Students and alumni from the FIU Art + Art History Department are exhibiting their works at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and will soon have an exhibition at the Art Academy of Latvia in Riga.
The exhibition of nine FIU students and former students is called You Are Here. It features this diverse group of artists that works in the South Florida/Miami Art community. Through the use of still and moving images, these artists explore the play between psychological and physical landscapes. Although sharing the common ground of the FIU campus, all of these artists individually came to explore the way geography can imprint itself onto the creation of intimate space as well as the interaction of subjects and objects. Some of the works in You Are Here focus on the sensorial, interpersonal experience, austere landscape, social class, home, or a combination of these various themes.
You Are Here is one of a list of events that is connecting FIU to Central Europe. In 2014, the Chair of FIU Art + Art History, Jacek Kolasinski, helped spearhead the development of an academic partnership between The FIU College of the Architecture and Arts (CARTA) and the Art Academy of Latvia. As one of the inaugural joint projects, he curated the exhibition Riga and World Cities at The College of Architecture + The Arts | Miami Beach Urban Studios, and, in June 2014, he was appointed the honour chair presiding over MFA and MA thesis examinations in Riga. Earlier this year, Chair Kolasinski was awarded a grant by the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence, along with a Faculty Research Award 2015, for his proposal “Pan-European Identity in Latvia.” His exhibition at the Art Academy of Latvia, entitled Lapidarijs (or Lapidarium in English; and running until Saturday, October 7th, 2015), is the result of the research he conducted. In addition to attending the exhibition reception in July 2015, Kolasinski attended the US Independence Day celebration that was hosted at the Riga US Embassy, along with Professor Aleksejs Naumovs, the Rector of the Art Academy of Latvia.
Assistant Professor Dr. Alpesh Kantilal Patel has also helped connect FIU to Central Europe. In 2014, he took a group of FIU Art + Art History students on a study abroad trip to Germany and Poland, where students attended lectures by prominent gallerists and scholars, visited contemporary art studios and galleries, and had the opportunity to explore the 8th Berlin Biennale of Contemporary Art. This year, Dr. Patel received a Fulbright Research Grant and is currently in Poland until Spring 2016 to study the country’s arts.
The students and alumni exhibiting in You Are Here are:
Alex Del Canto
Tiffany de Leon
Sofia Dotta
Maria Lino
Melanie Metz
Cristina Molina
German Ruiz
Ivan Santiago
Alex Spacagna
You Are Here runs until Friday, November 13th, 2015 in the Spokojna Gallery at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw: 15 Spokojna Street / 01 – 044 Warsaw. The gallery is open Monday to Friday, from 12PM-6PM.
For more information about You Are Here and its exhibiting artists, go to miatowaw.weebly.com.
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