Cuban artists Rafael Domenech and Ernesto Oroza join forces at The Bass Miami

“Hialeah Eléctrica–Metavector” at The Bass Miami will present a series of collaborative works by Cuban artists Rafael Domenech and Ernesto Oroza. For their first joint museum exhibition, the artists constructed a site-specific installation that is both architectural and sculptural and functions on three different levels: as an artistic project, an index and an archive.

“Instead of using the exhibition to show results, we want to use the exhibition as a tool to produce research–this process is open to developing pedagogical and participatory protocols with our collaborators,” Domenech and Oroza said.

The exhibition will run from June 16 – October 1, 2021.

Using Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology, the artists rework everyday materials like vinyl and drywall (often found or repurposed), along with photos, newspaper, and typographical ephemera from their archive as the material vocabulary that constructs their visual investigations. Bringing together shared interests and explorations into architecture, urban planning, modes of material production and adaptive construction, as well as mutual histories as Cuban émigrés to Miami, Rafael Domenech and Ernesto Oroza fuse references to the South Florida city of Hialeah and Japanese architect Arata Isozaki (the architect behind the museum’s 2001 expansion project and 2017 transformation) as case-studies, sources for production and conceptual materials for the objects and structures in their exhibition.

Hialeah is nicknamed “The City of Progress” and home to the United States’ second-largest Hispanic population (94.7% of residents identifying as Hispanic)1. It is also anecdotally known as the epicenter for fabrication of all types in Miami. The artists are interested in Hialeah’s vernacular response to globalized modes of production and economic infrastructure. Looking to modern architectural history, along with the history of The Bass’ building, Domenech and Oroza situate their installation at The Bass in reference to Arata Isozaki’s collaboratively-formed installation Electric Labyrinth (part of the never-opened 1968 XIV Triennale di Milano), which reflected on the possibilities and drawbacks of the rapid architectural (re)development of Post-WWII Japan.

About the artists

Rafael Domenech (b.1989, Havana, Cuba) utilizes and explores notions of architecture, urban design, and contemporary material production as research tactics for the production of different typologies of objects and spaces. His work has been exhibited at SculptureCenter, New York (2020); Socrates Sculpture Park.

He was the recipient of an award from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and the Cintas Fellowship. He holds an MFA from Columbia University.

Ernesto Oroza (b.1968, Havana, Cuba) is an artist, designer, and author living and working between Miami and Saint-Etienne, France. A graduate of Havana’s Superior Institute of Design and later a professor in both Cuba and France, his practice is geared toward highlighting and critically understanding human-object interactions and the role that collective engagements with material culture have in the making of community.

ABOUT THE BASS

The Bass is Miami Beach’s contemporary art museum. Founded in 1964 by the City of Miami Beach, the museum was established after the donation of a private collection by residents John and Johanna Bass and opened in what was formerly the Miami Beach Public Library and Art Center, a 1930s Art Deco building designed by Russell Pancoast. Recognized for organizing the first solo museum exhibitions in the United States of international artists such as Erwin Wurm, The Bass has also presented major exhibitions by influential artists including El Anatsui, Isaac Julien, Eve Sussman and Piotr Uklański.

The exhibition program encompasses a wide range of media and artistic points of view, bringing fresh perspectives to the diverse cultural context of Miami Beach. The Bass is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

 For more information, please visitwww.thebass.org, or follow The Bass on social media at www.facebook.com/TheBassMoA or Twitter and Instagramvia @TheBassMoA.