Pérez Art Museum Miami Announces “Beyond Representation”
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is pleased to announce , an ongoing digital research project and performance series investigating a broad range of performance and performative practices by artists from the Caribbean and of Caribbean descent working in the region or its diasporas.
Jeannette Ehlers. Still from "Whip it Good", 2014. Camera: Marcus von Platen. Courtesy the artist.
Presented by the museum’s Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI) and curated by Iberia Pérez González, Beyond Representation features an intergenerational group of artists who employ the body or rely on bodily experience and live action to critically engage with the social, political, and cultural reality of their respective contexts.
The fall 2024 performance art series debuted on September 21, 2024, and features live art events by artists Jeannette Ehlers and Tirzo Martha.
Focusing on process, audience participation, and examining the relationship with space, matter, or other media, the artists featured in Beyond Representation create work that redefine traditional art-making practices. Jeannette Ehlers and Tirzo Martha’s performances collectively expose and refuse oppressive colonial ideologies while creating multiple narratives of freedom, healing, solidarity, and joy.
Accompanying the onsite performance events at PAMM, the online component of Beyond Representation highlights the abundant contributions of Caribbean creatives to avant-garde performance art. Video works by Jeannette Ehlers, Tirzo Martha, Carlos Martiel, Viveca Vázquez, and Merián Soto will be released on September 26 via PAMMTV, the museum’s first-of-its-kind streaming service that delivers video art from the museum to audiences wherever they are, free of charge. Visit pamm.tv for videos and more information.
Organization and Support
Beyond Representationis organized by Iberia Pérez González, Andrew W. Mellon Caribbean Cultural Institute Curatorial Associate, with the assistance of the PAMM Education Department and Digital Engagement Department. This exhibition is presented by PAMM’s Caribbean Cultural Institute. Pérez Art Museum Miami’s digital initiatives are funded in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Beyond Representation Fall 2024 Programming Presented by CCI
Jeannette Ehlers: We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) Braiding Circle | September 21, 1–4pm
This presentation of Ehlers’ We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) invites the local Afro-Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora community throughout Miami to collaborate on the work by participating in a braiding circle.
Participants will have the opportunity to take part in the creation of six 52-foot-long braids that will be used by the performers during the live event on September 26.
Jeannette Ehlers: We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) Live Performance | September 26, 5–8pm
In the durational performance We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls), Ehlers employs hair, an important identity marker among the African diaspora, as a simple yet powerful gesture. Connected to PAMM’s third-floor terrace by long cornrows, the performers move back and forth, slowly but insistently. Blending in with the hanging gardens, the hair creates a poetic metaphor for the relationship between culture and nature, body and landscape, history and the present. RSVP here.
Grief and strength are present in equal measure in this meditative performance. Accompanied by the sound of the roar of the Atlantic Ocean, it expresses a yearning for life outside the plantation system, and for the forest as a literal and symbolic sanctuary. We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) was originally commissioned by Mads Norgaard and first performed in November 2021.
Tirzo Martha: Act of Valor Virtual and In-Person Workshops | October–November Collective Performance | November 7
Taking as a point of departure, the figure of Captain Caribbean, an artistic persona that emerged in Martha’s practice in 2009, the artist and interested participants will reflect on contemporary issues (climate change, war, displacement, hunger, community breakdown, racism) and consider the desire to possess beyond natural powers to bring about change for a better world. Through a series of virtual and in-person workshop sessions, they will define qualities and characteristics of superheroes that will then be designed and shaped into costumes utilizing various materials. Participants will develop individual performances with the artist, which will then fuse into one collective performance presented to the public.