SEPTEMBER 13 – OCTOBER 11, 2014

CONVERSATION WITH THE ARTIST MODERATED BY MARIA ELENA ORTIZ, FOLLOWED BY THE OPENING RECEPTION: SEPTEMBER 13, 7PM 

Locust Projects is pleased to present Emergía Miami, the United States premiere of an ongoing project by Mexico City-based artist Miguel Rodríguez Sepúlveda. For the project, which has been presented in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Caracas and Sao Paolo, the artist searches for clues to a shared cultural experience in each city. He conducts field research to identify symbols that hold a particular potency in the minds of residents from political figures to pop icons to pre-Columbian graphics. These symbols play a central role in the project: they are painted on participants’ backs with watercolor paste, and then washed away with sweat as the wearer exerts continued physical activity. Rendered liquid by the wearer’s perspiration, the image is then transferred as a monoprint onto cotton paper. These prints, along with photographs and videos from previous iterations, will be included in the exhibition. For the first time, Sepúlveda will be the sole performer in his project, at once identifying, adopting, transforming and realizing the symbols he identifies in his investigation of the collective Latin American imagination. Emergía is especially relevant in Miami, a city that many people from South and Central America have chosen to call home.

ABOUT LOCUST PROJECTS

Locust Projects is a not-for-profit exhibition space founded by three Miami artists in order to provide contemporary visual artists the freedom to experiment with new ideas and methods without the limitations of conventional exhibition spaces. Artists are encouraged to create site-specific installations as an extension of their representative work, and Locust Projects offers them a vibrant Miami experience to develop their ideas. Locust Projects is committed to offering an approachable and inviting venue for the Miami and international art community to experience the work and meet the artists.

Locust Projects’ exhibitions and programming are made possible with the support from: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Cowles Charitable Trust; The State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; Funding Arts Network; Galt & Skye Mikesell; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; The National Endowment for the Arts Art Works Grant.

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