In writer Elvia Wilk’s essay “The World Made Fresh: Mystical Encounter and the New Weird Divine” she discusses the protagonist in novelist Jeff VanderMeer’s book Annihilation (2014):
“Annihilation’s narrator is the unnamed biologist. An expert in ‘transitional ecosystems’ – regions where one biosphere meets another – she has trained with her colleagues for months to prepare for their journey into Area X.”
Wilk’s full text traces the relationship between historical imprints of female mysticism and finds that there is “a lineage of female knowledge outside of dominant epistemologies of both religion and science.” Exposing the often designated “other” or “alien” ascribed to such encounters and transcriptions of them, she argues for a new form agency in such knowledge. Thus, it is to her no coincidence that all (human) characters in Annihilation are women who share an empathic bond with Area X. Area X, an alien landscape that is officially quarantined in the story, represents a current realm of “unknown unknowns” in which the characters, and by extension – the potentials – of current female mystical modalities reside, according to Wilk.
Wilk summarizes that “The body is a transitional ecosystem; it can’t survive in a vacuum,” and suggests that a “new weird divine” may be emergent that pulls from the origins of traditional female mysticism into something that could serve as “a foundation for non-anthropocentric knowledge.” An example of this might be the recent artistic collaborative/movement Laboria Cuboniks, a.k.a., Xenofeminism. Another example is the current exhibition at The Brick in Los Angeles, Life on Earth: Art and Ecofeminism.
This group exhibition, consisting of ten of our gallery artists, attempts to address these thought-provoking concepts. From emergent and spliced figural studies, to abstract landscapes within fields of un/becoming, the assembled works of Close Encounters of the New Kind continues this trajectory.
Lidzie Alvisa
Born in Havana, Cuba, Lidzie Alvisa is known as one of the most proficient artists of contemporary Cuban conceptual photography. Since her years of training at the Superior Institute of Arts, self-reinvention and experimentation have hastened Lidzie Alvisa’s development. Her most recent work shows us the very edges of her conceptual concerns while still delighting us with new methods, techniques and media. Her work perfectly embodies this ideo-aesthetic and deeply personal quality that so characterizes it. The visual language she has developed reveals her philosophical biases while ruminating on deep, existential questions. The result is a body of work that resists sexist categorization or reductive generalization. Lidzie Alvisa has managed to masterfully weave together a feeling of universality with an incisive relationship to beauty.
Lole Asikian
Lole Asikian was born in 1984 in the City of Buenos Aires. In 2003 she had her first photography workshop and since has attended several workshops in both photography and painting. In 2006 she studied experimental development, photography and design at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. In 2016 she studied documentary photography at the Magnum Agency in London with Stuart Franklin, Bieke Depoorter and other photographers from the agency. That same year I attended a street photography workshop with Bieke Depoorter and Harry Gruyaert in Brussels, Belgium.
Felice Grodin
Felice Grodin lives and works in Miami Beach, Florida. Grodin received a Bachelor of Architecture from Tulane University (1992) and a Master of Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University (1997). She highlights the transformative and unstable state of our ecosystems. Her works depict speculative futures and abstract landscapes that invite the viewer to mediate on their space and environment. Solo exhibitions include “Felice Grodin: Invasive Species” at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (2017-2022), “IM/Movable Assets” at the Miami International Airport (2019-20), and “Mezzbug (Offspring 3.0)” for Special Projects through Untitled Art Fair (2018). Selected group exhibitions include: “Draw: Point to Point” at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum (2023), “Elemental – Terra, Tide & Time” at The Frank Gallery in Pembroke Pines (2022), and “Tension in 3 Dimensions” at the Deering Estate (2019).
Ivelisse Jimenez
Ivelisse Jimenez received a BA in Humanities from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, and an MFA from New York University. She has exhibited widely on the international level and is the recipient of the First Prize Painting at the 7th Arte Laguna in Venice, Italy and the 2009 Joan Mitchell Award for Painters and Sculptors, among many others.
Clemencia Labin
Originally from Venezuela, Labin spent time in the United States, graduating from Columbia University. She has since lived and worked in Germany for over twenty years, where she studied at the Hamburg Academy of the Arts. She represented Venezuela in the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, where her performances invoked the Velada Santa Lucia she has organized since 2001.
