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Field of Convergence—Karla Kantorovich

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
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Karla Kantorovich

Reception, September 26, 6—9 pm

Dimensions Variable (DV) presents a solo project titled Field of Convergence by Karla Kantorovich. The exhibition opens on September 26, 2026, and runs through November 4, 2026.

Field of Convergence brings together a body of work made through similar processes and materials—painting, handmade paper, textiles, wood, found objects, and, running throughout, copper and copper-colored pigment. The exhibition extends a practice Kantorovich has pursued for more than a decade, built from materials that arrive already marked by use and time: frayed cloth, tree bark, leaves, old book pages, fragments cut from her own earlier paintings. She has long described an attraction to the moment when objects approach nothingness, the threshold at which matter begins to come apart. For her, these worn surfaces are not depleted but full—each carries the trace of what has altered it, a record of handling, weather, and loss that the work preserves rather than conceals. To assemble them is to treat matter as something that remembers, an active participant in meaning rather than an inert support.¹

Copper gathers these concerns into a single element. Among the most conductive of metals, it has long stood for connection and the passage of energy from one body to another; it is antimicrobial and bound, across many traditions, to healing and regeneration; and, left to the air, it oxidizes into a patina that records the passage of time even as it protects the metal beneath. Those properties give material form to the question at the center of the exhibition, which is a question about mending. In Kantorovich’s hands, repair is never the erasure of rupture but the integration of its history into a new form; the fracture stays present, and something else emerges from it. The impulse finds a precedent in the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, in which broken vessels are rejoined with lacquer and gold so that the seam is not hidden but illuminated, the break understood as one event in an object’s life rather than its end.² The same search for order behind apparent chaos and unity behind duality has long organized her practice. Across weathered surfaces and reflective metals, fragility and strength, darkness and light, permanence and change are held together without canceling one another. The work sustains difference rather than resolving it.

Field of Convergence also marks a deliberate expansion of that project beyond the plane of the wall. The largest work spills from the wall onto the floor and into the surrounding architecture, so that painting becomes an expanded field in which surface gives way to space and material gives way to experience.³ The convergence named in the title is at once formal and conceptual—the meeting of many materials and many histories, and the meeting of painting with the room that holds it. What accumulates is not a resolution but a coexistence: rupture and repair, decay and endurance, the many and the one, sustained together in a single continuous field.

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Notes

  1. Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 1–19.
  2. Christy Bartlett, “A Tearoom View of Mended Ceramics,” in Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics (Münster: Museum für Lackkunst; Ithaca, NY: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 2008).
  3. Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” October 8 (Spring 1979): 30–44.

El costo oculto de una barbarie financiera: FOBAPROA y el estrangulamiento del Arte en México

By
Roberto Rosique
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El costo oculto de una barbarie financiera: FOBAPROA y el estrangulamiento del Arte en México

Por Roberto Rosique

¿Cómo afecta el dinero público al arte en México?

Existe una persistente fantasía idealista que pretende desvincular las dinámicas de la macroeconomía del fenómeno de la creación artística. Se asume con ligereza que, mientras las crisis financieras destruyen las certezas materiales de una sociedad, el arte habita una dimensión autónoma de resistencia espiritual. Sin embargo, al analizar la realidad mexicana contemporánea, la conclusión es diametralmente opuesta, las estructuras económicas determinan de forma implacable las condiciones de posibilidad del pensamiento estético y el alcance de las instituciones que lo resguardan.

El Fondo Bancario de Protección al Ahorro (FOBAPROA) no fue un rescate técnico; se consolidó como el mayor despojo institucional en la historia moderna de México. A más de tres décadas de la crisis de 1994, las cifras oficiales de la deuda configuran una realidad brutal. En palabras del titular de la SHCP, Édgar Amador Zamora (2026), el carácter delictivo de esta realidad estriba en que “no se ha pagado un solo peso del principal, al contrario, ha crecido”.

La frialdad de las matemáticas financieras devela el tamaño de la estafa. Mientras que la deuda administrada por él se mantiene congelada en la barrera crítica de los $1.1 billones de pesos, los mexicanos ya hemos desembolsado aproximadamente $1.6 billones de pesos a lo largo de los años (Bonilla, 2026). El 100% de ese dinero se ha evaporado exclusivamente en pagar intereses variables y costos financieros correlacionados. Debido a un esquema amañado de refinanciamiento constante —diseñado para disimular lo que astutamente se denomina un “anatocismo técnico”, que no es más que el cobro de intereses sobre intereses—, la deuda original sigue intacta y creciendo en una bola de nieve interminable.

Aunque desde el análisis cultural no competa evaluar las minucias macroeconómicas del rescate, es imposible ignorar el diagnóstico que las autoridades financieras del país han emitido de forma oficial. Al revisar los informes de la SHCP y las proyecciones del IPAB, se devela una realidad matemática contundente que sirve como punto de partida para este análisis: la deuda no cede, y el costo social se ramifica a través de tres ejes de injusticia que condicionan de forma directa el entorno en el que operan los artistas:

Socialización de pérdidas: Las élites bancarias acumularon riquezas a través de fraudes y créditos impagables, pero cuando el sistema colapsó, el Estado absorbió administrativamente sus pérdidas privadas. En 1998, el Congreso legalizó este atropello convirtiéndolo en deuda pública.

Costo de oportunidad masivo: Año con año, el Presupuesto de Egresos de la Federación sufre una sangría brutal. El Ramo 34 destina anualmente cerca de $48,000 millones de pesos únicamente a contener los intereses del FOBAPROA (El CEO, 2026).

Condena transgeneracional: El diseño de este rescate financiero es una condena hereditaria. Las próximas generaciones están obligadas a fondear un pozo financiero del que jamás se beneficiaron, bajo proyecciones que estiman que el país continuará pagando este fraude hasta el año 2070.

El estrangulamiento de la cultura

Bajo esta perspectiva, el FOBAPROA operó como un mecanismo de asfixia cultural e institucional permanente. Al transformar administrativamente la deuda fraudulenta de una élite financiera en una obligación fiscal colectiva, el Estado mexicano decretó de manera implícita que la preservación del gran capital bancario poseía una prioridad vital superior a la soberanía intelectual, educativa y artística de la nación.

Este diseño financiero configura un verdadero epistemicidio cultural que puede medirse con un contraste presupuestal violento: el Estado mexicano destina casi el triple de dinero al año para pagar los puros intereses del FOBAPROA ($48,000 millones de pesos) que al presupuesto total operativo de la propia Secretaría de Cultura Federal, el cual históricamente oscila apenas entre los $15,000 y $17,000 millones de pesos.

Cada ciclo fiscal en el que se prioriza la estabilidad de estos instrumentos especulativos del pasado, es un ciclo en el que se desmantela de forma sistemática la infraestructura cultural del presente: se precarizan las partidas para la conservación arqueológica del INAH, se reducen a mínimos históricos los estímulos a la producción cinematográfica e independiente a través del INBAL, se ahoga a la red de museos públicos y se cancelan los proyectos de educación artística comunitaria en las periferias geográficas del país. Las instituciones públicas dedicadas al arte quedaron reducidas a cascarones burocráticos con presupuestos mínimos para la investigación, exhibición, difusión o la adquisición de obra.

La privatización hegemónica del mecenazgo y la suprema ironía del artwashing bancario

Este desamparo institucional obligó a que los grandes proyectos de exhibición, catalogación y mecenazgo artístico se trasladaran de forma casi exclusiva al sector corporativo y a fundaciones bancarias privadas —irónicamente, las mismas instituciones financieras que fueron rescatadas de la quiebra gracias al erario público—.

Aquí radica la suprema ironía histórica del caso mexicano: las grandes colecciones de arte corporativo del país (como Fomento Cultural Banamex o Colección BBVA) se consolidaron y abrieron sus centros culturales de primer nivel de forma paralela al desarrollo de la deuda pública. El ciudadano mexicano terminó pagando con sus impuestos el rescate de los bancos y, al mismo tiempo, viéndose obligado a pagar un boleto o someterse a las reglas de una fundación bancaria privada para poder acceder al arte de alta manufactura. El banco utilizó los excedentes de liquidez garantizados por el Estado para construir un monopolio de validación cultural.

