Through June 9, 2012.
“Today decoration epitomizes this transformation of object into system. The world has been remade into sign, into decor. That is to say, that decor lies at the crux of the dizzying traffic between industrial processes and digital codes, between the production of tangible goods and streams of information.”
-Michelle Kuo, “Pattern Recognition” in The New Décor by Hal Foster, Michelle Kuo, Kirsty Bell and Ralph Rugoff.
Michelle Weinberg’s flattened painted spaces evoke modernized Japanese prints and beautifully wrought virtual worlds, pre-3-D. Her pieces for this exhibition are medium-sized works on paper. Their gem-like colors and tightly patterned compositions relate to her concerns with social architecture. Her murals at Miami Art Museum (2010) and Locust Projects (2009) actively engaged the milieu of Wynwood warehouses and sign painting in Miami. In doing so, she sought to camouflage the edifices while also playing with forms and signifiers. She cites Andrea Branzi, who suggested that in India, for example, architecture is “a fluctuating, decorated surface which acts as a kind of mental representation.” Presently, her public projects apply a visual activism. For a project in front of the Tampa Museum of Art, Weinberg will replace bland crosswalk stripes with a colorful play of forms.
Weinberg conveys space not through perspective as much as the dynamics of color and pattern. The dizzying effect of stripes and zigzag patterns will be the focus of an installation in the back room at Dorsch Gallery. Such patterns have been used throughout history for their “dazzle” camouflage. For instance, painting an aircraft carrier in black and white stripes confuses the eye, sufficiently to disrupt an assault. Weinberg will install paintings, objects and a rug, all covered in the same pattern, which will dissolve two and three-dimensional objects into vibrating mirages.
Michelle Weinberg creates works in painting and collage, designs rugs, tiles, mosaic and paint murals, and other surfaces for interiors, architecture and public spaces. She is the recipient of many awards, grants and residencies. Among them are MacDowell Colony, Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Nordisk kunst Plattform in Norway, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship in Visual & Media Art, an Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida, and a FIVA Fellowship from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.
She has exhibited widely, including Dorsch Gallery, Miami, Nordisk kunst Plattform in Norway, Lesley Hellery Workspace and Kathryn Markel Fine Art in New York City, The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Edison State College in Fort Meyers, FL, The Schoolhouse
Gallery in Provincetown, MA, MIA Airport Gallery, Art@Work in Miami. Museum exhibitions include Miami Art Museum, Islip Art Museum in NY, Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale, The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and the Wolfsonian Museum/FIU in Miami Beach. In addition to exhibiting her work, Weinberg has organized thematic exhibitions of works by other artists, and she has written about contemporary art for several publications.
She is currently Adjunct Faculty at Miami International University of Art & Design and has been a visiting artist and instructor at Tyler School of Art, University of South Florida, Florida Atlantic University, Kenyon College, and a mentor at Transart Institute MFA Program in Linz, Austria. She is curriculum consultant to Miami Art Museum’s Brick x Brick program for teens. Weinberg is founding principal of IPO, an ongoing artistic collaboration. She is creative director of Girls’ Club in Fort Lauderdale and co-founder of Available Space in Miami. Weinberg has a BFA from School of Visual Arts and an MFA from Tyler School of Art. She works in Miami Beach and New York City.
Dorsch Gallery
151 NW 24 Street
Miami, FL 33127
305.576.1278
www.dorschgallery.com
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