding with Art Basel each year. That tradition will continue in the new gallery.
The inaugural exhibition, “of-things- being-what-they-are-not,” by Martin Casuso opened June 9 and features stop- action video and site-specific installations.
Casuso’s work has its origins in main- stream handiwork and hobby, with a delib- erate shift from a traditional application of these crafts. His work involves an ongoing exploration of how gender, sexual preference, materials and processes relate to themes of domesticity.
The materials of craft, sometimes made by unseen hands of the past or by the artist himself, are combined with a more industri- al palette of hardware supplies or thrift store housewares to make new “old” objects that are not gender specific, but they in turn reflect Casuso’s own relationship with domesticity, shifting from being objects of use to objects of contemplation.
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