Este fenómeno instaló una dinámica agresiva de artwashing (lavado de reputación a través del arte). En el contexto mexicano post-FOBAPROA, el artwashing no operó como un mero fenómeno inmobiliario de gentrificación de barrios, sino como una estrategia de legitimación social de alta finanza. Las corporaciones bancarias utilizaron exposiciones magnas, catálogos lujosos y becas estelares para limpiar su imagen corporativa ante la opinión pública, construyendo una cortina de humo estética que camuflara el descontento social por el fraude.

Geografías del abandono: El centralismo estético y la periferia precarizada

La asfixia presupuestal provocada por este diseño macroeconómico exacerbó una de las patologías históricas más profundas del país: el centralismo cultural. Al contraerse los fondos federales para mitigar la deuda, los institutos de cultura de los estados quedaron prácticamente desmantelados o reducidos a meras oficinas de animación artística elemental, perdiendo toda capacidad para generar colecciones públicas, editar catálogos rigurosos o sostener exposiciones de envergadura. El mecenazgo bancario privado que sustituyó al Estado no democratizó la cultura; por el contrario, concentró sus sedes, recursos y becas de manera casi exclusiva en los grandes centros financieros del país —la Ciudad de México, Monterrey y Guadalajara—, condenando al resto del territorio nacional a un desierto de validación institucional.

Esta centralización del capital simbólico impactó directamente en las condiciones de subsistencia del artista local. Al cancelarse las compras institucionales y los mercados regionales de arte público en la periferia, las comunidades artísticas fuera del circuito central quedaron atrapadas en una precarización permanente. Para sobrevivir, el creador regional se vio obligado a dividir su tiempo entre la producción estética y el subempleo, refugiándose mayoritariamente en la docencia de universidades públicas que, a su vez, lidiaban con sus propios recortes financieros indirectos. La creación artística en los estados dejó de ser una profesión viable para transformarse en un ejercicio de resistencia heroica y precarizada.

Asimismo, esta brecha geográfica provocó una grave fractura en la representación de las identidades nacionales. Las narrativas visuales nacidas de las realidades locales —como el arte fronterizo, la crítica a los procesos migratorios, las tensiones del México rural o las denuncias de la violencia sistémica en las provincias— fueron sistemáticamente marginadas por el circuito curatorial corporativo. Catalogadas bajo la etiqueta condescendiente de discursos “demasiado locales” o “panfletarios”, estas manifestaciones fueron silenciadas a cambio de un canon global e inofensivo. La barbarie del FOBAPROA no solo drenó las arcas públicas, sino que centralizó la mirada estética de la nación, amputando del imaginario colectivo las voces y realidades de la periferia geográfica mexicana.

Del trauma financiero a la domesticación estética

Al convertirse en los principales poseedores, curadores y compradores de las colecciones de arte más influyentes del país, los bancos privados, ciertas galerías y museos privados, adquirieron el monopolio del capital simbólico. Ellos asumieron la facultad de decidir qué discursos artísticos eran admisibles y cuáles debían ser silenciados, respondiendo sistemáticamente a intereses ligados a las normas del mainstream internacional.

Esta transición del presupuesto público al patrocinio bancario domesticó profundamente la estética del arte mexicano. Para ser financiadas por las salas de juntas corporativas y encajar en las ferias internacionales de arte (como los subsecuentes circuitos de Zona MACO), las narrativas visuales de la nación fueron higienizadas. Se favoreció un arte predominantemente conceptual, abstracto, apolítico y cosmopolita; piezas estéticamente inofensivas, ideales para decorar los muros de corporativos financieros, oficinas o mansiones. Por otro lado, aquellas obras con trasfondo político y de denuncia social terminaban esterilizadas al ingresar al mercado. Aunque se justificaban bajo el discurso de la democratización, su destino final era integrarse a grandes colecciones impulsadas por la especulación financiera.

Bajo este esquema, el arte de corte social, la crítica política directa a la privatización, el arte comunitario o aquel de herencia identitaria profunda que pudiera incomodar a las élites fue castigado con la invisibilidad presupuestal.

Las narrativas visuales de la nación pasaron a depender de la deducibilidad de impuestos y de las agendas de relaciones públicas de corporaciones financieras, neutralizando el potencial crítico del arte. El arte en México no fue liberado por el libre mercado; fue domesticado por los mismos agentes que quebraron al país en 1994, por los empresarios beneficiados por dicho colapso y por aquellos herederos de ese capital rescatado que terminaron transformando la riqueza económica en un capital simbólico altamente redituable. Este proceso transformó la memoria estética colectiva en una extensión decorativa de sus activos corporativos, consolidando un reordenamiento cultural supeditado a los cánones hegemónicos. Al final, la barbarie del FOBAPROA no solo drenó la riqueza pública, sino que centralizó la mirada y condenó a las periferias geográficas del país al silencio institucional, restringiendo de forma permanente las posibilidades de un desarrollo cultural genuinamente federal, soberano e independiente

Referencias 

Amador Zamora, É. (2026, 9 de septiembre). Declaraciones oficiales sobre el estado de la deuda del FOBAPROA-IPAB [Conferencia de prensa]. Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP) / Gobierno de México.

Barbosa, E., & Brynjolson, N. (2019). Art and activism in Boyle Heights. FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, (14)

Bonilla, M. del C. (2026, 9 de septiembre). Estructura técnica y proyecciones presupuestales del IPAB dentro del Paquete Económico [Conferencia de prensa]. Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP) / Gobierno de México.

Bourdieu, P. (1995). Las reglas del arte: Génesis y estructura del campo literario. Anagrama.

El CEO. (2026, 9 de septiembre). Hemos pagado casi 1.6 billones y la deuda ha crecido. El CEO. elceo.com

Conversation with Isabel Allende

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
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Writers & Artists in Conversation with Isabel Allende
Writers & Artists in Conversation with Isabel Allende

I think I’d like to start the Q&A with the question that I thought interested me the most about the book. You talked a lot about basing characters on people you know in real life, and I wondered how that works; how much of the person you know goes into the character, and how do you piece together those inspirations?

I feel that I have so many prejudices. So if I create a character, I will dump on that character everything I think the character should be – and the results might be a caricature. They’re very flat. So I look for a human being that’s either someone I remember from the past, or someone that is around; I look for the person that might be the model.

That doesn’t mean I will use every piece of information. It’s like an outline that I will fill in later. And sometimes I pick up two people to create a character. Because I can have one personal that physically and the way they talk and whatever is what I want, but their life is not what I want. And so I might put somebody else’s life into that.

Because it’s fiction and I’m turning it around any way I want, I don’t think there’s any liability there. It’s totally different in a memoir when you mention someone with that person’s name and that person can be recognised. Then you have to be very careful, but in fiction, as long as you disguise and change the name or whatever, it’s fine. People might be offended anyhow; you are not liable.

A lot of your books are historical. When you’re deciding when and where to set a book, are you drawn to specific historical events? Or does it come to you in terms of an emotion or feeling you want to evoke in the book?

It depends. Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m writing a book about a certain time and place that has nothing to do with me. For me, the best example is a novel I wrote some time ago called Island Beneath the Sea. It is the story of the slave revolt in Haiti.

In Chile, we never had plantations, we never imported African slaves. Culturally, I have nothing, no connection at all. With the event, or the country, or the race. But I wasn’t even looking for that [at first]. I wanted to write about the pirates of the Caribbean. Because it was a democratic society, the first truly democratic society. So I thought, oh, that’s a fascinating thing. So I went to New Orleans because the Lafitte brothers, who were the great pirates of the time, had a colony of 3,000 people. So I thought I was going to investigate that, but when I got to New Orleans, I thought why, why is this so French? In food and everything. Because it was a French colony for a very, very short time. And then I discovered that it was a town of 2,500 people when the revolution started in Haiti. And then 10,000 white people, with some of their domestic slaves, escaped to New Orleans in a matter of months. So the input was four times the population, and they were French. So that really left a big input in the city.

