Miami-Dade Public Library System

Suburban Roots: Portraits of Home and Community
By Anthony Reid
January 11 – April 30, 2012
North Dade Regional Library, 2455 NW 183 Street, 305-625-6424

Through 50 photographic images captured between 1987 and 2010, Anthony Reid documents the lives of family and neighbors who form the fabric of his childhood community – Goulds -- and its surrounding neighborhoods. This collection of 50 black and white portraits revere a cross section of the African-American men, women, and children who live, work, and play throughout these neighborhoods.  These images reveal a dichotomy between the artful beauty of everyday people living ordinary lives and the social-economic malaise that accompany living in communities frozen by the spiritual blight and cultural banality so typical of American suburbia and atypical of the idyllic identity of South Florida.

Anthony Reid, Radresha on
Easter Sunday (Goulds, Florida), 1990, photograph

Highlights from the Vasari Project Archive of the Miami-Dade Public Library System
February 10 – March 13, 2012
Main Library, 101 West Flagler Street, 305-375-2665

The show is part of a special project which honors Margarita Cano, Helen L. Kohen, and Barbara Young, the founders of the Vasari Project: a living archive that preserves and documents Miami's art history from the 1940s to the present. Miami has historically been a place of open-ended narratives: a city where more people come (or stay, or return) to forge something new than to finish or continue something that already exists. This exhibition explores the humble beginnings, false starts, true starts, and open endings of projects, careers, ideas, and institutions documented in the Miami-Dade Public Library System's Vasari Project Archive. Highlights from the Vasari Project Archive will focus on proposals and prospectuses, launch publications, opening invitations, photographs, manifestos, and other artifacts of starting-out.

Page (detail) from mimeographed
catalog for Cuban Performance Art
of the 1980s at Miami-Dade
Community College's InterAmerican Campus, 1998. Collection of the
Vasari Project Archive, Miami-Dade
Public Library System.

Jean Chiang: A Journey Called Life
February 24 – May 26, 2012
Miami Beach Regional Library, 227 22nd Street, 305-535-4219

Jean Chiang's artwork is inspired by her interests in anthropology, archaeology, architecture and astrology. Since her arrival in Miami in 2001, Chiang began to investigate the cultural history and philosophy of China, as well as her personal history as a child of immigrants.  An inspiration develops into a story with research, then manifests in different materials as diverse as clay, wood, metal, paint, fiber, textile and beads - each with their inherent expressive quality.  For this exhibition, Chiang will display a series of large-scale wooden panel paintings inspired by her historical research of The Great Wall of China, as well as some of her intricate, smaller scale works.

About the artist: Jean Chiang executes her work in small scale intricate embroidery and beadwork to works on paper to large scale interactive installations. Chiang received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and a Masters in Fine Arts, in sculpture, from Hunter College. She has pursued studies and works in a wide-range of media, including clay, wood, metal, paint, fiber, textile and beads. Chiang has exhibited her work at Diaspora Vibe Gallery, the Asian American Arts Centre (New York), P.S. 1, and the Hong Kong Art Center, among others. Her work is collected in both private and public collections nationally and internationally. Chiang lives and works in New York and Miami.

Jean Chiang, Step by Step,
c. 2007, acrylic, beading and embroidery on canvas

Taiwan Sublime
April 21– June 2, 2012
Main Library, 2nd floor exhibition space, 101 W. Flagler Street, 305-375-2665

Miami-Dade Public Library System presents Taiwan Sublime in partnership with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Miami in celebration of the 12th annual International Art of Storytelling Festival. The exhibition comprises four series of photographs taken by four celebrated Taiwanese photographers. In Interfaces: Rhythms of Nature and Humanity Chen Chih-hsiung highlights the “variegated natural stage on which the human drama proceeds.” In Passion: Heavenly Feast of the Performing Arts, Liu Chen-hsiang portrays the diversity and vitality of Taiwan’s modern dance and traditional drama. In Folkways: Melding the Mundane and the Celestial, Huang Ting-sheng presents scenes from everyday life which is, directly or indirectly, rooted in the spiritual dimension. And in Soaring: An Elevated Vision of Natural Taiwan, Chi Po-lin portrays the grandeur of Taiwan’s mountains, coastlines and waterways through an exhilarating birds-eye perspective. Sponsored by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Miami.

Liu Chen-hsiang,
Serenity of Mind
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre), photograph

Siempre Viviré: Photographic Portraits of Celia Cruz
By Alexis Rodriguez - Duarte
October 4 – March 1, 2012
Hispanic Branch Library - 1398 SW 1 St. 305-643-8574

Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte took these photographs of the late legendary salsa singer Celia Cruz (1925-2003) during the last 15 years of her illustrious life. The series of black and white photographs captures the “Queen of Salsa” in moments and places few other photographers were granted access. The photographs form a selection from Rodriguez-Duarte’s 2004 book Presenting Celia consisting of private, backstage settings and onstage performances before rapturous live audiences. Part of the title for this exhibition, Siempre Viviré, is based on her 2000 album by the same name.

About the artist:
Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte is a professional freelance photographer and author of the book titled Presenting Celia Cruz (Clarkson Potter, 2004). He and his family fled Havana, Cuba in 1968 through the Freedom Flights program and settled in Miami. His interest in photography was sparked when he received his first camera at age 10. Rodriguez-Duarte’s work has appeared in many fashion magazines and books, including Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Vogue, British Vogue, The New Yorker, The Advocate, Town & Country and The New York Times. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and his photographs could be found in private and public collections.

Alexis Rodriguez-Duarte,
Los Zapaticos de Celia, 2001,
fiber-print photograph,
Permanent Collection of the
Miami-Dade Public Library System

Forty Years of Collecting
Selections from Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Permanent Art Collection
October 11 – August, 2012
West Dade Regional Library -9445 Coral Way – 305-553-1134

This year, the Miami-Dade Public Library System celebrates its 40th anniversary and 40 years of collecting, maintaining, and preserving an increasing and special art collection of more than 2,200 works of art. This collection is a visual reference that reflects Miami’s cultural composition and chronicles its artistic and social history. The works on display represent what the Library’s permanent art collection is about - works by artists from multiple generations and cultural perspectives who have or have had a relationship with Miami. Forty Years of Collecting consists of works on paper, photographs, paintings, artists’ books, and small sculptures spanning four centuries – the 1970s to the present.

Tomata du Plenty,
Untitled, 1989,
pencil and watercolor on paper,
Permanent Collection of the
Miami-Dade Public
Library System