Shortlist 2017 Miami Beach
Jamal Cyrus was selected for sixth BMW Art Journey. Houston-based artist to explore the notion of the Afro-Atlantic. Aiming to examine the many diverse cultural hybrids that have emerged through protracted interaction between the continents.
Art Basel and BMW are delighted to present Jamal Cyrus as the next BMW Art Journey winner. The international jury selected him unanimously from a shortlist of three artists whose works were exhibited in the Positions sector at last year’s Art Basel show in Miami Beach. Jamal Cyrus is represented by Inman Gallery, Houston.
The notion of the Afro-Atlantic provides the conceptual underpinning for Jamal Cyrus’ journey. It is, in his own words, “an intercontinental and multinational geography describing the circulation of ideas between Africa, Europe, and the Americas.” Inspired in part by Paul Gilroy’s writings from the early 1990s, Cyrus aims to examine the many diverse cultural hybrids that have emerged through protracted interaction between the continents.
Such cultural hybrids – molded by forces of conquest, colonization, slavery, industry, migration, and philosophy – can be apprehended in the cultural centers Cyrus plans to visit. These include among others the Elmina Castle in Accra, Ghana; the Theatre Champs-Elysees, in Paris, France; Brixton's Electric Avenue, in, London, England; the Alhambra in Granada, Spain; and Congo Square, in New Orleans, United States.
At each location, Cyrus will record interviews with artists, musicians, historians, and philosophers who engage with the creative traditions of the Afro-Atlantic. "The journey promises to be a transformational process involving travel, dialogue, collective imagination, and intuitive response that will allow new ideas to surface in my work”, so Cyrus.
Miami Beach 2017 Shorlisted Artists in addition to Jamal Cyrus.
Mariela Scafati, Isla Flotante, Buenos Aires
Mariela Scafati, born in 1973 in Olivos near Buenos Aires, still lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied Visual Arts at the ESAV in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. In her artistic practice, she pays attention to the relationship between activism and pictorial manifestations. At this year’s Art Basel in Miami Beach show, Scafati is presenting an installation that confirms and eschews the notion of paintings as self-contained entities. Scafati’s solo exhibitions include Abate Fine Art, Santa Fe, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Buenos Aires and Isla Flotante, Buenos Aires. She has exhibited in recent group shows at Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Bienal do São Paulo, São Paulo and Museo do Arte, São Paulo.
A.K. Burns, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York
A.K. Burns, born in 1975, lives and works in Brooklyn, United States, and received her Master of Fine Arts from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts in 2010. In her artistic practice, the artist views the body as a contentious domain wherein issues of gender, labor, ecology and sexuality are negotiated. At Art Basel in Miami Beach, she premiers “Weather Report”, an installation that calls forth a dystopian domestic scene, a kind of allegorical space weathered by the current political situation, vexing barriers between the interior and exterior. Recent solo exhibitions include New Museum New York, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York and Michel Rein, Paris. The artist has exhibited in recent group shows at New Museum, New York, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, and the LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.
