Nicholas Hlobo: Intethe (Sketch for an Opera)
Project Room: Frances Trombly: Over and Under
Art On The Move: Angel Otero
November 9–December 21, 2013
Locust Projects
3852 North Miami Avenue
Miami, FL 33127
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10am–5pm,
December 2–7 (during Art Basel Miami Beach) 9am–5pm
T 305 576 8570
Reception for the artists: Saturday, November 9, 7–10pm and Thursday, December 5, 7–10pm in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach.
Each reception will include a performance by Nicholas Hlobo in collaboration with Miami-based Haitian band Papaloko and Loray Mistik.
Now celebrating 15 years of exhibiting experimental contemporary art, Locust Projects is pleased to present Intethe (Sketch for an Opera), South African sculptor Nicholas Hlobo’s first major project in Miami. Hlobo is known for creating theatrical environments and sprawling organic sculptures made of materials such as leather and rubber, intricately stitched with ribbon and lace. This installation will incorporate the large-scale sculptures into a multifaceted performance space and video installation. For the first time, he will collaborate with Miami-based Haitian band Papaloko and Loray Mistik on a sketch for an opera titled Intethe (“Locust” in the Xhosa language), exploring notions of shared identity throughout the global African diaspora.
Through his work, Hlobo expresses an interest in the commingling of cultural dichotomies: traditional vs. colonial, rural vs. urban, child vs. adult, straight vs. queer, which are stitched together to form unexpected new tapestries. The performance will explore cultural and spiritual hybridity to which the Haitian musicians’ identities add a new layer. The experimental opera will be set amongst the installation, and part of the gallery will function as a dressing room for the performers, whose costumes will remain in the space when they are not present. The live performance will be presented twice during the exhibition and the original score, written collaboratively by the artist and musicians, will be incorporated into the installation.
In the Project Room, Miami-based artist Frances Trombly will present Over and Under, a floor-to-ceiling scaffold. This structure is the framework for a handmade canvas, which is rhythmically woven in and out, up and down in a manner that visually echoes industrial fabric production. Trombly’s largest work to date, Over and Under poses a direct challenge to the artists’ studio practice, opening up a new relationship with the physicality of the loom by defying its confines. Expanding on Trombly’s interest in the contrast found in handmade objects that normally are mass-produced, Over and Under focuses on the cloth itself. The work contains a timeline of its own construction, a transcription of the gestures of working and constructing in space.
Angel Otero has been commissioned to create a work for Art on the Move, part of Locust Projects’ ongoing public commissions initiative. The New York-based Puerto Rican artist embeds personal history in his densely stratified abstract paintings. Otero’s investigational process begins with thickly layered compositions painted on large planes of glass. These “oil skins” are then scraped off in sheets and draped onto canvas, revealing layers of under painting and distorting the original image. Otero’s artwork will appear on the backs of Miami Beach buses and at Miami Metro Rail stops in December.
About Locust Projects
2013 marks the 15th anniversary of Locust Projects, a not-for-profit exhibition space dedicated to providing contemporary visual artists the freedom to experiment with new ideas without the pressures of gallery sales or limitations of conventional exhibition spaces. Founded in 1998 by a trio of Miami-based artists, Locust Projects has become one of the most robust alternative art spaces in the nation, presenting adventurous exhibitions, lectures, education programs and public commissions, all free and open to the public.
Locust Projects’ programming is made possible with the support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Cowles Charitable Trust; Florida Department of State; Foundation for Contemporary Arts; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. Special thanks: Private Collection, London; Salim Currimjee
