David Castillo Gallery

Adler Guerrier. From Oct 10th through Nov 7th, 2009.

David Castillo Gallery is presenting Everyday Travails, Adler Guerrier’s first solo exhibition at the gallery and his first in Miami in over four years. The artist’s creative impulse is both intellectual and organic and is shown by his love of paper and its natural evolution into artwork and by his contemplative photography of the everyday. The current exhibition includes drawings, sculpture, photography, and video encapsulating the ideas of constant interest to the artist: place and the everyday.

The works reveal a structured imprint of the everyday, in the exploration of the relationship of media to the psycho-geographical, social, and political nature of place. Adler Guerrier sets drawing, collage, sculpture, photo, video, and installation in dialogue. His inspired cultural hybrid between color and plane are anchored by fearless, site-specific subversions of place and time in regards to conceptions of race, class, and culture. Often calling upon the districts of Miami and his own backyard, Guerrier examines the contemporary flaneur in an impending post-demographic age.

Adler Guerrier was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and lives and works in Miami. He studied at the New World School of the Arts in Miami and has exhibited widely including The Whitney Biennial 2008, the Wolfsonian Miami Beach, and Miami Art Museum. The artist has recently exhibited in VideoStudio at The Studio Museum in Harlem and Pivot Points 3 at Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami and is in the permanent collection of both institutions. Upcoming exhibitions and projects include Afro-Modernism: Journeys through the Black Atlantic at the Tate Liverpool; commissioned works for Locust Projects Miami and a monograph to be published by Name Publications. Guerrier’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Artnews, and Art in America, among numerous other publications.

David Castillo Gallery
2234 NW 2nd Avenue
Miami, Florida 33127
[email protected]
305.573.8110
www.davidcastillogallery.com

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David Castillo Gallery

Gallery Projects. From May 9th through Jul 31st, 2009.  David Castillo Gallery. Miami Art GalleriesDavid Castillo Gallery presents Gallery Projects, a group show of new work by gallery artists Adler Guerrier, Aramis Gutierrez, Quisqueya Henriquez, Susan Lee-Chun, Pepe Mar, Glexis Novoa, Javier Piñón, Leyden Rodriguez- Casanova, Frances Trombly, and Wendy Wischer. (more…)

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David Castillo Gallery

From Mar 14 through Apr 4th, 2009.  David Castillo Gallery. Miami Art GalleriesDavid Castillo Gallery presents new work by Jackie Gendel and Tom McGrath in the main space and the work of Shay Kun in the gallery annex space starting March 14th, 2009. (more…)

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David Castillo Gallery

From Feb 14th though Mar 7th, 2009.  David Castillo Gallery. Miami Art GalleriesWorking with construction-ready materials, Scicluna implements an I-beam arrangement as a productive pause. The sprawling composition animates the exhibition space, dominating the floor as imminently as the financial real estate crisis in the US, and as carefully as the Bauhaus movement sought social redemption in the rigor of aestheticism. The complacency of Scicluna's exaggerated arrangement, seemingly grafted from the site itself, also bears traces of ironic Absurdism; the viewer's capacity to swallow art as architecture becomes both graceful in its democracy and frightening in its unquestioned breadth. (more…)

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David Castillo Gallery

By Mia Opalka

Art -Baseling with David Castillo Gallery

By Mia Opalka

dav-castillo1

In the face of a global economic crisis, art is probably the last thing on the minds of the general public. But with Art Basel Miami Beach right around the corner, it’s hard not to wonder how it’s all going to pan out for local galleries this December. For Wynwood’s David Castillo Gallery, there’s a lot on the agenda this December.

David Castillo has been in the art business for over a decade. With degrees in History and Art History from Yale University, as well as the Vatican, Castillo’s background is primarily in secondary market art sales.  Castillo opened his namesake gallery in Wynwood three years ago, and now it has become on of the must-see galleries each Second Saturday for Gallery Walk. “I always wanted to have a gallery that exhibited work by young and mid-career artists”, explains Castillo. “I had always pictured in my mind exactly how I wanted my gallery to be – it just took me a decade to get there”, he adds.

