By Sandra Schulman
The art season in Broward County is big on classic art this year, with a major show highlighting the Renoir and Glackens bromance at NSU Art Museum – a stark change from the knockout edgy Frank Stella work of last season.
The Biennial at Hollywood Art and Culture Center is always a good way to catch up on the new work being made in the region, while the newish Frank Gallery in Pembroke Pines hits the streets for a show of urban grit.
Nova Southeastern University Art Museum Fort Lauderdale: The American artist William Glackens has long had a prominent place at the Nova Southeastern Museum since his son Ira left his estate of Glackens works to the museum on his death. The Fort Lauderdale museum has the largest collection of William Glackens’s work in the country, many of which can be seen in its Glackens wing.
While inspired by the currents of his time, Glackens also was widely traveled and open to many influences, particular that of Renoir. The NSU museum opens its season with an exhibit that twins works by the two men, called William Glackens and Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Affinities and Distinctions. The show brings together 25 works by each artist to illuminate similarities and differences – Renoir’s influence on Glackens’ artistry; the changes in Glackens’s work after 1920 in response to Renoir’s late work; and the history of taste in American collecting from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. Their paintings of children, women, and everyday family scenes explore the evolving beauty in genteel lives. (Oct. 21-May 19)
Remember to React: 60 Years of Collecting is a 60th anniversary exhibit of some rarely seen works from the museum’s collection. Named after a 1984 Jenny Holzer artwork, the show will occupy 28,000 square feet of gallery space with traditional African art, artists of the Mexican Revolution – including Frida Kahlo, Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and others – and a gallery focused on Asger Jorn and Henry Heerup, artist resisters of the German military occupation of Denmark (1943 to 1945) who later formed the Cobra group with Karel Appel. Pop art, abstraction and a new installation by Serge Alain Nitegeka are also on the menu. (Nov. 18-June 30)
[Nova Southeastern University Art Museum, www.nsuartmuseum.org, 954-525-5500]
Coral Springs Museum of Art: The depredations of war are part of two exhibits that opened the season last month at the museum (newly reopened after renovations), beginning with Daniel Winn’s Metamorphosis – The Beginning. Winn, who fled Vietnam in 1975, champions a style called “existential surrealism,” in which he explores human existence and the conflict between free will and destiny. (Opened Sept. 29, runs through Nov. 17)
Along with that is an exhibit featuring longtime museum faculty member Rolande Reverdy Moorhead, called War and Patriotism. Moorhead’s straightforward realistic style here takes on images of war and its effect on people. (Opened Sept. 29, runs through Nov. 17). Also featured during that same period is an exhibit called Daydreaming, with works by members of the National Association of Women Artists.
Other artists getting individual shows include Sally Cooper, who teaches at Old School Square in Delray Beach, in Journey to Abstraction, examining Cooper’s “non-objective” works in the abstract idiom she has pursued for the past two decades (Dec. 1-29); Alvaro Labaniño, who offers paintings that evoke his Miami upbringing, often without figures (Dec. 1-March 2); and Elizabeth Thompson, whose work includes a series of paintings of scenes from the Everglades. (Dec. 1-March 2)
[Coral Springs Museum of Art, Coral Springs; www.coralspringsmuseum.org, 954-340-5000]
Art and Culture Center/Hollywood: The 2018 Florida Biennial features 66 works by 31 artists who were selected by guest juror Sarah Fritchey. This ninth edition of the center’s juried biennial received applications from 291 artists living in 85 cities throughout Florida. In all, juror Fritchey reviewed 2,050 works from artists working in multiple mediums. The 2018 Florida Biennial focuses on distinct Florida issues including multicultural identities, ecological issues, and a robust cultural climate within the global economy. (Opened Sept. 13, runs through Oct. 21)
Then in November, curator Laura Marsh presents From Center to Center, a show based on the idea that South Florida’s ever-growing community of artists working across counties is connected “through longstanding institutions that adopt strategies to support artistic production and cultivate new dialogues.” This group exhibition focuses on artists who are alumni of these institutions. (Nov. 1-Jan. 6)
[Art and Culture Center Hollywood, Hollywood; www.artandculturecenter.org, 954-921-3274]Frank Gallery: The Frank C. Ortis Gallery in the Pembroke Pines City Center is currently showing Hustle, which evokes the pop sensibilities of South Florida’s urban art and artists. Mash up the pure colors and imagery of Pop Art with the grit, energy and political and social power of street art and you have an exhibit that looks beyond the wall for deeper meaning. (Now through Oct. 27)
Coming Nov. 15 is Afterglow, a show featuring work by Reginald O’Neal (L.E.O.), Kandy G. Lopez and Michael Williams that addresses the needs of persons who are deaf, physically, or intellectually challenged. (Through Jan. 26)
[The Frank Gallery, Pembroke Pines; www.thefrankgallery.org, 954-392-2120]Young At Art Museum: This kid-centric museum in Davie has a few shows for all ages this season. Sew Organ, by Duane Brant, running now through Jan. 6, invites the audience to play 16 interactive acoustical sound machines that combine vintage sewing machines with shellacked wooden acoustic forms, all having links to organs, cellos or old radios.
LightScapes, opening Nov. 3 and running through April 28, comes to the museum from Miami’s multidimensional Haiiileen (aka Aileen Quintana). These large-scale interactive sculptures overflow with texture, colors and light while exploring light and color theory. It’s sponsored by Florida Power & Light’s solar energy division.
[Young at Art Museum, Davie; Youngatartmuseum.org, 954-424-0085]FAT Village: A four-block stretch of warehouses in Fort Lauderdale has been the home to various art and creative hubs for several years, expanding with a once a month ArtWalk that finds the streets and side lots filled with craft vendors and new exhibits in the massive warehouses.
A current group show, Yes I’m a Witch, explores feminism, witch trials, mysticism and the folklore surrounding female power at FAT Village Projects space (through Nov. 2). Tina La Porta exhibits Side Effects, a powerful personal exploration of mental illness and medication at Far Gallery (through Nov. 16).
(FAT Village, Fort Lauderdale: FatVillage.com, 954-760-5900)