And so I thought, why did they escape? And then I started investigating Haiti. And that was a much more fascinating story than the Pirates of the Caribbean. Then I spent four years researching and writing. And it was a very hard book to write, and I had no idea why I was writing it because, as I said, I had no connection. But when I finished the book, I realised the book was about absolute power with impunity. The power of the master over the slave.

That theme has been in my life always. I’ve always explored that: what power is and, when power has no accountability, what happens, the horrible things people do. And that can happen in the home, it can happen in the police station, it can happen anywhere. The bully in the school, whatever. So that, that has always fascinated me, and I realised the extreme example is slavery. So that’s why I was writing the book.

So you ask me, why do I choose it? Sometimes it’s a character. I wrote Ines of My Soul, which is about the conquest of Chile in 1541, because there was one, only one Spanish woman who came to the conquest. That woman, historians have ignored her, because historians ignore women. If you look at history books, there are no women and no poor people.

I suppose that story [of Ines Suárez] is an ultimate gift to a writer. It’s a person who has such an exciting life, but there’s very few concrete details, so you can fill it in how you please.

As a writer, if you can find a character like that, it’s wonderful. Because you can recreate the time and imagine how that person would be.

And when you’re doing historical novels, how do you manage the research?

You know, people who can write an outline can control the research, and I think I give the example in the book of Ken Follet. He writes an outline of 50 pages with every detail of each scene, and so he knows exactly what he has to research, and probably he has a team. I don’t know.

But I do my research alone. I don’t have an outline. I have no idea where I’m going. So I waste a lot of time, which is not a good idea. Before, I would pile up books with the research I had been doing, and then I couldn’t find where exactly I had seen something. Now I put post-its [in the books], but I also keep records, so I write down where I find things. That way, I can go and look for it.

[When I research], first I study the big event. Let’s say the Haitian Revolution. I read something that gives me a panoramic view of what happened. Who are the main characters, what happened, how, and I look at the map and I see exactly what it looks like. And then, I look for details. I read about how they imported bottles of Cuban rum. And then I find out that they didn’t come in bottles, they came in barrels. So the detail is what makes the story believable. And so focus on the little details. You don’t have to have a lot, but just a few. Little things, for example, you’re talking about wigs. How itchy, and how dirty, and many of them would have lice. So you would wear this hot, sticky thing on your head all day, I mean, it was just horrible.

What’s your favourite historical period to write about? Are there any that you keep coming back to?

No. I realise that if I go back in history to the 1500s, it’s easier. Because people know less, the reader knows very little about that. So anything I discover, anything I research, anything I write is a surprise for the reader. But if I write about the Second World War, there’s a mountain of books and novels and movies and documentaries and photography. There is so much that unless you come up with something that is totally original, for me it doesn’t work that much. Unless you specialise in a period, but I don’t.

So right now, I have a story in my head. And I want to put it in some time and place, and I have to choose. Where am I going to do it? That will determine everything, it will determine the research, but it will determine the characters, too.

What helps you make that choice, or is it one that comes spontaneously?

Both, yeah. I research, I mean, I look around and ask myself what do I want to do? But eventually, it’s your gut that tells you.

I have an inkling of this from reading the book, but your writing discipline, how does that work? Do you find that it helps to have a discipline?

My lord, how can you do anything without discipline? I mean, what can you do without discipline? Sex is the only thing. But in writing, it’s essential.

There’s this myth that writers get inspiration from the muse, and they sit down, and the pour out the great American novel. That doesn’t happen. It’s work. You research, you write, you rewrite a thousand times. So what I tell young people who want to write is to show up.

The first step is to show up in front of your computer and put something down. You can always correct something that you have written, but you cannot correct a blank page. Or a blank screen. You need to have something, and that comes, even if you’re not inspired, from showing up, from discipline.

So I start all my books on January 8th. Why? Because I have a complicated life. I’ve always had a complicated life. So I need to organise my calendar for the year, so that at the beginning, when I start a book, I don’t travel. I don’t socialise. I really need to have a grip on the story before I get out in the world.

By having a time to start, I can organise my life and everybody knows that on January 8th, I’m not available. My family, my friends, my agents, the only people who don’t are the dogs, but the rest, by now, I’ve been writing for 45 years and I’m 84 years old. People respect me.

So let me show you something.

[Isabel gets up and returns with a little sign. I can’t recall the exact words on it, only that it has a drawing of a dog on it and something to the effect of ‘do not disturb’].

I hang this on my door. Nobody knocks at the door. Nobody offers me a glass of water. The house might be on fire, but I have no idea. The door is closed.

If you don’t respect your own work, nobody does.

The other thing I get a lot is [people saying] well, I don’t have a place of my own. I don’t have a room of my own. I work.

Okay, you reserve some time. One hour, two hours, three hours, as much as you can. Every day, that is your sacred time, your sacred space for your writing. And it doesn’t have to be a room. It is a room inside your head. It is a space you create inside you that allows you to do that. I wrote The House of the Spirits, 560 pages, on the kitchen counter in our apartment in Caracas. And I worked 12 hours a day, I had two shifts. So I would get home, prepare food for my family, have a shower, and when everybody was watching TV, I would lock myself in the kitchen, because it was the only room that would be empty at that time of day, except the bathroom.

My second book, I took all the clothes out of a closet, put a board in, and put a lightbulb in. And I had a space of my own, because I could close the door, and the book was untouched. Safe.

That’s what I thought was so impressive. The story of [how you wrote] The House of the Spirits and how you managed to fit all that in, because it’s such a good antidote to people saying I never have the time.

At that time, my life was going nowhere. I was going to be 40 years old. I felt that I had done nothing. I was living in exile. We didn’t have much money. My kids were going to university so I didn’t have to take care of them so much, and I was working like crazy in something that I didn’t like at all. Administering a school – I am terrible at that kind of stuff! And that was my life. So I started writing, I think, out of boredom and catharsis.

I don’t know what happened. It was just a sort of miracle, and it saved my life. That year was fantastic. It was a schizophrenic year in which I was working like a housewife, and then at the school and whatever, and then I had this private room in my head where this thing was happening. And these characters and these stories and everything was happening magically.

For me, every book starts with a really bad two or three weeks, in which I feel that I’m working in sand. Nothing happens, and every page I write, I have to delete the next day. It’s useless. But I know that it’s part of the process, that I’m finding my way, that in two or three weeks, one of the characters will do something that will surprise me or, because I have the book in my head all the time, something will occur to me, or I will have a dream that will guide me in a certain direction, or I will overhear a conversation in a restaurant and will say ‘ah, that’s it’. And then you start.

Once you’ve got most of a story, how do you work out when it’s finished?

I think that’s the other big problem. That’s hard. I am very sceptical of happy endings. I want realistic endings. Possible endings. And life is complex, contradictory, and never clear. So ambiguous endings are usually better for me.

Sometimes, I’m thinking of an ending. I know that I have told the story, and I’m thinking, thinking of an ending. And then I get it. I come to my computer, and I realise that the book ended the day before. That anything I add will subtract. So I… now I have developed an eye for that. But when I wrote my first few books, especially my short stories, my mother would read them, and she would tell me, ‘this ends here’. And she would be, in that sense, a very good editor.

I don’t share my writing with anybody. I did share it with her, because we were so close, because she spoke Spanish.

And do you think having a collaborator or editor is important, to iron out the things that you maybe can’t see by yourself?

I don’t know because I’ve never done that. I write a book, a novel, let’s say, and when I think it’s finished, I share it with my agent, who speaks Spanish. Before, I’d share it with my mother and maybe my brother. But I didn’t really have editing, because in the United States, we have this tradition of the editor working very closely with the author, but that’s not the case in Spanish. In Spanish, you submit your book, it’s accepted or not, but the input is minimal.

