Russians, Chinese and Italians, Oh My

Design District hosts international contemporary art

By Helen Hill

Hope Gangloff's "Bittner's Brooklyn Bar-B-Q"

The art-loving crowd that descends on Miami Beach each December brings energy, excitement — and expectations. Again this year, they’ll find intriguing alternative exhibitions with art troves from distant vantage points.

In separate, free shows from China, Russia and Italy, young and seasoned artists mirror the contemporary context of their environments to bridge the cultural divide. The diverse, enigmatic and stimulating offerings range from idiosyncratic installations and advanced video technologies to cutting-edge photographic images and reimagined functional items. With the Miami Design District hosting these shows, Dacra Development Corp. President Craig Robins has reinforced his role as a founding father of the revitalized neighborhood and art patron extraordinaire.

Russia Miami 2007

Georgy Gurianov’s “The Baltic Fleet”

The exhibition of contemporary Russian art and culture showcases works of major players in the Moscow and St. Petersburg contemporary art scene and of younger artists from all over the region. Julie Sylvester, associate curator of contemporary art at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, curated Russia Miami 2007, which was organized by RIGroup, a real estate development company active in Moscow, in cooperation with Hugo Boss and Dacra Development.

“Russia Miami 2007 is inspired by the new generation of Russian artists and the galleries who formed the foundation for contemporary art in Russia,” Sylvester said. “This art created in the post-Soviet era is influenced by a changing society which had to overcome the effects of decades of cultural repression.”

Among the offerings is a new installation from Aidan Salakhova, who co-founded the First Gallery in Moscow in 1989, which was the first gallery committed to contemporary art in Russia. Gennady Ustyugov, now almost 70, whose early work is represented in Russian museums, shows autobiographical collages made from spare household materials on old cardboard. And Sergey Bugaev-Africa’s major installation of recycled objects of the Soviet era is being shown outside Europe for the first time. 

The work of Georgy Gurianov, artist of “The Baltic Fleet,” will also be displayed at Russia Miami 2007. Gurianov, who became one of the participants of the New Artists group in 1982 at the age of 21, is now a professor at the New Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, Oleg Golosiy, a prolific painter who died in 1993 at age 28, is represented by “Decembrists,” a large new work that incorporates early 20th-century hand-painted sleighs. 

Early works by Petr Denisenko are a chilling reminder of the Soviet era. Denisenko began making art in mental hospitals, where he was frequently treated for “commercial syndrome.” In this exhibition, he shows a robust, manic collection of drawings created in the past few years in No Drawing No Cry.

Sergey Bratkov’s new series of photographs form an odyssey of images of contemporary Russian life through the exhibition. Other featured artists include Nikolay Bakharev, Dmitry Bulnygin, Vladimir Dubosarsky and Alexander Vinogradov, Georgy Gurianov, Dmitry Gutov, Sergey Shekhovtsov (Porolon), Natasha Struchova,  Timur Novikov and Vasiliy Tsagalov.

“The exhibition not only showcases the varied art work but also helps foster tolerance and understanding in a cultural exchange between Russia and the United States,” said Janna Bullock, CEO of the RIGroup, a collector of Russian art and the driving force behind the exhibition, the second such venture in Miami. “Many of the Russian artists are in Miami this week and will greet visitors in the plaza area in front of the Collins Building in an informal meeting place — a Treffpunkt or point de recontre, complete with water, contemporary Russian magazines, catalogs and conversation.”

Russia Miami 2007 takes place from noon to 9:00 p.m. through Monday, Dec. 10, in the Collins Building, 39 N.E. 39th St., Miami.

Beyond Icons: Contemporary Chinese Art in Miami

Zhou Chunya’s “Green Dog”

This exhibition demonstrates the unique status of Chinese contemporary art as it continues to evolve through the work of artists who are not necessarily “iconic figures” or in the limelight.

Weng Ling, a leading curator of contemporary Chinese art (she is director of Legation Quarter in Beijing and founding director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art at Three on the Bund in Shanghai) challenges “icons”  by selecting artworks that reflect the conceptual focus and diversity of contemporary Chinese artists.

“This is a strong group of artists whose continuing, focused exploration and expression of conceptual subjectivity create the movement that perpetuates the past into the future of Chinese contemporary art,” she said. “China is much more open than before.”

The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, installations, videos and photography from eight leading artists. Zhou Chunya’s “Green Dog,” showing the power of the dog and an army tank imported from the West, has its origins in the thorough research of both Chinese and Western art and psychology. Xu Jiang’s work draws upon an early devotion to German philosophy and art to gain a new perception about the Chinese-ness of traditional painting. Zeng Hao’s paintings of never-ending little people are a modern microcosm of the state of Chinese literati and materialism. Gu Dexin’s works hauntingly question humanity. Liu Wei’s paintings are a continuous exploration of the inner heart, while Liu Jianhua’s shift from Pop Art ceramic sculptures to conceptual creations resulted from a period spent observing the changes in China’s societal values. Wang Jianwei’s video and installation works consistently address the issue of grasping the intersection of time’s dimensions. Wang Qingsong’s photographic works deal with meticulously staged images from the past to the present in contrast with each other, to observe, reflect upon and satirize our times.

Beyond Icons: Contemporary Chinese Art in Miami takes place in the Newton Building, 3901 N.E. Second Ave., Second Floor, Miami. Open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 8; and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 9.

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