This December, David Castillo Gallery will have four solo exhibits in the main space. Included in this show are the light-infused works of Wendy Wischer, Aramis Gutierrez’ surreal and comedic oil paintings, Glexis Novoa’s graphite drawings on marble and other surfaces, as well as and the collaborative work of Leyden Rodriguez-Cassanova and Frances Trombly.  Wischer’s Turning Towards the Sun, for example,  is a surreal garden installation piece that will incorporate the artists’ balance between nature and man-made materials. The installation will be composed of two parts, one of which will consist of silver wire trees suspended from the ceiling. The other will be a series of plants covered in green crystals, to be installed on a gallery wall. The plants are inspired by the overgrowth of shrubbery underneath highway overpasses, where wild grass and brush grow at will. Each component of the installation will be dramatically lit, so as to incorporate light and shadow within the work. “The idea of something being uprooted and turned on itself makes this a familiar yet unfamiliar garden”, explains Wischer. “It’s the strangeness in the un-natural way of things that is interesting”, she adds.  Castillo will also unveil the David Castillo Annex, a 1,500 square foot space situated immediately adjacent to the gallery. Castillo has spent this summer renovating the otherwise dilapidated section of the building he’s currently occupying in order to have it ready by Art Basel Miami Beach. Artists Pepe Mar and Andrew Guenther will curate a group show of local as well as national artists. The annex will not only be a space to exhibit special projects, but also a place to showcase secondary market works.

Castillo deliberately represents a handful of artists, so that he can give each equal exhibition time.  “Because I show a small roster of artists, I can make sure that all the artists get exposed to as many eyes as possible”, Castillo explains. “Traditionally I have done a group show during Art Basel. One year it’s been gallery artists, another year it was a show produced by an outside curator.” Castillo represents a total of eight artists, so by having four solo shows and two gallery artists curating the exhibit in the Annex, seven of his artists have the opportunity to show their work at the gallery during the most important time of the year in the Miami art world.  Castillo’s eighth artist will participate in this year’s Art Positions as part of Art Basel Miami Beach.  Art Positions, located at Collins Avenue and 23rd Street, is an extension of the fair where emerging galleries show work within large shipping containers. The David Castillo Gallery container will hold a site-specific installation by Quisqueya Henriquez, whose work is known for creating dialogues centering on stereotypes, authority, and identity. Henriquez’ exhibit will draw on baseball imagery to create a series of collages. Using images from newspapers, these figures call attention to cultural stereotypes – in this case the roles of Hispanics within the greatest of American pastimes. This is the first year that David Castillo Gallery will participate in the Art Basel Miami Beach fair. When asked why he chose Henriquez as the sole artist to exhibit at Art Positions, it was for the gallerist simply a matter of seniority. “Quisqueya was one of the first two artists to show with me”, he says, “and her work dialogues with modern art, conceptual art, as well as stereotypes of Latin American art”, Castillo adds. Henriquez has recently exhibited a mid-career retrospective at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

Talking about the fair brings up two issues: the issue of art sales and collectors’ buying power, as well as the future of Art Basel in Miami. From an economic perspective, how many people are currently out there buying art?  “Collectors that buy within a certain price range will always buy art”, Castillo says. “What’s happening now may actually work in an artist’s favor, meaning there is a potential for unusual opportunities that are not readily available in other sectors”, he explains. “There will always be buyers for works of art. Although collectors are more cautious of what they buy, they do buy something”.