In my case, from Spain, I get the input of correcting things they call Anglicisms, which is when the sentence is not really Spanish, it’s translated from English. Because I live in English; sometimes I get all mixed up, so they correct that, they correct spelling and grammar, that kind of stuff. But not the content.

For the last almost 10 years, I have had a Spanish-speaking agent who was an editor before, so she has an eye, and we share the book, but only when it’s finished. And then I always ask her to find the title, because I’m terrible at finding titles. When I was a journalist, I couldn’t put a title on my own reporting because I was so bad. So she helps me with that. And also, because she has an eye – I wrote a book called Long Petal of the Sea, and the book started, when I wrote the first manuscript, with a man who is old, and he’s remembering. And she said, ‘why would you start with the most depressing part? Leave that for the end and start upbeat. Something that will engage the reader’. Which was exactly the second chapter. So it was just a matter of picking up the first chapter and putting it at the end. But she got it, and it changed the book.

Does it feel different when you’re writing a book in Spanish and it then gets translated into English? Do they feel like two different books?

You know, I don’t know if you speak another language [the interviewer, shamefully, does not!], but languages are like blood, so personal, so cultural.

Some things are not translatable. You have to adapt them. I had a very good translator for 19 books, and we had a psychic connection. She was excellent. And she was from Kansas. This completely white, American lady, descended from the Puritans – and me, can you imagine? But we had this connection. And she would call me and say, you know, this love scene, I would tone it down. And I say, sounds so good in Spanish, but she says, in English it’s suspicious. No lover would say those things in English. She would tone it down.

That’s interesting. There are things that different languages think of differently, aren’t there?

Yeah, you know what doesn’t work? Humour. Because humour is very… It belongs to a place and a time. I wrote humour for years when I was a journalist. And many times, I have been offered to make a book out of my columns, but it doesn’t carry in time. What was funny in the 60s makes no sense today. You need to have the references. You need to be living at the moment so that it’s funny. For example, now there’s all these jokes about Trump, which will not be funny later and they were not funny before. They’re funny now.

Yes, hopefully sooner rather than later, they will pass into irrelevancy.

I hope he dies. You have no idea how awful this is. Because we are bombarded day and night with awful stuff. Awful stuff. He has made two billion dollars in a year and a half. The corruption is rampant. They don’t stop it in Congress, or the Supreme Court, it’s just appalling.

There was a question I had at the end of my list, but I think it works now. Looking at the world today, I mean, I wasn’t alive in the 60s etc so I can’t say how it compares, but I know there are a lot of people who are scared and angry at the state of the world, and maybe scared and upset about writing too, afraid to write in this climate. What would you say to those people?

It’s hard to write about an event as it’s happening. The great literature of the Second World War, of the Holocaust, came much later.

We had a military coup in Chile and censorship for 17 years. You couldn’t write anything. But after the event, and not soon after, sometimes a long time after, there is this wave of literature and movies and documentaries, of looking at the event, looking at what happened and trying to understand it. Why it happened, how it happened, all the angles. But for that, you need distance. I think literature needs distance and irony.

Sometimes a memoir works, when it’s very raw, in the moment when it’s happening. It happened to me, for example, with my book Paula, which is a memoir of my daughter’s death that I started writing a month after she died. It was cathartic for me. It was therapy for me. And sometimes that works, but not always. There’s this beautiful book called A Year of Magical Thinking. Um, who’s the author? Joan Didion, ah. Her husband died suddenly, and for a year, she’s thinking that he’s around. She’s imagining him. And the book is beautiful, just beautiful, but that’s rare.

I divorced my second husband in 2015, that’s now 11 years ago. In 2025, I decided to write a memoir about the end of love, a time alone and finding love again at an old age. And I couldn’t remember for my life, why I had divorced this man that was so nice – well, he wasn’t that nice, but I had forgotten how not nice. Because I tend to change everything in my mind. But I needed 1o years to go back to what had happened and look at it as a story.

It doesn’t hurt me. I don’t care. It’s not me anymore. It’s another person that lived 10 years ago. And with that distance, it’s much easier.

I wrote The House of the Spirits, which is about my family and the military coup, many years after the coup. The coup was in 1973. In 1974, I could have written that book, but I was immersed in the process, and then exiled. And in exile, you have to make a living first. And then it takes a long time to look back and start thinking about why you left. What would have happened if you didn’t leave? All the intricate consequences of every act, of every movement. You can see it from a distance, not in the moment.

How do you solve problems if you find yourself stuck in a book?

I skip it.

Well, first I try two or three times. A scene, or a chapter, or whatever, I try and try. It doesn’t work, so I skip all that and jump forward to some other place in the book. And I write something else, and then I go back. If I go back twice and I still can’t do it, it’s because it shouldn’t be there. So I know that it is not part of the book. And no matter how much I have worked on it, I am merciless when it comes to cutting.

That works for me very well when I’m stuck in a scene in a book. But if I am in a writer’s block, what helps me is that I was trained as a journalist, so I can go back to non-fiction. The thing is, keep writing. Keep writing. And so I give myself a subject, and I write something that I can just research and keep going.

When I wrote the book about my daughter, when I finished the book, I couldn’t write anything. I was totally empty, and like, for three years, I couldn’t write a thing. And then I remembered that I’m a journalist by training. I can give myself a subject. And so I gave myself a subject that would be as removed from grief, and death and sorrow as possible, something that would life me. I wrote a book about aphrodisiacs, which is the bridge between food and sex. Oh, it’s really about gluttony and lust. The two deadly sins that are worth the trouble, by the way! The research for that was wonderful, and it pulled me out of a very dark time.

Your books seem to span so many amazing genres, time periods and points of view. When you’re writing a book, do you decide in advance if it’s going to be 1st person or 3rd person, or is that something you figure out along the way?

Sometimes I change it. I just wrote a novel that is all in 3rd person. But then the last chapter, which is the epilogue, I wrote it in 1st person because I wanted to approach the reader.

I like 1st person very much because it has that intimate, conversational tone. But it is very limiting, because you can only know, as the narrator, what you have witnessed. What you were there for, what you heard.

I recently wrote a historical novel about a civil war in Chile in 1891. And it is told in 1st person, the narrator is a journalist, a woman journalist, which were very rare at the time. And she needs to describe the battles. So I need to put her inside the battle. How would that happen? She’s not a nurse. So I need to put her there with some excuse. And it’s manageable, you can always do that. But then I need to also tell this battle that is happening in another place simultaneously that affected this battle. How do I tell this battle if she wasn’t there? So I can do that in a conversation that happens after. She talks to a guy who was there, and in that conversation I inform my reader of what happened there.

But it’s limiting. Because the information she gets from that battle has to be in the voice of the other guy. And that creates a conflict.

Yeah, which can be a fun problem to solve, or it can become very annoying.

It’s annoying, but it’s fun. I think everything has a solution in literature. You just have to find it. You have to find the twist, the tone, the character. Something that is there. You will delete a lot, it doesn’t matter. In writing, that stuff happens.

One thing I wanted to ask you is about feminism and its place in your work. I don’t know whether you would consider your works ‘women’s literature’, or whether you think that’s a limiting category.

I think it’s limiting. Very limiting.

When we talk about literature without an adjective, that’s written by white men. Usually older white men. That’s literature. And then you add adjectives. African American literature, feminist literature, women’s literature, young adults, children, whatever, it diminishes immediately. It’s one step or two or three or four. And that bothers me. It annoys me a lot.

Yeah, I agree with you on that very much.

And I then I have very strong women in my books and I have stories about women that… why do I write about them? Because they’re fascinating. I wouldn’t write about a woman that has no life and that has done nothing. Why would I, well, woman or man?

