Consorting the Consortium

For more than two decades now, the South Florida Cultural Consortium has served as sort of a trend guru, recognizing artists from Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties who are leaving deep footprints across the region. Each year, the alliance of local arts agencies representing all points from...

By Carlos Suarez De Jesus

May 19, 2011

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For more than two decades now, the South Florida Cultural Consortium has served as sort of a trend guru, recognizing artists from Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties who are leaving deep footprints across the region. Each year, the alliance of local arts agencies representing all points from the 3-0-5 to the 7-7-2 award $7,500 to $15,000 grants to top-drawer talent blooming in the Sunshine State, also offering winners of the juried South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Fellowship the opportunity to exhibit their opuses in area museums. 2010 was a bumper year for homegrown creative types, says Klaudio Rodriguez, assistant curator at the Frost Art Museum (10975 SW 17th St., Miami). The Cultural Consortium’s exhibit will feature close to 30 works ranging from “the profound to the mundane and everything in between,” he informs. “It runs the gamut from drawings to photography, painting, video, installation, sculpture, and even an artist who is presenting an alter ego she has created on the internet,” Rodriguez adds.

The year’s crop of consortium geniuses at the Frost includes Cooper, Michael Genovese, Francie Bishop Good, Nolan Haan, Sibel Kocabasi, Beatriz Monteavaro, Glexis Novoa, Jonathan Rockford, Bert Rodriguez, FriendsWithYou, TM Sisters, and Tonietta Walters. “There are definitely some names local art followers will recognize,” Rodriguez says, “but also some fresh faces — like Rockford, who has crocheted a skateboard for this show, and Haan, who paints hyperrealistic images of bricks that are amazing, that give a great indicator to the level of talent emerging here.” The exhibit runs through August 21. Admission is free. Call 305-348-2890, or visit thefrost.fiu.edu.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: May 25. Continues through Aug. 21, 2011

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