Positive/Negative 39 Curated by Michelle Fisher, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston February 12 – March 8 at Slocumb Galleries East Tennessee State University 325 Treasure Lane Johnson City, TN 37614
Positive/Negative 39 exhibition will be held from February 12 to March 8, 2024 at the Slocumb Galleries. A juried exhibition is a survey of diverse, creative, innovative and excellent examples of contemporary art created in the American South.
Luna (Debris from a Lunar Paraphrase) 2020 Mother Mold cast of Catherine of Liberty City in domestic construction materials 36.5 x 34.75 x 13.25
About the Juror:
Michelle Millar Fisher is currently the Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work focuses on the intersections of people, power, and the material world. At the MFA, she is working on her next project, “Craft Schools: Where We Make What We Inherit” which took her on a train journey across all 48 contiguous US states, as well as the upcoming contemporary collection reinstallation called “Tender Loving Care.” As part of an independent team, she leads “Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births,” a book, touring exhibition, and series of programs. Find it on Instagram at @designingmotherhood. The recipient of an MA and an M.Phil in Art History from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, she received an M.Phil from and is currently completing her doctorate in art history at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY). She is widely published, and has received numerous fellowships, including from the Pew, Sachs, and Graham Foundations, and DAAD. Previously, she was The Louis C. Madeira IV Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where she co-organized “Designs for Different Futures” in 2019. From 2014-2018 she was a Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she co-organized, among other exhibitions, “Design and Violence” and “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” In 2010-11, she was a research intern in Arms & Armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2011, she co-founded ArtHistoryTeachingResources.org, a Kress Foundation-funded project now used in over 185 countries. In 2019, she co-founded Art + Museum Transparency, home to the Salary Transparency Spreadsheet. She was part of the 2022 fellow cohort at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.
The Slocumb Galleries are educational exhibition venues of the Department of Art & Design under the College of Arts and Sciences at East Tennessee State University.
Our Mission is to develop creative excellence, foster collaborations, promote inclusivity and encourage critical thinking by providing access to and serving as inclusive platforms for innovative ideas and diverse exhibitions. The Slocumb Galleries promote the understanding, presentation and appreciation of contemporary art in support of the academic experiences and the cultural development of the region, through collaborative programming with various units and community institutions.
Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay is an Appalachian-based Filipinx curator, artist advocate and arts administrator. She is gallery director for the ETSU Slocumb Galleries and its satellite venue in Downtown Johnson City, Tipton Gallery. She has organized and curated numerous exhibits both nationally and abroad, juried regional exhibitions and has lectured in the Philippines, Japan and the United States. Contreras-Koterbay graduated with honors from the University of the Philippines with a B.A. in anthropology and an M.A. in art history. She is former director of the MidSouth Sculpture Alliance, and member of the IKT International Association of Contemporary Art Curators, International Council of Museums, Southeastern College Art Conference, and International Association of Aesthetics. Grant recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission APS and ABC grants, Hope in Action and Arts Fund of East Tennessee Foundation, Tennessee Craft and SouthArts as well as the Andy Warhol Legacy grant. Contreras-Koterbay received the ETSU Distinguished Staff Award in 2013 and the Jan Phillips Mentoring Award in 2015. She is Director of the Crafting Blackness Initiative, a five year collaborative research, publication and exhibition series to advance the visibility of Black Craft and African American artists in Tennessee since 1920 up to present. Her BIPOC and diversity art proigramming received numerous awards from the Tennessee Assocation of Museums (TAM).
