Pinecrest Gardens, South Florida’s Cultural Arts Park proudly welcomes Artist in Residence Xavier Cortada. For the next five years and beyond, renowned Eco-Artist, Xavier Cortada will call Pinecrest Gardens his home, moving both his studio and offices to historic Whilden-Carrier Cottage. He will also be taking over curating responsibilities at the Gardens Gallery and presenting several shows of his own throughout the year.
Cortada has created art installations in the Earth’s poles to generate awareness about global climate change: In 2007, an NSF Antarctic Artist and Writer’s Program Fellow, Cortada used the moving ice sheet beneath the South Pole as an instrument to mark time; the art piece will be completed in 150,000 years. In 2008, he planted a green flag at the North Pole to reclaim it for nature and launch a reforestation eco-art effort.
Since 2011, Xavier Cortada has based his engaged art-science practice at Florida International University.
Cortada often collaborates with scientists in his art-making: At CERN, he worked with a physicist to develop a site-specific art installation capturing the five search strategies which the CMS experiment has used to discover a new Higgs-like particle.
He has also worked with a population geneticist on a project exploring our ancestral journeys out of Africa 60,000 years ago, with a molecular biologist to synthesize an actual DNA strand made from a sequence randomly generated by participants visiting his museum exhibit, and with botanists in eco-art projects to reforest mangroves and wildflowers.
Cortada is currently working with scientists at Hubbard Brook LTER on a water cycle visualization project driven by real-time data collected at a watershed in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
The Miami artist has worked with groups globally to produce numerous collaborative art projects, including peace murals in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama, AIDS murals in Switzerland and South Africa, juvenile justice murals and projects in Miami and Philadelphia, and eco-art projects in Taiwan, Hawaii, Holland and Latvia.
Cortada has also been commissioned to create art for the White House, the World Bank, the Florida Supreme Court, the Florida Governor’s Mansion, Florida Botanical Gardens, Miami City Hall, Miami-Dade County Hall, the Miami Art Museum, the Miami Science Museum, Museum of Florida History, and the Frost Art Museum.
His work is in the collections of the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the NSU Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, the Whatcom Museum, the Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum and the MDC Museum of Art + Design.
Corporations such as General Mills, Nike, Heineken and Hershey’s have commissioned his art. Publishers like McDougal and Random House have featured it in school textbooks and publications. His work has also been featured on National Geographic TV and the Discovery Channel.
Cortada, who was born in Albany, New York and grew up in Miami, holds degrees from the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of Business and School of Law.
We are truly honored to have Xavier as a member of the Pinecrest Gardens Team and we look forward to sharing his extraordinary talent with our visitors and patrons on a daily basis.
Mark your calendars for his upcoming exhibits and artist meet and greets.
Inaugural Exhibit:
“Florida Is…,” a solo show by Xavier Cortada.
(September 7 through October 8)
Join us on Wednesday, September 13 at 6 p.m. at the Gardens Gallery for the opening of Xavier Cortada’s “Florida is…” In his inaugural art exhibit as Pinecrest Gardens’ artist-in-residence, Cortada portrays Florida’s environment to connect viewers with our state’s natural beauty.
Inaugural Group Exhibit:
“CLIMA,” an exhibit addressing sea level rise.
(October 12 to November 19)
Join us on Thursday, October 12 at 6 p.m. for the opening of CLIMA, an exhibit addressing Global Climate Change and Sea Level Rise. This third-annual show features the work of artists John Bailly, Xavier Cortada, Michael Gray, and Gretchen Scharnagl. The exhibit will also feature interactive works developed by the FIU School of Communication + Journalism and Code Miami to address sea level rise- including “Will it Flood?,” a new flood prediction app.
The exhibit runs from October 12 to November 19.
Inaugural Art Basel exhibit:
“Epoch,” a solo show by Xavier Cortada.
(November 23, 2017 –January 14, 2018)
Join us on November 30 at 6 p.m. for the opening of “Epoch,” a solo show by artist Xavier Cortada. In these new works, Cortada portrays the life that has existed on our planet over the past 500 million years. The exhibit invites the audience to ponder what life forms will inhabit the Earth in the future. It is worth thinking about…The sixth mass extinction is already underway: Half of Earth’s species are at risk of extinction. Their habitats are being destroyed by human actions—including deforestation, poaching, and emission of greenhouse gases that cause global climate change.
During the opening of the exhibit on November 30 Cortada will unveil the Longitudinal Installation www.longitudinalinstallation.orgsculpture which will be on permanent exhibit at Pinecrest Gardens.
