Artistically Social

Amy Rosenberg Goes Out of Season

Amy Rosenberg is an attorney and arts advocate who founded the Overtown Music Project and the Arsht Center’s young patrons group. She is the co-founder of the environmental non-profit Dream in Green. Amy is a member of Art Basel’s Junior Host Committee and sits on the Board of the Funding Arts Network. She also serves on the New World Symphony’s Friends Committee as well as The Wolfsonian-FIU’s Visionaries Committee.

Locust Projects’ Spring Fling Fundraiser was the perfect tonic to the end of season doldrums this writer gets hit with each and every May. While others are living in the heady moments of April’s last days, my brain is fixed on the soon-to-be exodus of many of my friends to less balmy climes and the sad state of summer hair.

Locust Projects took my mind off of all that with their fundraiser, a sweetly kooky event that included performance art (a group of women rocking shiny bodysuits who would occasionally break into dance), finger lickin’ good chicken wings grilled onsite by artist Jason Hedges, Shake Shack cheeseburgers and Yummy Chun Buns, the yummy creations of artist Susan Lee-Chun. The auction offered all sorts of artsy indulgences.

The 7th floor of the Herzog & De Meuron designed 1111 Lincoln Road garage provided the backdrop for this not-to-be missed fundraiser that featured “Who Done It?” a silent art auction where guests could bid on one-of-a-kind 8 x 10 art works. The identities of the artists remained secret until after the sale. This, however, did not stop those guests in the know from bidding on Hernan Bas’ work. By the time I left the party, the work was hovering in the $4,000 range with an expectation to go way beyond that.

The Bass Museum celebrated A Night at the Museum with an invitation to LOOK/Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Bass Museum of Art. Djs Ess and Emm created the booty shaking atmosphere while Grey Goose provided the cocktails. Proceeds from the event benefit IDEA@thebass, which stands for Identify, Discuss, Envision, Assess. IDEA@thebass uses art to stimulate the critical thinking skills of children between the ages of 3 and 10.

I was delighted to receive an invitation from the wonderful Jayne Abess in support of her son Matthew’s first solo-curated show, Rewriting the World: Primers and Poetry in the Age of Confusion in the Wolfsonian’s Rare Book and Special Collections Library Vestibule. The brilliant Matthew presented ‘Hic Haec Hoc’ : Aberrant Language and the Design of Everydayness, introducing the gallery installation and engaging with the audience about matters of poetry, persuasion, and the language of everyday life.

Drawing on the museum’s holdings of rare books from the early twentieth century, the selection of materials represents a range of attempts to define the contours of everyday life through renovations of language. Whether a motorcar marketing booklet, a literacy manual for non-native speakers, or a poem comprised of innovative typography and non-sense sounds, these works emerged from certain social and political agendas. The exhibition surveys the ways in which such agendas are inscribed in the rudiments of language—set into speech and written into thought. The exhibit includes evangelical alphabet primers, National Socialist toothpaste pamphlets, Czech photo-texts, typographic fairytales, and end-of-the-world scenarios filmed by the angel of Notre Dame.

Gallery Diet owner Nina Johnson- Milewski opened her doors to All Ivy +, a group of 5000 professionals who graduated from Ivy League and other prestigious universities. Nina gave the group a thoughtful explanation of Nathlie Provosky’s Green(ish) Hermeticism, a show about the belief in the “poetics and alchemy of ambivalence.” Guests drank Vita Coco, and Ketel One lemonade with homeade sugar and chocolate chip cookies.

Until next time…