Lenguas Espinas Descolumnas I Spiny Spineless Tongues Coralina Rodriguez Meyer solo show of Mother Mold monuments from Mama Spa Botanica AIM Biennial @ Colonial Florida Cultural Heritage Museum
3225 NW 8th Ave Allapattah Miami FL 33127 Reception Fri Dec 8 2023 11am – 2pm On view December 1 2023 – January 4 2024
Nesting voyeurs within a verdant Foliage Obscura retablo from artist Coralina Rodriguez Meyer’s multidisciplinary Mama Spa Botanica collaborative project (2007-present), Lenguas Espinas Descolumnas reflects the neon rituals, fertile flora, vulnerable fauna and endangered activists vibrating in Queer, Latinx and Caribbean diaspora immigrant communities in America. A tropical sanctuary installation of Mother Mold monuments at the Colonial Florida Cultural Heritage Museum in Allapattah Miami FL for AIM Biennial and Linea Negra photographs at Prizm Art Fair during Miami Art Week 2023, illuminates full spectrum cultural care from Indigenous American mummification rituals from the Andes to Caribbean fertility effigies of the Caribbean preserved by Miami matriarchs. The Mama Spa Botanica documents in Mother Mold sculpture, Linea Negra photography and immersive Foliage Obscura retablos, conflicting reproductive health and climate crisis in America where LGBTQIA+BIPOC pregnant people are dying at 10x the rate of white women birthing in Miami hospitals. Fertility effigies are monuments to survivors made by, of and for diasporic families in agency building workshops lead by matriarchs, doulas, historians, herbalists, midwives, griots, quipucamayocs, educators, archivists, advocates & environmental activists. The Mama Spa Botanica workshop builds civic agency, restores dignity to under-resourced yet unvanquished colorful communities in a co-creative photography and pregnancy casting process. Transgressing violent American statutes and deadly statistics with vibrant fertility effigy statues; the works critique structural violence in American mythology while celebrating ancestral life cycle traditions that preserve and restore social habitats to historically redlined communities hovering above tidelines. Artist Coralina Rodriguez Meyer’s social justice practice in collaboration with full spectrum Doula/Griot Nicky Dawkins (Menstrual Market, Period Miami, Southern Birth Justice Network) delivers lifesaving reproductive healthcare and matriarchal interdependence strategies through cultural advocacy and direct-action community organizing on the front lines of democratic fertility in America. Linea Negra photographs are on view at Prizm Art Fair at Omni Building 1501 Biscayne Boulevard Miami and Mother Mold monuments are on view at Colonial Florida Cultural Heritage Museum 3225 NW 8 ave Allapattah Miami Dec 5-10 2023 10am – 5pm during Miami Art Week.
AIM BIENNIAL MIAMI 2023-24 “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” ― Paulo Freire The 2023 A.I.M. Biennial, returns during Miami Art Week 2023 and will feature 56 site-specific installations throughout South Florida, created by diverse group of visual artists, dancers, activists, and performers. Organized by william cordova, Marie Vickles, Gean Moreno, Amy Rosenblum-Martin; the A.I.M. Biennial is an alternative to more mainstream commercial ventures. The mission of A.I.M is to disrupt and realize different ways of perceiving how art can be realized and function in public places through independent channels of distribution. The A.I.M. Biennial is a conceptual program promoting outdoor ephemeral, virtual, and physical art projects by cultural practitioners based and affiliated with the state of Florida. The A.I.M. Biennial proposes a democratic platform and outlet for artists and public that mediates on current themes addressing, ecology, migration, economy, race, violence, survival, healing, closure, and transcendence. Participants created temporary installations, performance, or documentation of existing three-dimensional work that relates to the A.I.M. Biennial concept. Physical address location and maps invite the public to seek and experience each piece through out South Florida and partnered cities, States and Countries. The A.I.M. Biennial was founded by cultural practitioner, william cordova and initially developed with artists/curators, Gean Moreno, Marie Vickles and Amy Rosenblum-Martin. The A.I.M. Biennial is sponsored by the organizers and generously supported by The MIA (Miami Individual Artists) Grants Program. Our goal is to creatively channel collective concerns and ideas utilizing practical and resourceful methods to realizing works that provide greater artistic agency between artists and community. Locations: Homestead, Dade, Broward, Palm Beach Counties, Miccosukee, Seminole Indian Reservations, Gainesville, FL. Satellite Locations: Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Cuba, France, Pensilvania. Ayti, China, Nigeria, San Diego, Mexico, Chicago, IL. http://www.aimbiennial.org
ARTIST BIO Born in a car in an Everglades swamp, and raised Tinkuy (queer) between a rural US Southern immigrant neighborhood and the Caribbean, Coralina Rodriguez Meyer is a mixed-race indigenous Andinx (Colombian Muisca/Peruvian Inca), Brooklyn and Miami-based Quipucamayoc artist, architect, activist. Spanning 20 years and 30 countries, Coralina has collaborated with reproductive justice and climate leaders working across disciplines including architecture, activism, archives, education, documentary sculpture and moving images. She studied painting at MICA and anthropology at Hopkins and holds a BFA in Architecture from Parsons and MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College. Rodriguez Meyer received awards from National Latino Arts & Culture, Oolite Arts, VSArts, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, NYFA, South Arts, Miami Dade, and Young Arts. They have been a resident of Mildred’s Lane and the Bronx Museum AIM program. She was a research fellow at Museo Machu Picchu Peru, Syracuse University Florence, Artist’s Institute NYC and Universitat Der Kunst Berlin studying Nazi Utopian urban design with Hito Steyerl. Coralina taught architecture and urban design at Florida International University prior to completing a recent artist & scholar in residence program at Miami Dade College where her work in the University of Miami Kislak Americas collection culminated in her 2023 Voladores solo show at MDC Koubek Memorial Center. Rodriguez Meyer has exhibited at Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, Smithsonian Museum, Kunsthaus Brethanien Berlin, Colonial Florida Cultural Heritage Museum, CAC New Orleans, and Bronx River Art Center among others. Coralina’s current Mother Molds solo show at University of Maryland (Sept 13- Dec 8 2023) combines 2 decades of her Mother Mold monuments, Linea Negra photographs & Foliage Obscura paintings from the Mama Spa Botanica with 2 centuries of African Effigy Figures from the Jackson collection archives.
