By Fabiola Santiago
…The LegalArt Live/Work Residency Open Studios, funded with a Knight grant, is hosting its first slate of artists-in-residence in a 1924 converted warehouse on North Miami Avenue. The collection of artists there offers a window into what makes Miami one of the country’s most interesting cultural experiments. The local artists live and work alongside two artists from Madrid and Buenos Aires. They have their own live-work studio but share the showers, the kitchen and bicycles to get around town.
Spanish artist Rosell Meseguer is collaborating with local Haitian-American artist Adler Guerrier on a project about Miami’s “neighborhoods in transit,” Lugares de tránsito, art of a hemispheric effort that seeks to “show Latin America as a shared reality.”
One can feel the artistic energy in the Legal/Art studios right away: A hot pink stairwell leads to an open exhibition space with black cement floors and columns. Every artist has turned his or her space into a work of art that reflects their personality and practice.
“There is a freedom in Miami and an exuberance in that you’re still able to play with your art and re-invent with your art and not be concerned about trends in the art world,” says Kathleen Carignan, executive director of the nonprofit LegalArt. “There is a quality to their work that has a sense of humor and a lightness, even when they’re working with dark subjects.” …