I’m interested in extraordinary people who do extravagant things, who take risks, who suffer. There is no book in happiness and peace. What kind of book is that? We need conflict. And women who go through hell and survive, and get back on their feet and fight back, they’re fascinating to me because we live in a patriarchy. The world culture is against them, so the effort they have to make to survive is way bigger than any man. So that fascinates me.

By portraying them, I am, between the lines, saying how I admire strong women, independent women, courageous women. But I don’t have to say it. They are feminist in essence.

Yes, I think that’s really important. And I think writing strong women in historical novels is especially important because they had so many challenges to overcome. Finding ways to put women in the rooms where significant things are happening is such an interesting problem to solve.

Yeah. And women have always been there. In every battle, but they’re never mentioned, [it’s like] they don’t exist.

Look at the obituaries of the New York Times. Women don’t live and die, obviously, because very few get to have an obituary in the… Once I got a call, because they were preparing my obituary; when you turn 80, they expect you to die at any moment, so they want to have the obituary ready. And I felt so honoured that being a woman, I would be in the New York Times. It’s crazy.

That’s very interesting. Possibly a little presumptuous of them!

No, the guy was very kind. You know, I am at an age where death is very present. But my husband, who is exactly my age, doesn’t want to hear about it. He thinks he’s immortal or that I will be immortal. But I think of death and the little time we have left every day, and not in a morbid away. It’s reality, and I want to enjoy what I have for as long as I have it.

Do you think your age, and the fact that you feel like death is closer to you these days, informs your writing?

It would inform a memoir, but not a novel. Because, for me it’s very personal, it’s what’s going to happen to me, but I’m so curious about the world and other people’s stories and the stories flying around in the ether that I have to grab them.

So, dare I ask, what are you working on next?

I can’t tell you… well, it’s a novel. I’m in the process of editing a first manuscript, so the book is not finished at all. And so that’s what I’m writing.

I don’t talk about the book until it’s finished. It’s superstition, it’s like you jinx it. It’s also a bit like, I don’t share it because the input of many people makes me feel, I don’t know, not sure of myself.

I think we’re reaching the end of our hour, so we’ll go to the last question on my list. If you had one piece of advice to give to a budding writer, what would that be?

Write. Don’t wait. Write.

Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist. She is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than eighty million copies of her books across 42 languages. She is the author of several bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, Violeta, A Long Petal of the Sea,The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna and Paula. In addition to her work as a writer, Isabel devotes much of her time to human rights causes. She has received 15 honorary doctorates, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, and in 2018, she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California with her husband and dogs

Pinta Art Foundation and El Espacio 23 Announce New Artist Residency Partnership Linked to Pinta Miami 2026

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
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Pinta Art Foundation & El Espacio 23 anuncian una nueva residencia artística vinculada a Pinta Miami 2026

Pinta Art Foundation and El Espacio 23 have announced a new partnership aimed at expanding opportunities for research, production, and exchange for Latin American artists. The collaboration will center on an artist residency connected to Pinta Miami 2026, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary from December 3–6, 2026, at The Hangar in Coconut Grove.

As part of the agreement, one artist participating in Pinta Miami 2026 will be selected during the fair to join El Espacio 23’s residency program. Pinta Art Foundation will cover the selected artist’s airfare, while El Espacio 23 will provide accommodation and participation in the residency program.

The initiative is designed to extend the experience of the fair beyond the days of exhibition. Rather than focusing solely on visibility, the residency aims to create the conditions for the selected artist to deepen their practice, develop new research, and establish connections with other cultural and professional communities.

The collaboration directly reflects the mission of Pinta Art Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Latin American art and culture through educational programs and opportunities for artists, curators, and institutions. One of the Foundation’s central goals is to transform the visibility and networks generated through Pinta into long-term opportunities that can support artists’ professional development.

A Residency Within Miami’s Cultural Ecosystem

Founded by collector and philanthropist Jorge M. Pérez, El Espacio 23 operates from a former warehouse of approximately 28,000 square feet in Allapattah, Miami, presenting exhibitions, residencies, and projects connected to the Jorge M. Pérez Collection. The collection has a significant focus on Latin American, African, and African diasporic art.

Its residency program includes three apartments and a shared workspace. In general, the program provides accommodation, studio space, and production support, welcoming artists and curators at different stages of their careers. Residency periods vary depending on the nature of each project.

For Patricia M. Hanna, Director of El Espacio 23, a residency can offer artists something increasingly valuable: “time and space to focus on their practice, experiment, and engage in meaningful exchange.” The new partnership seeks to connect that experience with artists arriving in Miami through Pinta while strengthening their relationships with the city’s cultural community.

From Visibility to Continuity

The residency is also part of Pinta Art Foundation’s broader Residencies and Mobility strategy, through which the organization supports research, production, and exchange opportunities for Latin American artists. The Foundation has developed additional residency partnerships designed to transform participation in its fairs into longer-term professional opportunities.

The collaboration with El Espacio 23 is particularly significant because of that continuity: an artist presented within the commercial and curatorial context of an art fair will be able to transform that visibility into a period of work, research, and exchange in Miami.

Pinta Miami enters its 2026 edition celebrating 20 years as a platform dedicated to the circulation and promotion of modern and contemporary Latin American art. The fair will continue its boutique and curated format, bringing together galleries, artists, collectors, curators, museums, and international institutions.

The new partnership between Pinta Art Foundation and El Espacio 23 therefore proposes an important transition: from exhibiting work during an art fair to providing an artist with the time and space to research, produce, build relationships, and continue developing their practice after the fair ends.

Water Trail [Rastro de Agua]

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
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WATER TRAIL

Julia Zurilla, Emilia Martín Fierro, Zura Lagarde, Samara Ash y Alexandra De Yavorsky
Exposición colectiva
Curaduría de Félix Suazo

Inauguración: martes, 15 de septiembre de 2026
Horario: 5:30–8:30 PM
Dirección: 3800 NW 115 Ave, Miami, FL 33178

Organizada por Miami Dade College West Campus y la Feria Internacional de Arte de Doral, Water Trail [Rastro de Agua] presenta el trabajo de Julia Zurilla, Emilia Martín Fierro, Zura Lagarde, Samara Ash y Alexandra De Yavorsky.

En el marco del Mes de la Herencia Hispana y bajo el lema “Unidos, Somos Más”, la exposición explora las dimensiones físicas, existenciales y simbólicas del agua a través de la fotografía, la pintura y la escultura. Las obras parten de la investigación de archivos, la observación directa y la meditación personal.

Julia Zurilla (Caracas, Venezuela) recupera imágenes documentales en las que la euforia turística se mezcla con un clima tormentoso, mientras locales y visitantes continúan disfrutando del paisaje.

Zura Lagarde (Ciudad de México, México) explora las difracciones y reflejos de la luz sobre el agua, entendida como espejo de emociones ocultas.

Emilia Martín Fierro (Tenerife, Islas Canarias, España) investiga los bordes y la percepción, construyendo espacios donde se entrecruzan historias, lugares y personas.

Samara Ash (Bogotá, Colombia) explora la idea del tiempo y la trascendencia, tomando como referencia los pliegues, ritmos y movimientos del oleaje.

Alexandra De Yavorsky (Venezuela) observa su entorno a partir de las variaciones cromáticas del mar, abordando el color como síntesis de tiempo y percepción.

Para estas cinco artistas, el agua no tiene una forma única, pero conserva la memoria de las cosas, sean orgánicas o inanimadas. Todo fluye a través de ese torrente líquido que alimenta mares, arroyos y lagunas a través de múltiples afluentes y riberas. Su rastro permanece allí donde la vida encuentra un camino.

En Water Trail [Rastro de Agua], la materia se convierte en un símbolo fluctuante. Al final, todo “sale a flote.”

