Friday, February 18, 2011

wiki-KIWI-bonga




Artic Attire Required

Winter in South Florida is our pay-off season. Day temperatures are tolerable and the cool nights are divine. One can easily spot snowbirds who flock here to get away from global warming by parading around our artzihoods in tee-shirts while locals dress conversely in bundled garb that suit their thinned blood. Where else but in the swamp can we enjoy art mid winter al fresco.




Legendary Delaplaine and Norma Jean

During the latest Art Crawl, at the newly minted KIWI Gallery in Wynwood, it was easy to tell "whos who" but the pressing question was "who is what".


Fame by Frame

The inaugural exhibition at this latest of bandwagon galleries is titled Warhol + Indiana, the fine art photograph by William John Kennedy of pop art giants in their early days when everyone was undiscovered and really really interesting. Four decades later Kennedy has compiled a picture story in black and white and read all over. In my small mind Andy is an art god... Indiana not so much.




Here is a portrait of the very Kennedyesque William John back when film was king and cool came from within not without.

Kennedy's work chronicled his times with uncanny sensitivity and honesty, as did another great photographer Bruce Davidson.



2011 Kennedy still kickin' it with our very own voluptuous art world ambassador DM Baptiste.



Wizard of Gloss

To get the party started local SOBE legend Louis Canales brought us Joey Arias of Billy Holiday channeling legend. Joey is an old pal and when he taps his 6 inch heels three times, party goers are transported to her Kansas, a place where dreams come from.



Real Girls Crispi, Merle and DM..



Mrs. Swampthing shares beauty secrets with the hired help.


Joey Arias hams it up with incurable gallery goers.

While Wynwood wallows in the sultry excesses of popular attention and illusive revenue , it should not be unsettling to observe the now reliable barometers of gentrification. The scripted stages pique predictably in an ever shrinking cycle aptly heretofore unnamed. I call it YesInMyBackyardism.

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