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A walk through El Espacio 23, Jorge Perez’s most recent art venture

By DJ 33 1/3 Feb 22, 2021 This Black History Month, you can experience exhibitions that are a small part of a much a larger history. Here are five places in Miami where you can check out work by Black artists. Reginald O'Neal's As I Am at Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami is part of MOCA’s new Art on the Plaza series. A mural painted by local artist Reginald O’Neal is stationed on the wall near the fountain. Titled As I Am, is on view for all to see through March 7 at 770 NE 125 St., North Miami; 305-893-6211; "Local Global," at Little Haiti Cultural Complex is still on view. Curat...

Judas and the Black Messiah on HBO Max or One Night in Miami on Amazon Prime, venture out into the city — safely — and see some art. Through art, you can experience someone else’s emotions, even if only for a brief moment, and imagine how they see the world. "These exhibitions are only a small part of a much a larger history of [Black] artistic production that deserves to be studied and shared all year round," says Miami-based curator Marie Vickles, who also serves as education director at Pérez Art Museum Miami. "It is from this history, passed down through the generations of Blac...

“I’ve always seen art as a way to better understand my culture and roots,” said art collector Jorge M. Pérez, who was born in Argentina to Cuban-exiled parents. While the bulk of the South Florida real-estate developer’s vast art collection has been focused on Latin American and Caribbean works, Pérez discovered what he calls “an unexpected kinship” to African art and art of the African Diaspora. “While I didn’t always experience a direct connection to African and African Diaspora art, that all changed once I traveled to the continent myself,â€�...

Pérez says he found many similarities to the works produced by Latin American and Caribbean artists: “Among these parallels were questions of political and social oppression, colonialism and identity, all of which were deeply embedded in many of my favorite pieces from Cuba and numerous other Latin regions.” You can see 100 of his pieces in an exhibition titled, “Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection,” at his year-old private museum, El Espacio 23 in Allapattah. The art is exceptional — and the curator behind “Witness” is, too. Zimbabwean-born Tandazani...