Félix Suazo
Curador

Con el apoyo de

Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Iberoamericana, Inc. (CCEMiami)
Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas
Doral Family Journal
City of Doral

Hyphenated Encounters: Lilian Garcia-Roig explora paisaje, pertenencia e identidad en The Frank

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
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Lilian Garcia-Roig

The Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery y Deering Estate presentan Hyphenated Encounters, una exposición colaborativa dedicada a la artista cubanoamericana Lilian Garcia-Roig, que abrirá al público el jueves 17 de septiembre de 2026, de 6:00 a 9:00 p. m., en The Frank, ubicado en 601 City Center Way, Pembroke Pines, FL 33025. La recepción inaugural será gratuita y contará con refrigerios ligeros.

La muestra reúne dos proyectos curatoriales distintos pero estrechamente vinculados, ofreciendo la presentación más amplia hasta la fecha de la práctica de Garcia-Roig. Por un lado, Hyphenated Encounters: A Practice of Place, curada por Sophie Bonet, Chief Curator de The Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery, recorre más de tres décadas de trabajo de la artista mediante pinturas y obras de técnica mixta. Por otro, Deering Estate Residency: Lilian Garcia-Roig, Site, and the Labor of Belonging, curada por Liliam Dominguez, Head Curator de Deering Estate, se concentra en el trabajo desarrollado durante su residencia de 2024 en Deering Estate.

Paisaje como experiencia y pertenencia

En A Practice of Place, la obra de Garcia-Roig revela una relación sostenida con el paisaje, entendida no como una escena distante para ser observada, sino como un espacio vivido. La exposición reúne trabajos que muestran cómo la observación directa, la experimentación material y la experiencia personal han definido una práctica profundamente ligada al lugar. Desde los ambientes subtropicales del sur de Florida hasta los valles de piedra caliza de Cuba, el paisaje aparece como una experiencia física, cultural y emocional.

La artista, reconocida con una John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, ha desarrollado una trayectoria que la sitúa entre las voces destacadas de la pintura de paisaje contemporánea. Su obra investiga las relaciones entre percepción, materialidad, identidad y territorio, prestando especial atención a cómo el cuerpo y la memoria transforman la experiencia del entorno.

Lilian Garcia-Roig

El paisaje como campo de negociación

La segunda parte de la exposición, Site, and the Labor of Belonging, se centra en el trabajo creado durante la residencia de Garcia-Roig en Deering Estate en 2024. Allí, la artista trabajó directamente en el sitio, permitiendo que el entorno determinara el proceso pictórico. Banyans, manglares, palmas sabal y strangler figs se convierten en parte de un vocabulario visual vinculado tanto al paisaje del sur de Florida como a su herencia cubana.

Lejos de tratar el paisaje como fondo, Garcia-Roig lo entiende como un espacio de negociación entre memoria, percepción y presencia. El proyecto incluye también un cortometraje realizado por el artista y fellow Artist-in-Residence Jorge Gonzalez Graupera, que amplía la reflexión sobre el lugar y la experiencia de pertenencia.

Una identidad entre lugares

Nacida en Cuba, criada en Texas y radicada en Tallahassee, Garcia-Roig ha construido una práctica en la que sus identidades cubana y estadounidense se encuentran a través del paisaje. Su obra utiliza la naturaleza como una manera de conectar con el lugar que habita en el presente y, al mismo tiempo, explorar la relación con una historia y un territorio de origen marcados por la distancia y el desplazamiento.

A lo largo de series como Cumulative Nature y Hyperbolic Nature, la artista ha desarrollado grandes pinturas realizadas plein air, muchas veces en múltiples paneles y durante jornadas completas, capturando la experiencia cambiante del paisaje. En otras obras centradas en Cuba, ha utilizado incluso tierra cubana como material para construir imágenes de su país natal.

Lilian Garcia-Roig

Exposición y programación

Hyphenated Encounters estará abierta en The Frank desde el 17 de septiembre de 2026 hasta el 17 de enero de 2027. La entrada es gratuita y el espacio abre de miércoles a domingo, de 11:00 a. m. a 5:00 p. m.

La colaboración forma parte del programa Deering Estate AT, una iniciativa diseñada para presentar a artistas vinculados a las residencias de Deering Estate en otros espacios culturales, ampliar su alcance y fortalecer conexiones entre instituciones, artistas y comunidades del sur de Florida.

The Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery, conocido como The Frank, es el centro de arte contemporáneo de la Ciudad de Pembroke Pines y desarrolla exposiciones, programas educativos, eventos públicos y colaboraciones comunitarias orientadas a conectar artistas y audiencias a través del arte contemporáneo.

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 17, 2026, 6–9 PM
Location: The Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery, 601 City Center Way, Pembroke Pines, FL 33025
Admission: Free
On view: September 17, 2026 – January 17, 2027

Lilian Garcia-Roig

About Deering Estate

Deering Estate, located at 16701 SW 72 Ave. in Miami, is a 21st-century house museum, cultural and ecological field station, and a national landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places, owned by the State of Florida and managed by the Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces Department. Deering Estate is designated as one of seven Miami-Dade County “Heritage Parks” which have a vital role in our community’s history, environment, and in providing recreational and cultural experiences.

Cultural Arts Programming at the Deering Estate is made possible with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, and The Deering Estate Foundation, Inc.

Deering Estate AT program

The Deering Estate AT program consists of a joint venture with other cultural institutions to showcase Deering Estate Artists-in-Residence (AIRs) and artists who had been part of the season’s cultural roster outside the Estate. It aims to enhance each institution’s reach and resources to achieve a common goal: expanding the artists’ cultural reach by making diverse artistic expressions accessible to a broader audience. The program fosters creative synergy and community connections through art exhibitions, cultural performances, and dynamic programming. The Deering Estate AT The Frank program exemplifies the Estate’s commitment to supporting current and past AIRs and elevating their practice at every stage of their careers while honoring the spirit of innovation and discovery that the Deering Estate inspires and underscoring the importance of alliances that bridge institutional boundaries.

About The Frank

Named in honor of former Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank C. Ortis for his longstanding commitment to the arts, The Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery—known simply as The Frank—is the City of Pembroke Pines’ contemporary art center. Through exhibitions, educational programs, public events, and community partnerships, The Frank presents regional, national, and international artists while fostering creativity, dialogue, and lifelong learning.

Located within the Charles F. Dodge City Center, The Frank offers multidisciplinary exhibitions and dynamic public programming that connect artists and audiences through meaningful experiences with contemporary art. As a welcoming space for artistic exploration and cultural exchange, The Frank is committed to making contemporary art accessible to diverse communities throughout South Florida.

Pinta Art Foundation y El Espacio 23

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
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Pinta Art Foundation & El Espacio 23 anuncian una nueva residencia artística vinculada a Pinta Miami 2026

Pinta Art Foundation y El Espacio 23 anuncian una nueva residencia artística vinculada a Pinta Miami 2026

Pinta Art Foundation y El Espacio 23 anunciaron una nueva alianza destinada a ampliar las oportunidades de investigación, producción e intercambio para artistas latinoamericanos. La colaboración tendrá como eje una residencia artística vinculada a Pinta Miami 2026, que celebrará su vigésimo aniversario del 3 al 6 de diciembre de 2026 en The Hangar, Coconut Grove.

Como parte del acuerdo, un artista participante en Pinta Miami 2026 será seleccionado durante la feria para integrarse al programa de residencias de El Espacio 23. Pinta Art Foundation cubrirá el pasaje aéreo del artista seleccionado, mientras que El Espacio 23 proporcionará alojamiento y su incorporación al programa de residencia.

La iniciativa busca extender la experiencia de la feria más allá de los días de exhibición. En lugar de limitarse a ofrecer visibilidad, el programa pretende crear condiciones para que el artista pueda profundizar su práctica, desarrollar nuevas investigaciones y establecer vínculos con otras comunidades culturales y profesionales.

La colaboración se relaciona directamente con la misión de Pinta Art Foundation, organización sin fines de lucro dedicada a promover el arte y la cultura latinoamericanos mediante programas educativos y oportunidades dirigidas a artistas, curadores e instituciones. La Fundación plantea como uno de sus objetivos transformar las redes y la visibilidad generadas alrededor de Pinta en oportunidades capaces de fortalecer las carreras de los artistas a largo plazo.

