sábado, 12 de septiembre de 2009

MANNY PRIERES "MOTHER" (VIRGEN DE LA CARIDAD DEL COBRE) PINTURA

Manny Prieres (autor)

The Mother
(La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre)
MIAMI NEW TIME
Art Walk, Anyone?
Babes, photos, and long-awaited drawings are just part of what you can see Saturday night.
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By
Carlos Suarez De Jesus
Published on September 08, 2009 at 10:54am

Manny Prieres's Mother
Details:
"What We Do Is Secret": Through September 26. Spinello Gallery, 155 NE 38th St., #101, Miami; 786-271-4223;
spinellogallery.com. Wednesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. "Girls with Guns": Through October 30. Dot Fiftyone Gallery, 51 NW 36th St., Miami; 305-573-9994; dotfiftyone.com. Monday through Friday noon to 7 p.m. "Pablo Cabado:" Through October 31. Dina Mitrani Gallery, 2620 NW Second Ave., Miami; 786-486-7248; dinamitranigallery.com. Tuesday through Friday 1 to 5 p.m.

Subject(s):Miami local art, Dina Mitrani Gallery, Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Spinello Gallery, Manny Prieres
Manny Prieres has waited for the opening of this year's arts season for a long, long time. Three years to be exact. For the Miami artist, whose highly anticipated solo show "What We Do Is Secret," on view at the Spinello Gallery in the Design District, it's been a never-ending journey of fits and starts. "I was supposed to have a solo show at Rocket Projects in the fall of 2006," the 36-year-old rues. When the gallery folded before his opening, a dejected Prieres returned to his studio.

He later got the green light for an exhibit at Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts for October last year, only to lose his studio space during a personal crisis that torpedoed his show.

He found another space and returned to his work with an unbridled determination that is evident at Spinello. "I have been creating these drawings for over a year now," Prieres says. "They reflect personal issues of longing and family recollections that I have reinterpreted through my Cuban heritage and experiences of growing up here in Miami."

At the gallery, several large-scale graphite and watercolor works on paper are remarkable for their impeccable detail and ritualistic overtones.

Mother, a life-size homage to Cuba's patron saint, la Caridad del Cobre, depicts the virgin wearing a sumptuous gown as a gold and red velvet crown floats inches above her head. The saint bears the visage of Prieres's sister, and a pair of machetes cross over her chest.

Another work, titled 1963, was inspired by a story the artist recently heard from his father. "My dad had never told me before, but he showed me a scar and said he had been shot in Cuba when he was forced to work in the sugar cane field but refused," Prieres says. The artist drew a pair of crossed cane stalks over ornate halos, typically found on religious statues, to commemorate the long-ago event.

Another suite of small graphite-on-paper works, titled Remnants, depicts scissors and knives wrapped in human hair that exude an eerie, totemic vibe. "Machetes and knives interest me because they are tools that peasants used in their daily lives during harvest time but which they also used in the war against Spain," Prieres observes. "Also, my parents come from a generation that rarely throws things away. Growing up, my dad always had machetes and axes in his tool shed that were held together with tape."

The clash of cultures, the inexorable tides of loss, hybrid histories and myth, plus Prieres's cranium-cleaving technical skills mark this long-simmering show as one not to be missed. "Every collision leaves a trace behind — debris, a trail of residue that marks the site where violence took place," Prieres explains. At the Spinello Gallery, he hacks his point home right between the eyes.

Manny Prieres's Mother
Details:

"What We Do Is Secret": Through September 26. Spinello Gallery, 155 NE 38th St., #101, Miami; 786-271-4223; spinellogallery.com. Wednesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. "Girls with Guns": Through October 30. Dot Fiftyone Gallery, 51 NW 36th St., Miami; 305-573-9994; dotfiftyone.com. Monday through Friday noon to 7 p.m. "Pablo Cabado:" Through October 31. Dina Mitrani Gallery, 2620 NW Second Ave., Miami; 786-486-7248; dinamitranigallery.com. Tuesday through Friday 1 to 5 p.m.

Other images include an empty Olympic-size swimming pool cluttered with garbage, and a children's whirling teacup amusement ride that has collapsed on itself and is slowly being claimed by wild vines and shrubbery.
"Pablo Cabado's photography has a way of really going deep into his subject matter," Mitrani says. "He gives us in-depth historical or cultural information with a sensitive eye for texture, color, and tones that really lure you in. His work is serious and beautiful all at once."« Previous Page 1 2

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