Cortando,
Cociendo y Recordando
by
Erman
September
26 - December 17, 2009
West
Dade Regional Library
9445 Coral Way, Miami, FL • 305.553.1134
RECEPTION
With performance and artist’s talk
Wednesday, September 30, 6 - 8:30 p.m.
Cortando, Cociendo y
Recordando is a
site-specific installation, curated by Rosie Gordon-Wallace, that is also a
survey of Erman’s work from 2000 to the present. Erman creates evocative
environments and artists’ books using a lyrical vocabulary of images and
metaphors: sewing objects, handwritten text and handmade garments, shoes and
houses empty of their wearers or inhabitants. The work alludes to familiar
narratives of migration, exile, up-rootedness, transculturalism and
displacement.
About
the artist
Juan A.
Gonzalez, better known as Erman, was born in Cuba in 1956 and has lived in
exile in the United States since 1969. His first career was as a designer in
the fashion industry; his transition to visual artist began in 1989, when he
began to meld fashion, sculpture and fiber art. Erman is concerned with
blurring the traditionally Western divide between art and craft, and his work
addresses the personal and universal effects of migration, up-rootedness,
religion, matriarchy and transculturalism. He is the recipient of residencies and
fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center; Instituto Sacatar in Itaparica,
Brazil; and Art Center South Florida. Erman has been an invited guest artist,
instructor, and lecturer at the National Art Gallery in Nassau, the Fashion
Institute of Technology in NYC, and Colorado State University's Art and
Consumer Sciences Departments. He was recently a guest lecturer and workshop
instructor at Broward College in Davie, FL in conjunction with Cortando, Cociendo y Recordando,
a traveling survey exhibition of his work from 2000 to the present, curated by
Rosie Gordon-Wallace. In 2008, the show traveled to Lincoln Center in Ft.
Collins, CO. Erman has taught fiber art to children from underserved local
schools as well as adults and children living with special needs. He is
represented by Diaspora Vibe Gallery and his work is in many private and
institutional collections.
For
more information about upcoming exhibitions and programs at the Miami-Dade
Public Library System, visit:
http://mdpls.org/news/exhibitions/exhibitions.asp