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel
Lathan-Stiefel graduated from Brown University and the Maine College of Art. She currently lives and works in Pennsylvania. The recipient of numerous awards, among them the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, she has exhibited her work throughout the United States and Canada.
Alejandra Padilla
Born in Argentina, Alejandra Padilla continues to live and work there while participating in solo and group exhibitions internationally since 1994. Solo shows include: “20 years with Diana Lowenstein Gallery”(2017), Miami,Florida, “Collages and Drawings” (2015), Diana Lowenstein Gallery, Miami, Florida, as well as “∞” (2013), Praxis Chelsea, New York, New York. Additionally, Padilla has participated in several international art fairs.
Silvia Rivas
Rivas has exhibited her works since 1988 and participated in many individual and group exhibitions,at a national and international stage. She has represented Argentina in various international biennials including the 3rd and 5th editions of the Mercosur Biennial Porto Alegre, the 8th edition of the Habana Biennial, the 2nd edition of Bienalsur, and participated at the 15th edition of Video Brazil. In 2001 Rivas was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Her works have been honored on many occasions, such as the Diploma to the Merit by the Konex Foundation (2002-2012), Artist in Residence Fellowship at the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, Ohio, USA) the Award for Visual Arts by the Argentina Association of Art Critics (2002), Arte Digital Argentino Prize at the First International Art Biennial de Buenos Aires, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA)among others.
Graciela Sacco
As a visual artist with a prominent position in the contemporary art scene, Graciela has represented Argentina in several international biennials including Shanghai Biennial (2004), Venice (2001), La Habana (1997 and 2000), Mercosur (1997), Sao Pablo (1996), 1st Biennial of Photography in Vigo (2000), The Urban Art Festival Toulouse (2002), among others. She has been awarded with various distinctions and has received many international accolades including Artist of the year, by the Argentinean Association of Art Critics (2001), Konex award (2002 – 2012) among others. She has published numerous books such as M2 Volúmen I (2009), Shadows from the South and the North (2004), Imágenes en Turbulencia: Migraciones, cuerpos, memoria (2000), Escrituras Solares (1994).
Alex Trimino
Alex Trimino was born in Colombia and lives and works in Miami, FL. Trimino graduated with a Master in Fine Arts from Florida International University. She attended Ox-Bow Artist Residency affiliated with the school of the Art Institute of Chicago as a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship for Visual Artist. Her work was part of “OpenArt” International Art Symposium, Sweden and her solo exhibition “Dark Light” was presented at Läns Museum, West Gallery, Örebro, Sweden. Trimino has been the recipient of grants and awards, from The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, The Elliot Museum, Appleton Museum of Art, Rawls Museum Arts, Cambridge Art Association and Joan Mitchell Foundation. Trimino is represented by Diana Lowenstein Gallery, Miami.
Since 1989, Diana Lowenstein has been part of the international art scene through her role as an active gallery owner and director, first under the name Der Brücke and now as the eponymous Diana Lowenstein Gallery.
Mrs. Lowenstein began her career as a gallerist in Argentina, fomenting young local artists as well as organizing exhibitions of world-renowned foreign artists.
Participating in high-caliber art fairs like FIAC in Paris, ARCO in Madrid, Art Basel, Art Chicago and Art Miami has been a staple in the gallery’s operation. Furthermore, Diana Lowenstein has been part of numerous organizing committees of these fairs, being able to influence their orientation to include a quality Latin American mix of talent.
In September of 2000, the gallery headquarters were moved to Miami. It is now based in Magic City District, the gallery has thirty-two years of specialized experience presenting contemporary art in the United States and across the globe. The Diana Lowenstein Gallery runs a year-long exhibition program in Miami and participates in the world’s most exclusive art fairs, presenting the works of its stable of international artists. She has made it possible for many of her exclusive artists to exhibit works in major world museums and biennales.
Open to all visitors from 11—4 pm. Progressive Art Brunch brings together participating galleries several Sundays throughout the year. The event highlights the current programming at each venue and enables visitors a more intimate look at the exhibitions on view.
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