HOST PARTNER The Colonial Florida Cultural Heritage Museum includes a collection of Spanish Colonial art featuring works from throughout South and Central America and the Caribbean, particularly the art centers of Cusco, greater Peru and of Mexico City, and Europe during the Colonial Period. A significant portion of the William Morgenstern Estate collection was gifted to the museum recently. Dating from the pre-hispanic period in the Americas, as well as late 16th to the early 19th century paintings and sculpture express the unique heritage of Latin America with an. Often Baroque aesthetic. The art installed at La Merced Chapel is complemented by the Chapel’s hand-carved architecture and 23.5 karat gold-leaf decoration, applied by master Cuban artisans on site. The wide-ranging collections at La Casa include: Colonial and European Paintings, Icons, Engravings and Sculpture along with a research library of original books related to the social and political history of Florida, the islands and the Americas. Uniquely situated in the Allapattah neighdorhood of Miami on site of the Catholic Archdioses, the museum encompasses works from waves of families who call Miami home. The collection includes documents and memorabilia related to Cuba from its beginnings through Independence original documents and manuscripts such as a 1492 letter from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, memorabilia related to the Spanish American War and the relationships between the United States and the Philippines. Polymitas, Machetes, the lost art of tobacco: engravings, posters, prints, tools of the Cuban revolution are a view into the complex story of Miami’s heirlooms. Accesible by appointment are also original maps including the newly-discovered New World. Decorative Arts: silver, porcelain, furniture, tapestries, religious vestments made or used in the Americas, from XVII to XX century. The Colonial Florida Cultural Heritage Museum collection is directed by Ray Zamora. Contact RRGZamora@aol.com 305- 303-5855 to schedule an appointment. https://www.corpuschristimiami.org/culturalcenter
ORGANIZER The AIM Biennial The 2023 A.I.M. Biennial, returns during Miami Art Week 2023 and will feature 56 site-specific installations throughout South Florida, created by diverse group of visual artists, dancers, activists, and performers. The A.I.M. Biennial is an alternative to more mainstream commercial ventures. The mission of A.I.M is to disrupt and realize different ways of perceiving how art can be realized and function in public places through independent channels of distribution. The A.I.M. Biennial is a conceptual program promoting outdoor ephemeral, virtual, and physical art projects by cultural practitioners based and affiliated with the state of Florida. The A.I.M. Biennial proposes a democratic platform and outlet for artists and public that mediates on current themes addressing, ecology, migration, economy, race, violence, survival, healing, closure,and transcendence. Participants created temporary installations, performance, or documentation of existing three-dimensional work that relates to the A.I.M. Biennial concept. Physical address location and maps invite the public to seek and experience each piece through out South Florida and partnered cities, States and Countries. The A.I.M. Biennial was founded by cultural practitioner, william cordova and initially developed with artists/curators, Gean Moreno, Marie Vickles and Amy Rosenblum-Martin.The A.I.M. Biennial is sponsored by the organizers and generously supported by The MIA (Miami Individual Artists) Grants Program. Our goal is to creatively channel collective concerns and ideas utilizing practical and resourceful methods to realizing works that provide greater artistic agency between artists and community. AIM Biennial is curated by william cordova (founder, cultural practitioner, NY/Miami); Marie Vickles (Senior Director of Education, Pérez Art Museum Miami / Curator-in-Residence, Little Haiti Cultural Center); Gean Moreno (Director, Knight Foundation Art + Research Center at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami). Amy Rosenblum-Martin (Independent Curator and Guggenheim Museum Education Staff). http://aimbiennial.org/
Lambastic 