The Frost Art Museum Hosts 'A Room of One’s Own'

Thursday, 23 November 2006 09:56

MIAMI, FL - The Frost Art Museum welcomes the public to explore the conceptual work of four internationally renowned women artists whose installations are the focus of the Museum’s biennial exhibition featuring Cintas Fellows, A Room of One’s Own.  Curator, Elizabeth Cerejido, explains “the work of these four Cuban-American artists investigates the boundaries of space, architecture and materiality and challenges the notions that have traditionally defined artistic categories such as sculpture, installation art, photography, video and architecture.”  By taking elements that are recognizable to us - a house, plant life, a volcano and the sounds of daily urban environments - the artists prompt the viewers to re-examine how we perceive these things and what they represent.  By reconfiguring the context of these elements within each of their own spaces, the artists address and disrupt the manner in which architecture and the physicality of space shape our daily realities and our perception of the world. On exhibit until 10 December, 2006.

The title of the exhibition, A Room of One’s Own, makes reference to the title of the book by Virginia Woolf where she addresses issues that pertain to women and the conditions necessary for women to produce their art.  In this seminal text, Woolf succinctly centers her argument on two major factors fundamental for women to create their work: space and money.  These conditions had profound socio-political and economic implications that were groundbreaking within the context of Victorian England and have historically continued to gain relevance for women.  In addition, the title of the exhibition alludes to physical properties regarding the installation – each artist will have their own “room”, their respective space in which they will present their work.

The artists Teresita Fernández, María Elena González, Quisqueya Henríquez and María Martínez-Cañas.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fifty-six (56) page color catalogue with an introduction by Exhibition Curator Elizabeth Cerejido and essay by art historian and curator, Julia P. Herzberg, Ph.D.  The Cintas Foundation annually awards visual artists with a prestigious fellowship.  The Foundation’s mission is to support and recognize the work of artists with Cuban lineage in a variety of disciplines who live and work outside of Cuba.

The opening reception for A Room of One’s Own at the Frost Art Museum will took place Friday September 15^th, 2006 following the Steven & Dorothea Green Critics’ Lecture by Camille Paglia.  Paglia, a controversial public scholar and culture critic, inspired by the title of this exhibition, will address the themes of “space” and “rooms” through art history – from Prehistory and Egypt to Victorian and Modernist styles.

The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University is an AAM accredited university museum and Smithsonian affiliate.  All museum events are free and open to the public.  The Museum is located in PC110 in the Charles Perry building, SW 107^th Ave and 8th St. at FIU, University Park campus.  For more information please visit : www.frostartmuseum.org