Una residencia dentro del ecosistema cultural de Miami

Fundado por el coleccionista y filántropo Jorge M. Pérez, El Espacio 23 funciona en un antiguo almacén de aproximadamente 28,000 pies cuadrados en Allapattah, Miami, y desarrolla exposiciones, residencias y proyectos vinculados con la Jorge M. Pérez Collection. La colección tiene una presencia significativa de arte latinoamericano, africano y de las diásporas de ambas regiones.

Su programa de residencias cuenta con tres apartamentos y un espacio de trabajo compartido. De manera general, el programa ofrece alojamiento, espacio de estudio y apoyo para producción, y recibe artistas y curadores en diferentes etapas de sus carreras. La duración de las residencias puede variar según la naturaleza de cada proyecto.

Para Patricia M. Hanna, directora de El Espacio 23, una residencia puede proporcionar a los artistas algo cada vez más difícil de encontrar: “time and space to focus on their practice, experiment, and engage in meaningful exchange.” La nueva alianza busca conectar esa experiencia con los artistas que llegan a Miami a través de Pinta y, al mismo tiempo, fortalecer sus relaciones con la comunidad cultural de la ciudad.

De la visibilidad a la continuidad

La residencia también forma parte de una estrategia más amplia de Pinta Art Foundation centrada en Residencias y Movilidad, mediante la cual la organización busca facilitar experiencias de investigación, producción e intercambio para artistas latinoamericanos. La Fundación ya ha desarrollado otras alianzas de residencia destinadas a convertir la participación en sus ferias en oportunidades posteriores de desarrollo profesional.

La colaboración con El Espacio 23 resulta especialmente significativa por esa continuidad: un artista presentado dentro del contexto comercial y curatorial de una feria podrá trasladar esa visibilidad hacia un periodo de trabajo, investigación e intercambio en Miami.

Pinta Miami llega a esta edición celebrando 20 años como plataforma dedicada a la circulación y promoción del arte moderno y contemporáneo latinoamericano. Para 2026, la feria mantendrá su formato boutique y curado, reuniendo galerías, artistas, coleccionistas, curadores, museos e instituciones internacionales.

La nueva alianza entre Pinta Art Foundation y El Espacio 23 plantea así una transición importante: de exhibir una obra durante una feria a ofrecer al artista tiempo para investigar, producir, establecer relaciones y continuar desarrollando su práctica después de que la feria termine.

Museum of Central American Art Opens “Masters of the Matrix: Latin American Printmaking”

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
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Museum of Central American

The Annex
Museum of Central American Art
290 SE 2nd Avenue
Delray Beach, FL 33444

Exhibition celebrates the history and diversity of Latin American printmaking, with a special presentation marking 100 years of printmaking in Costa Rica

DELRAY BEACH, FL — September 10, 2026 — The Museum of Central American Art (MoCAArt) will open Masters of the Matrix: Latin American Printmaking on Sunday, September 20, 2026, at The Annex in downtown Delray Beach. The opening reception will take place from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Curated by Suzanne Snider, the exhibition brings together works by important Latin American master printmakers and artists, including works from the private collection of Mark Ford. The exhibition will remain on view by appointment through January 30, 2027.

The opening will feature a special presentation, “One Hundred Years of Printmaking in Costa Rica,” in collaboration with the Ars Nabis Foundation of Costa Rica. Dr. Julio del Llano, director of the foundation, will introduce the work of 20 Costa Rican artists representing a century of printmaking and discuss the history and influence of Costa Rican printmaker Francisco Amighetti, including his pioneering role in xylography.

“Printmaking offers a way to understand the cultural history of Latin America,” said Suzanne Snider. “These works reveal not only technical skill, but also the social, political and artistic ideas that have shaped artists across the region.”

The exhibition presents an unusually broad range of printmaking techniques. Visitors will encounter traditional processes including intaglio, relief, planographic and stencil printing, alongside experimental and contemporary approaches such as mixographs, piezographs, xylographs and one-of-a-kind monotypes.

Among the artists represented are Mexican artists Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo and David Alfaro Siqueiros, Cuban surrealist Wifredo Lam, Chilean artist Roberto Matta, Costa Rican master Francisco Amighetti, Guatemalan artist Elmar Rojas, and Panamanian artist Julio Zachrisson, as well as contemporary artists.

Through the collaboration with the Ars Nabis Foundation, visitors will have the opportunity to explore a century of Costa Rican graphic art and learn more about the development of printmaking in the country.

“We are pleased to bring this history to Delray Beach and to share the work of these artists with a South Florida audience,” said Dr. Julio del Llano of the Ars Nabis Foundation.

Opening Event

Masters of the Matrix: Latin American Printmaking
Opening Reception & One Hundred Years of Printmaking in Costa Rica
Sunday, September 20, 2026
2:00 Opening    3:00 Presentation 
RSVP: [email protected]

The exhibition will also include a series of educational programs throughout its run, including a presentation by curator Suzanne Snider on October 18, an interactive printmaking demonstration with Ron Garrett of RAGA PRESS on November 15, and additional programming focused on printmaking and graphic arts.
For more information, MoCAArt.org or contact the museum at 561-808-8587.

About the Museum of Central American Art
The Museum of Central American Art (MoCAArt) is dedicated to increasing awareness of and respect for the richness and importance of Central American modern and contemporary art through exhibitions, educational programs, publications and events.

Water Trail [Rastro de Agua]

By
Art Miami Magazine Editorial Staff
-
WATER TRAIL

Julia Zurilla, Emilia Martín Fierro, Zura Lagarde, Samara Ash, and Alexandra De Yavorsky
Group Exhibition
Curated by Félix Suazo

Opening: Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Time: 5:30–8:30 PM
Address: 3800 NW 115 Ave, Miami, FL 33178

Organized by Miami Dade College West Campus and the Doral International Art Fair, Water Trail [Rastro de Agua] presents the work of Julia Zurilla, Emilia Martín Fierro, Zura Lagarde, Samara Ash, and Alexandra De Yavorsky.

Presented within the framework of Hispanic Heritage Month under the theme “United, We Are More,” the exhibition explores the physical, existential, and symbolic dimensions of water through photography, painting, and sculpture. The works are grounded in archival research, direct observation, and personal meditation.

Julia Zurilla (b. Caracas, Venezuela) revisits documentary images in which tourist euphoria converges with stormy weather, while locals and visitors continue to enjoy the landscape.

Zura Lagarde (b. Mexico City, Mexico) explores the diffraction and reflection of light on water, using it as a mirror for hidden emotions.

Emilia Martín Fierro (b. Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) investigates edges and perception, creating spaces where histories, places, and people intersect.

Samara Ash (b. Bogotá, Colombia) explores time and transcendence, drawing inspiration from the folds, rhythms, and movement of waves.

Alexandra De Yavorsky (b. Venezuela) observes her surroundings through the chromatic variations of the sea, approaching color as a synthesis of time and perception.

For these five artists, water has no single form, yet it retains the memory of things, whether organic or inanimate. Everything flows through this liquid current that feeds seas, streams, and lagoons across multiple tributaries and shores. Its trace remains wherever life finds a passage.

In Water Trail [Rastro de Agua], matter becomes a fluctuating symbol. In the end, everything “comes to the surface.”

Félix Suazo
Curator

With the support of

Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Iberoamericana, Inc. (CCEMiami)
Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas
Doral Family Journal
City of Doral

Interview | Mircza Seiler

By
Milagros Bello
-
Mircza Seiler
Mircza Seiler with her work Return To The Origins dyptych, European Cultural Center, during the 61 Venice Biennale

By Milagros Bello

Confluences. European Cultural Center, during the 61st Venice Biennale 2026

“Return to the Origins emerges from a
return to what is essential: to the earth, to
matter, and to an ancestral memory that
remains within us and, in my case,
reappears transformed through art.” —
Mircza Seiler

Mircza Seiler — Return to the Origins

This interview focuses on the work of Mircza Seiler, presented from May 10 through November 24, 2026, in Confluences, an exhibition organized by the European Cultural Centre as part of Americas. Rewriting the Center, curated by Dr. Milagros Bello.

