In reference to his newly commissioned public artwork in Museum Park on the occasion of Fringe Projects, artist David Brooks will discuss how artistic inquiries, fieldwork, and research-based practice contribute to a broader “living” characteristic of his work and projects.
This talk will be directly followed by a site visit with the artist and Fringe Projects Curator, Amanda Sanfilippo to Museum Park to view Brooks' A Day In the Life of the Coral (as seen near Brewster Reef), which documents portions of the coral reefs in close proximity to downtown Miami.
Free and open to the public
David Brooks
A Day In the Life of the Coral (as seen near Brewster Reef), 2015
September 2015 - January 2016
Museum Park, 1075 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132
New York-based artist David Brooks investigates how cultural concerns cannot be divorced from the natural world, while also questioning the terms under which nature is perceived and utilized. Having spent many years exploring the watery wildernesses of South Florida, Brooks has come to see the region as one of the most prescient testing grounds in understanding a society’s relationship to the built and natural environment.
On the occasion of this public commission the artist spent a consecutive number of days documenting portions of the barrier and patch reefs in close proximity to downtown Miami. Through the use of large layered billboards that post the daily goings-ons of the reefs Brooks visited, he treats the billboard as a device in the service of journalism. Here the monumentally scaled imagery presents 3 actual moments in time for the coral, including evidence of their now common bleaching phases due to deterioration in water quality and intensified warming – alongside their formal beauty and dwindling biodiversity from human impact. The billboards might appear to the viewer as incomplete or damaged, as large circular areas of the structure have been extracted. The deleterious impact the circular cutouts have on the images make them that much more difficult to interpret – analogous to the stresses society imposes upon other life within our environs, regardless of our inabilities to perceive them as such.
Fringe Projects is made possible by the Miami Downtown Development Authority for DWNTWN Art Days and Miami Dade County Art in Public Places. Support for Fringe Projects is provided by Cannonball through its WaveMaker Grants program, which is part of the Andy Warhol Foundation's Regional Regranting Program. WaveMaker Grants is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.
Images courtesy of David Brooks. Further Images here and at www.fringeprojectsmiami.com