MIAMI—Nina Johnson is proud to present 6319 NW 2nd Avenue, Tom Scicluna’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening on May 4th with a public reception, and remaining on view until June 2nd. For his first commercial gallery exhibition in Miami,Scicluna continues his practice of sourcing nearby found material and composing it in such a way as to trace new connections between the gallery and surrounding social contexts. The title of the show—a phantom address next to the gallery refers to the continuing effacement of Miami’s urban landscape, and the role of the arts in this architectural palimpsest.
The artist looked to ongoing renovation of Nina Johnson gallery as a mediating factor of the contemporary art program and the surrounding neighborhood. To bridge these two contexts, he removed the iron security grills from the property’s external façades and installed them in the gallery itself—a unique space: not quite a white cube, it contains concrete exposed interior columns and an arch, and as such merges external and internal architecture. Mounted on the walls, in this new context they will uneasily exist between art objects and architectural fixtures. In this oscillation, the works call to mind larger binaries: the found object and the constructed; private and public space; the logic of luxury and crime prevention.
While these grills have a rough industrial presence, closer inspection reveals them to be individualized and possessing almost poignant details. Some display multiple coats of chipped purple, tan, blue or pink paint—the legacy of renewals past. Others feature chains and locks, or have been modified by hand. Another tension thus emerges in Scicluna’s canny, subtle practice: the distance between a found object, and this one right here. With unexpected elegance, the artist has created an intervention that asks us to consider the mutability of the objects, and spaces, which surround us.
About Tom Scicluna
Tom Scicluna is a Miami-based artist. Recent exhibitions and projects include: Some Aesthetic Decisions: Centennial Celebration of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, FL; New Works Miami 2013, Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL; and Climate Sync a public artwork realized in conjunction with Miami-Dade Art in Public Places at ArtCenter/South Florida, Miami Beach, FL.
About Nina Johnson
Nina Johnson is a contemporary art space in Miami, Florida. Opened as Gallery Diet in 2007, the gallery has produced exhibitions by emerging and established artists from around the world.
