MIAMI, FLA.- Faena Art, the international nonprofit organization led by Ximena Caminos, unveiled Beatriz Monteavaro’s commission Return to Tomorrow, the latest in the organization’s Elevate series of rotating site-specific installations in Faena District Miami Beach for emerging and mid-career Miami-based artists. The opening event held at Casa Claridge's Faena District Miami Beach included a vinyl set by DJ Le Spam.
Monteavaro’s Return to Tomorrow transforms Casa Claridge’s elevator into a lo-fi, slow motion, rocket ship to outer space with portholes that look out onto hand-drawn glow-in-the dark stars and forgotten satellites. The installation references ‘Return to Tomorrow’, an episode of Star Trek from the original series as well as ‘Space Mountain’ and the now-defunct ‘Mission to Mars’ rides at Disney World that simulate space travel. Monteavaro’s nostalgic and black-light glowing interior of the cab is at once an homage to analog technology and a futuristic fantasy.
The installation marks the fourth commission in the Faena Art ELEVATE series. Each artist creates an immersive environment within the elevator of Casa Claridge’s Faena District Miami Beach. The project aims to encourage new experiences for the public within the transitional and temporal space and provides a dedicated space for local Miami artists. Past ELEVATE artists include Typoe, Consuelo Castañeda and Cristina Lei Rodriguez.
Beatriz Monteavaro (b.1971) is a Cuban-born Miami-based artist whose work is influenced by the English Punk Rock music scene, science fiction and horror movies, and the fantasy environments at Disney Theme Parks. For several years her work has consisted of synchromystic, genre-mixing adventures where 80‘s rock stars and personalities such as Adam Ant, Gary Numan, Siouxsie Sioux and Malcolm McLaren have been portrayed as superheroes, arch-villains, revolutionaries, space travelers and Lovecraftian gods. Most recently work she has re-appropriated her own paintings and drawings, ripping and reassembling them into collages, and transforming them into shelters in an attempt to find different uses for art in a possible post-apocalyptic future. Monteavaro has had solo exhibitions at Locust Projects, Miami (2015), Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami (2014); Galerie Sultana, Paris, France (2011 and 2009); Las Cienegas Projects, Los Angeles (2010); Frederic Snitzer Gallery, Miami (2008 and 2005); and Derek Eller Gallery, New York (2006), among others. A book of her work, Quiet Village, was published in 2009.
