Open Studio. Pink Bollworm Party
Black Pinelands, 2022. Everglades Historical Pigments series. Photography. Pigment inkjet on baryta paper. Archival FineArt print on Hahnemühle Baryta paper. 21 x 14 in. © Francisco Maso. Courtesy of the artist. This series was produced during the residency at Everglades National Park, 2022 Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE). "Being an AIRIE Fellow has been a journey to the past. I have been meeting with rangers in the Park who have shared the fragmented and unknown stories of the Civilian Conservation Corps' segregated camps. Working on the artistic outcome of [...]
You Belong Here. Place, People, and Purpose in Latinx Photography
You Belong Here assembles work from established and emerging artists alike covering themes of political resistance, family and community, material culture, and the nuance of identity within the context of the United States. Featured in this expansive exhibition are Reynaldo Rivera’s images of 1990s-era Los Angeles nightlife, Sofía Córdova’s film installation about labor and collectivity, and Bibs Moreno’s collaborative portraits of Gabriela Ruiz in her signature elaborate style. From John M. Valadez to Tarrah Krajnak, these artists connect a lineage of photographers, each championing their communities through their own distinct and generative [...]
State of Being
Do we actually understand what it means to have the State watching? We often call out an abusive American government for treating certain citizens as second class. We protest of the sign of minor security surveillance while giving away our privacy willingly to private interests. In our own complacency at the lack of real understanding of what state abuse is, we can certainly look to immigrants to give us a real understanding of what living in authoritative regimes is actually like. State of Being is a duo project for Untitled Art, 2023 in which Francisco Masó and Leyden [...]
Making Miami
Making Miami is an exhibition, a book, and permanent digital archive featuring the work and telling the story of Miami artists who lived and worked in the city between 1996—2012 and who built the foundation of the modern Miami we know today. Dimensions Variable brings together its artist founders, Frances Trombly, and Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, with several notable artists who were part of the project’s history. Included are works by Agustina Woodgate, Jamilah Sabur, Carlos Rigau, Francisco Masó, Erik Smith, Erin Thurlow, Tom Scicluna, Felice Grodin, Kevin Arrow, Marcos Valella, Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, and Frances Trombly along with archival references to the [...]
You Are Here
The phrase “You Are Here” is commonly seen on directional signs in commercial buildings, indicating your current location in the surrounding architecture and urban design. However, in this particular case, we want to be present in place. The artists in this exhibition are both conscious of the here and now by simply working here, but also by the historical mark they left—they’re still here. They inhabit this place and commit to it, leaving behind a network of connections both current and in the past. You Are Here is curated in conjunction with Making [...]
Paint the Protest
Off Paradise is pleased to present Paint the Protest, a group exhibition curated by Nancy Spector honoring artists who center cultural dissent in their practices, featuring works by Andrea Bowers, Raven Chacon, Sharon Hayes, Aaron Huey, Jacqueline Humphries, Francisco Masó, Richard Prince, Dread Scott, Hank Willis Thomas, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Dear Natacha, I pitched this exhibition to you during a time of deep despair. The social contract I grew up believing in seemed to be shattering around us in myriad ways. Every news report brought accounts [...]
Who Kills Ai Weiwei
Dimensions Variable (DV) presents a solo project titled Who Kills Ai Weiwei by Cuban-born, Miami-based artist Francisco Masó. The exhibition opens on June 25 and runs through September 10, 2022 in the Main Gallery. What happens when a dissident artwork is owned by the regime it criticizes? How do you avoid the use of your work as part of government political propaganda? Is it possible to legally frame the dynamics of reception, consumption, and circulation of your practice? Taking these questions as a point of departure, Masó reflects on the ethical sense of political art [...]
Cicatrices. Marks that Remain
Cicatrices, the scars of healed wounds, are suggested in works about cyclical abuses of power, the resiliency of people, as well as signs and symbols across cultures and centuries. Works featured in Cicatrices demonstrate how personal and collective histories can yield traumas that never fully heal. Several artists in the exhibition evoke symbols and aesthetic approaches of centuries past and chart new contexts for these historic frameworks. Artists Charo Oquet and Francisco Masó create new visual languages that re-work colonial tropes to comment on contemporary issues. Natalia Arbelaez mines both colonial and ancient forms to create dynamic ceramics. Her practice proposes a [...]
Where There is Power
The timing of this exhibition coincides with a profoundly disorienting phase in our national history. It is a time out of whack. The teleological narratives that have guided the operations of state power since the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st have crumbled, leaving behind ideological vacuums of monstrous proportions. But while the game has been disrupted, we have yet to understand whether or how the rules have changed. It is a time of great opportunity and a time of great risk. If the [...]
Where’s Your Favorite Place for Political Art at Home?
During two months, visual artist Francisco Maso lends nine (9) photographs from participating artists Elia Alba, Lola Flash, Alicia Grullon, Tina La Porta, Peggy Levison Nolan, Sue Montoya, Labkhand Olfatmanesh, Anne Vetter, and Antonia Wright to individuals in Miami-Dade County who borrow one for a 15-day exhibition in their home. This art-on-loan program seeks to maintain a physical experience with the artwork while broadening the discussion around the exhibition as an in-progress, open-ended system of relationships. Where’s Your Favorite Place for Political Art at Home? emerged in the summer of 2020 in the context of the pandemic and social [...]