After a long, sticky summer of bottomless jugs of
Kool-Aid and worn out reruns, Locust projects begins
another cycle of unhinged and often questionable
exhibitions.
In the main space, in a heat that can’t melt ideas
like popsicles, Raymond Saá has been working on a
series of large-scale murals. Part of a series of
pieces first realized on the exterior of houses in
Wynwood, the indoor version of these murals are of
tropical flora imagery bought down to its minimal form
in monochrome. This imagery vamps up its own menacing
undertones in order to allude to some of contradictory
experience of immigrants in America. Promised
opportunities pitted against the confusion of a new
and competitive culture spin off daily realities that
become strange cognitive blurs that one has to slowly
work through. And then, there is always the callback
of the culture of one’s own country that throws even
more incompatible elements into the mix.
‘El Dulcerito Llego’ (The SweetsVendor is Here)
is the title of a Cuban song by Harry Kim and Raymundo
Olivera, 1998. Olivera’s trumpet solos are inspired by
the acapella singing style of street vendors. Saá has
used the street vendor, who displays the
resourcefulness and creativity of the immigrant sole
proprietor and represents the cultural mix of imagery
and commerce, in much of his work. Sugar has long been
a metaphor for wealth, success, sweetness and
comfort—what we all aspire to. But then again, it can
also be the opposite. Think of all the bad memories
that arise when you think of the film of sugar left at
the bottom the Kool-Aid cup.
In the project room, William Cordova unleashes a
new video. An homage to authentic beginnings as well
as a spoof on empty gestures and compromised
successes, Dondi and The Band of Gyspsies’ Greatest
Hits, 2004, brings together Air Supply and Hendrix,
graffiti gods and white boy guitar thrashing. Dondi,
the first graffiti king, like Hendrix’s own Band of
Gypsies’, never got his due. Props and fortunes went
instead to Futura 2000, Zephyr, and other Bronx types
that outlived poor Dondi. JH’s Experience got credit
where it wasn’t due, even Jimi thought so. If Cordova
romanticizes the beginnings that take place in living
rooms and street corners, the bands that you organize
with your friends when music matters more than money,
its because things get sticky down the road. Gestures
begin to loose their meaning. Smashing guitars on
stage becomes schtick. Singing love songs to girls
that have been stitched together out of marketing
research is a little more than deadening. Of course
zero solemnity is attached to Cordova’s slippery
denunciations of pop’s entropic dive. He’s still
serving up that weird confusion that governs the
immigrant mind. Just think about about it: Air Supply
and Hendrix. Huh? Yeah, that was our reaction as well.

WHO: Raymond Saá
WHAT: Art Show
WHEN: Opening Reception September 10th 8pm.
Show runs through October 10.
WHERE: Locust Projects, 105 NW 23rd Street Miami, FL
33127

Locust Projects is pleased to announce the opening of
Raymond Saá.

Saá will be producing a site-specific installation to
address the entire exhibition space. Saá’ creates large-scale works
that are expansive and conceptually diverse, drawing on the
techniques of abstract expressionism, island craftsmanship and
industrial surfaces. His works bring
together an intense esthetic within minimal
formats. His murals reach off of the walls, incorporating
makeshift wood structures that function both as
hand-crafted assemblage and shanty engineering. The
exhibition is titled ‘El Dulcerito Llego’ (The
SweetsVendor is Here) also the name of a song by Harry
Kim and Raymundo Olivera. In the song Olivera’s
trumpet solos are inspired by the capella singing
style of Cuban street vendors. Saá draws from the
trade of the street vendor in much of his works.
Inspired by the immigrant sole proprietor, portable
and ever-present, Saá internalizes the street vendor’s
resourcefulness and creativity. The installation
reveals itself through a mass of monochrome
silhouetting juxtaposed with tropical pastel
collisions. Saá Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

In the Video Project Room:
William Cordova (recent video work)

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LOCUST PROJECTS is sponsored, in part, by The Dade
Community Foundation with support of The Miami-Dade
County Dept of Cultural Affairs, The Cultural Affairs
Council, The Mayor, and The Miami-Dade Board of County
Commissioners.