For a city whose arts scene is still growing, a shaky economy is a threatening prospect.  “Wynwood is continuing to grow”, says Castillo, “even in the current economic climate. For the galleries and cultural institutions that are already here, there needs to be a continuing of a Wynwood Arts District so that it doesn’t unravel, and that takes a conscious group effort. Just like cities such as New York or Berlin – both places saw a concerted effort from the beginning. Everyone involved, artists, galleries, and cultural institutions had a serious commitment to art.”  In addition, the idea that Art Basel Miami Beach might not last forever adds another element of uncertainty. “Art Basel Miami Beach has obviously been a huge success”, continues Castillo. “Miami has the advantage of geography, as well as a good amount of international collectors and the growth of contemporary art.” When thinking about where else an American –based Art Basel would go, its hard to come up with another city that would even be pleasant to visit in December. “Miami has the advantage that it’s a tourist destination, not just an arts destination, so people are happy to come here”, says Castillo. “The West Coast would be another logical place, but it just doesn’t have the convenience of traveling to Miami”, he adds.   Whether Art Basel stays or not, the fact is that David Castillo Gallery has made an impact in the 3 years it’s been in existence. What the future holds is anyone’s guess, but Castillo has staying power to weather the storm.

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David Castillo Gallery

Glexis Novoa. From Nov 8th through Dec 1st, 2008.David Castillo Gallery. Miami Art GalleriesOld / New is a solo exhibition by Glexis Novoa starting November 8th at David Castillo Gallery. Novoa renders cityscapes like peering into a curio cabinet and coming face-to-horizon with societal apocalypse in miniature. In Harold and the Purple Crayon, a children's book by Crockett Johnson, Harold draws his own picaresque narrative into being. With similar intuition, autonomy, and deceiving innocence, Novoa's sculptural approach to drawing conjures urban environs as products of and covert oppositions to totalitarianism. The exhibition includes work the artist has been developing over the past several years: his graphite on marble and graphite on dry wall drawings. The exhibition includes new bodies of work as well, such as an installation and color prints. (more…)

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David Castillo Gallery

All-Women Group Show. From Oct 11th through Nov 1st, 2008.  David Castillo Gallery. Miami Art GalleriesDavid Castillo opens "Continuing Adventures of our Heroine", an all-women group exhibition featuring works by Susan Lee Chun, Francie Bishop Good, Natalya Laskis, Lee Materrazzi, Cindy Sherman, Jaimie Warren and Michelle Weinberg. (more…)

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David Castillo Gallery

Tuttle. From Sep 13th through Oct 4th, 2008.  David Castillo Gallery. Miami Art GalleriesDavid Castillo Gallery presents Tuttle, a group exhibition contextualizing work by Jenny Brillhart, Nicolas Lobo, Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, Tom Scicluna, Molly Springfield, and Frances Trombly within the legacy of Richard Tuttle. (more…)

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David Castillo Gallery

Quisqueya Henriquez. From Nov 10th through Dec 1st, 2007.

David Castillo Gallery. Miami Art GalleriesDavid Castillo Gallery is opening this month a solo exhibition by Quisqueya Henriquez titled A Heap of Paradise. The new works include collage, color prints, sculpture, video and installations. In one series of collage works, Henriquez takes images from Dominican and Miami newspapers of baseball players who gave standout performances the day before. She in turn reconstructs these images of the players to emphasize or overemphasize their prowess. By extension, this separation of identity from the physical body in the collage works comments on the stereotypes of Caribbean people as good at dance, sex, and sports. For some time the artist has been exploring limited or distorted perceptions of a culture and a people in her Burlas or Mockeries series.

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David Castillo Gallery

Real Time. From Sep 8th trough Oct 6th, 2007.

Aramis Gutierrez. Allegory of 8 Years. 2006. Miami Art GalleriesDavid Castillo Gallery presents the exhibition Real Time with new work by each of the gallery's represented artists. The exhibition addresses issues of allotted time such as in art and the creation of it or in space and life in general. Art plots history because of the way it distills or filters everything we can experience in any way. Time whether real or simply understood to be real can be art itself, it functions as a creator because time is simultaneously a point of arrival and a point of departure. Time has been a topic of concern since the beginning of human existence from philosophers to saints to artists to writers to everyday people. We live by it even though we have very little understanding of it beyond basic physical principles, theories, and our own experience of it whether real or not. The flow of time marks us, gives us our identity, in much the same way it marks art and gives it many layers and new connotations and interpretations with the passage of time. (more…)

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