Lucia Maman examines ‘Otherness’ in astonishing Miami Design District show
A specific memory permeates the work of Argentinian artist Lucía Maman. When she was 14, she remembers seeing a butterfly on the ground, flapping its wings. A male schoolmate walked up and stepped on it.
“I was, I don’t know, 14, I didn’t imagine someone (capable of) killing a butterfly,” she recalls. “And I asked him, why did he do that? And he said, ‘Because I can.’ And that answer really stuck with me.”
The boy’s reply sparked within Maman other, more existential questions: Why do we value some forms of life over others? And why do we consider some “deformed” or “imperfect?” These troubling dilemmas are at the heart of “Temple of Otherness,” an exhibition of Maman’s paintings now on view in a white-walled gallery space in the Miami Design District. Curated by fellow artist Luna Palazzolo, founder of the artist-run space Tunnel Projects in Little Havana, the show is drawn from portraits, still lifes, and other figurative works painted in a sober, naturalistic style with muted colors.
Many of the images were taken from medical file photos (for ethical reasons, Maman made sure not to depict any living people). There are hands, some missing fingers, others with fingers detached. There are eyes, both metaphorical (a fortune teller’s crystal ball) and actual, such as the single detached eyeball delicately held in a man’s fingers like a precious keepsake – the lengthy title of the work ends with the phrase “what do the eyes of a dead man see?”
And there are children, some with faces affected by congenital conditions, some held by their mothers or standing naked for the camera. A centerpiece of the show features children with prosthetic devices from across time, their skin tone hinting at different eras – one girl in black and white wearing an unpleasant-looking back brace, others with flesh-tones wearing modern prostheses, and several featureless, blue-green beings wearing strange, futuristic devices. The idea of transhumanism, of augmenting the body to achieve a higher form, comes into play here – technology is used as a way to make the disabled “normal,” but why are we judging them as abnormal, and under what criteria?
These moral quandaries, translated through Maman’s somber style, are what allow the show to feel solemn and dignified, rather than creepy or exploitative. A room full of images of body parts and medical photos would seem like a lurid cabinet of curiosities in the wrong hands. But here there is pathos and consideration instead.
One painting, “Career,” depicts a boy, no older than 10, and his family, all of whom suffer from Stickler syndrome, a genetic condition that causes hearing and vision impairment. Maman found the original photo in a Guardian newspaper story about child carers; the boy, in the foreground, is the only family member that doesn’t have the condition, and as a result he cares for the others. The artist has also painted handprints over the other family members. “Hands can be a symbol of manipulation, of power,” she says, “but at the same time, they can be a symbol of care, and of loving. And so that double discourse, I think, is really interesting.”
Even the show’s more diminutive works are thought-provoking. A small portrait of a moth references Maman’s butterfly story – butterflies and moths belong to the same taxonomical order, Lepidoptera, yet we traditionally think of one as beautiful and the other as an ugly pest. Another small painting features a zygote – a fertilized cell, the earliest stage of biological development at which the being it will become is indistinguishable from any other, the starting point from which all humans derive, “normal” or otherwise.
Such a probing, relatively intellectual show may seem like an odd choice for the Design District, generally known as a luxury shopping mall. But according to Karen Grimson, director of cultural programming for the District, Maman’s work is “a natural match” for the development, which has been trying to attract a more “cultural” audience in addition to high-end retail consumers.
“Her work stood out,” says. “It’s exciting because she hasn’t shown these works before, we were very happy.”
Grimson first encountered Lucía’s work at the Maman family’s gallery in Allapattah. Lucía’s father Daniel Maman, a gallerist and art advisor, opened Maman Fine Art with his wife, Patricia, in Buenos Aires in 2001. A Miami branch, originally also housed in the Design District, followed in 2013.
She also felt the large scale of the paintings made them ideal for the white-walled gallery space, which will host Jeffrey Deitch and Gagosian for their usual Miami Art Week show in December. Nicknamed “Piccadilly” by District employees after the Piccadilly Gardens restaurant that once called it home, the beautiful old building stands out in the area thanks to its distinctive brick arches and inner courtyard.
Along with the art show, Piccadilly is also paying host to a newly-opened record store, Terrestrial Funk, and across the street are other locally-owned creative businesses, the streetwear label Andrew and the artsy book store and gallery Dale Zine. Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler’s Bigface Coffee is also set to open nearby. The new businesses have given NE 40th Street a bit of cred among local creatives, but out of everything on the block, Maman’s arresting show stands out and draws us in the most.
One of the most affecting works in the show was a painting just inside the door. I initially mistook this image as a butterfly’s chrysalis, pinned to a board in a lepidopterist’s workshop. Later, a wave of sorrow and pity overtook me as Maman corrected me: It was a bird. Right there, I was forced to confront the very question the show proposed. Between the bird and the butterfly, why did I value one’s life over the other’s?
If you go:
WHAT: “Lucía Maman: Temples of Otherness”
WHEN: Through Sunday, Sept. 8.
WHERE: Miami Design District, 35 NE 40th St., Miami
COST: Free
INFORMATION: miamidesigndistrict.com
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