Seiler participates with Return to the Origins, a work comprising two pieces housed in acrylic boxes and incorporating poinciana pods attached to canvas. The work’s materiality connects territory and belonging, engaging nature and Latin American ancestral legacies.

Mircza Seiler
Mircza Seiler at Transforming Energy by Marina Abramovic at the Gallerie dell Accademia during the Venice Biennale

Milagros Bello:

What was the conceptual point of departure for Return to the Origins? What artistic impulse gave rise to this series?

Mircza Seiler:

My training as an agronomist and my longstanding relationship with nature have been fundamental to the way I see and create. My profession kept me close to the earth, attentive to its elements, cycles, transformations, and mysteries. It taught me to pause before what often goes unnoticed: a seed, a pod, a texture, a form altered by time.

At a certain point, I realized that I no longer wanted to separate that experience from my artistic practice. On the contrary, I felt the need to bring them together—to allow my knowledge of and connection to nature to find another form of expression through art. Return to the Origins grew out of that search.

The works in this series are not simply compositions made from natural elements. When I work with pods, fruits, leaves, seeds, and roots—joining them, repeating them, and constructing new structures—I find in their forms, textures, and imperfections a particular beauty that activates my imagination and often opens the way into the work. Through them, I discover relationships between fragility and resilience, order and transformation. I am interested in how something so elemental can become a threshold for new meanings.

MB: What does the idea of “origin” mean to you, and how does it manifest itself in this work?

MS: To create is to return to the root, to the primordial rhythm of existence, to the origin of things; it is to return to that essential place where our relationship with life begins.

For me, origin means returning to what is elemental, but also recognizing what remains within us: memory, the earth, our bonds, and the experiences that have shaped us.

In Return to the Origins, I work with poinciana pods—irregular and imperfect forms shaped by biological processes and transformed over time. I take these elements as I find them, attentive to their marks and singular mutations. I assemble and interweave them into geometric configurations in which order and dislocation, structure and chaos coexist.

This interrelationship reflects the spirit of nature, while also evoking the connections between our individual lives and our relationships with others. It speaks of the unpredictability of the rhythms that bind us, as well as those that govern the natural environment.

In this sense, the work proposes a journey toward origin, not as an act of nostalgia, but as a way of recognizing ourselves as symbolic territory.

Mircza Seiler
Mircza Seiler at Transforming Energy by Marina Abramovic at the Gallerie dell Accademia during the Venice Bienna

MB: Your practice brings together seemingly distinct registers, from the organic materiality of Return to the Origins to the abstract and semi-figurative configurations of your collages. Yet both seem to share a logic of transformation and recomposing. What role do paper and collage play in the construction of your artistic language?

MS: I am interested in working with materials that already carry a history and in exploring their capacity for transformation. Recovering and intervening in them does not simply mean reusing them; it means altering their condition and bringing them into a new visual logic.

In my collages, paper ceases to function merely as a support and becomes an active material. I paint, tear, cut, layer, and assemble fragments, working at the threshold between rupture and recomposing, where a form loses its original integrity to acquire another presence.

The process unfolds through intuition. Relationships between color, texture, and form continually redirect my decisions, opening possibilities that were not anticipated at the outset. The work emerges through this interaction between intention and discovery.

Abstraction arises precisely there: memory, experience, and affect appear as traces, without needing to resolve themselves into recognizable images. I want the fragment to retain something of what it once was while simultaneously opening itself to another possibility of existence.

For me, collage is a way of thinking through matter’s continual transformation.

Mircza Seiler
Mircza Seiler at Transforming Energy by Marina Abramovic at the Gallerie dell Accademia

MB: Your process does not seem oriented toward achieving absolute control over the work, but rather toward preserving a certain degree of indeterminacy. How important is this to you?

MS: I want to ensure the work does not become merely the execution of a preconceived idea under controlled circumstances. I make certain decisions and establish particular directions, but I leave open the possibility that the process itself may question or reposition them.

That margin of indeterminacy is essential to me because it introduces possibilities I could not have anticipated. The work therefore stops confirming an initial intention and becomes a space of discovery.

MB: What did it mean to you to present Return to the Origins at the European Cultural Centre during the Venice Biennale?

MS: It meant many things. First, an enormous emotional rush: being in Venice with my work was a dream I never imagined I would actually experience. It also meant knowing that a curator had seen my work, believed in it, and chosen to bring it into a context of this significance.

Arriving in Venice, surrounded by so much history and, at the same time, by such a vast range of contemporary artistic practices—by established artists as well as others I encountered for the first time—was an extraordinarily intense experience. At first, it was almost impossible to absorb everything that was happening.

MB: What was it like to see your work enter into dialogue with an international audience and with artists from different cultural contexts? What aspects of the work seemed to acquire a different or unexpected resonance?

MS: I understood that it was no longer simply a matter of “exhibiting in Venice.” My work had entered an international space of exchange, encountering other ways of seeing, other artistic languages, and other ways of thinking about the present. That changed the experience for me. It meant recognizing that my work could move beyond my immediate context, engage diverse audiences, and become part of a broader conversation about art and the world we inhabit.

I discovered that the work could exceed the references from which it had been created and generate readings I had never anticipated. People from different cultural contexts approached it through their own experiences, finding associations, sensations, and meanings different from my own. That changed the way I saw the work myself.

I understood that the gaze of the other not only expands the interpretation of a work; it can also activate meanings and possibilities that had remained latent.

Once a work leaves the studio, it no longer belongs entirely to you. That capacity to move across contexts and generate different interpretations was one of the most enriching and unexpected aspects of my experience at the European Cultural Centre.

MB: Which artists, works, or exhibitions at the Venice Biennale particularly captured your attention?

MS: I was particularly drawn to the Argentine Pavilion, with Matías Duville’s Monitoring Yin Yang; the Israeli Pavilion, with Belu-Simion Fainaru’s The Rose of Nothingness; and Marina Abramović’s Transforming Energy at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice.

Despite their very different approaches, I found something vital connecting these works: their capacity to work with elemental, everyday materials and bring them into another symbolic dimension—salt and charcoal in Duville, water in Fainaru, and stone in Abramović.

These materials ceased to be matter and became presences that elicited silence, attention, and contemplation. What struck me was discovering how the elemental can generate such an intense experience.

Mircza
Mircza Seiler with Jenna Sutela’s Aeolian Suite, Finland Pavillion 61st Venice Biennale

MB: What reflections on the direction of contemporary art emerged from your experience of the Biennale? And what did you discover about your own work within that context?

MS: This Biennale proposes a different way of approaching art. In the vision of Koyo Kouoh, the late curator of this edition, there is space for introspection, emotion, memory, intimacy, nature, and human relationships. Although questions of identity, politics, war, protest, and the crises of our time remain present, many works speak from quieter, more personal places.

I came to understand In Minor Keys as precisely this opening toward the sensitive and the intimate. That was one of the most valuable things I encountered at the Biennale.

In relation to my own work, I discovered that it has a more defined identity than I had realized. Moving through the Biennale and encountering so many different ways of making and thinking about art allowed me to recognize more clearly what truly belongs to my own practice.

I was also struck by the natural affinity I felt with certain ideas present throughout the Biennale: an attentiveness to the earth, its transformations, the memory it holds, and our relationship with it. These concerns have been present in my work for a long time—not because they respond to a trend, but because they are intrinsic to the way I see and create.

MB: Beyond the significance of participating in the European Cultural Centre, what new directions for your artistic research have emerged from this experience?

MS: I want to continue creating without responding to formulas or trends—to keep exploring, taking risks, questioning, and transforming. Venice allowed me to recognize what I have already built, but it also made visible everything that remains open to further development.

Every work raises new questions.

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