Haegue Yang: In the Cone of Uncertainty / Lara Favaretto: Blind Spot / Mickalene Thomas: Better Nights

The Bass, Miami Beach’s contemporary art museum, is pleased to present solo exhibitions by Haegue Yang, Mickalene Thomas and Lara Favaretto this fall.

Haegue Yang
In the Cone of Uncertainty
Through April 5, 2020

In the Cone of Uncertainty foregrounds Haegue Yang’s consistent curiosity about the world and tireless experimentation with materializing the complexity of identities in flux. Living between Seoul and Berlin, Yang (b. 1971, Seoul) employs industrially produced quotidian items, digital processes, and labor-intensive craft techniques. She mobilizes and enmeshes complex, often personal, histories and realities vis-à-vis sensual and immersive works by interweaving narrative with form. Often evoking performative, sonic and atmospheric perceptions with heat, wind and chiming bells, Yang’s environments appear familiar, yet engender bewildering experiences of time and place.

The exhibition presents a selection of Yang’s oeuvre spanning the last decade—including window blind installations, anthropomorphic sculptures, light sculptures, and mural-like graphic wallpaper—taking its title from an expression of the South Florida vernacular, that describes the predicted path of hurricanes. Alluding to our eagerness and desperation to track the unstable and ever-evolving future, the exhibition addresses current anxieties about climate change, overpopulation and resource scarcity. Framing this discourse within a broader consideration of movement, displacement and migration, the exhibition contextualizes contemporary concerns through a trans-historical and philosophical meditation of the self. Haegue Yang: In the Cone of Uncertainty is curated by Silvia Karman Cubiñá and Leilani Lynch.

Lara Favaretto
Blind Spot
December 1, 2019-April 19, 2020

Favaretto’s practice embraces the idea of constant change, creating works of art and situations that are in flux. Though often humorous and playful, her works address more serious subject matter such as decay, consumption and loss. Using elements like obsolete technologies to subtly refer to the passing of time, Favaretto incorporates found materials that are repurposed in her work. These upcycled materials—such as found paintings, discarded books and weathered construction materials—serve as commentary on the lifecycle of material detritus. Favaretto’s oeuvre highlights her interest in exploring ideas of the survival of certain objects over others, while contemplating their legitimacy in relation to the forgotten and exposing their inevitable destiny of wear, corrosion, erosion and breakage.

Blind Spot features paintings, sculpture and interactive installations including Momentary Monument – The Library (2012-2019), an interactive bookcase displaying 2,200 donated books containing folded images from the artist’s archive, a sort of visual reservoir that feeds Favaretto’s artistic production. Additional works include a silver plaque with a slit for putting in coins for charity that bears an engraving filled with Savoy-blue enamel forming the words “Your Money Here”; and a newly commissioned, site-specific work for The Bass’ permanent collection, Gummo VI (2019), comprising five automated car wash brushes constantly twirling and wearing themselves down against metal plates. Blind Spot is curated by Silvia Karman Cubiñá and Leilani Lynch.

Mickalene Thomas
Better Nights
December 1, 2019-September 27, 2020

Better Nights presents an installation that will transform the exhibition’s galleries into an immersive art experience. Inspired by the local New Jersey play Put a Little Sugar in my Bowl organized and performed by Thomas’ mother, friends, and family as well as the parties hosted by the artist’s mother in the late 1970s, the installation embodies an apartment environment, conceptually reconstructed according to the domestic aesthetic of the period, including faux wood paneling, wallpaper and custom seating reupholstered with the artist’s signature textiles. An extension of Thomas’ artistic universe, the installation incorporates both work by the artist and a curated selection by Thomas featuring work by emerging and prominent artists of color, with the prop-like tableau echoing the collage-like compositional style of Thomas’ paintings.

Better Nights will present a schedule of programming arranged by the artist, including live performances, concerts, activations, a live bar and appearances by guest DJs. The first chapter, Better Days, took place at the Galerie Volkhaus in Basel, Switzerland during Art Basel 2013. The exhibition is curated by Silvia Karman Cubiñá.