Miami 2004: The Yay/Nay Show

Linda Yablonsky and Carey Lovelace pack them in with several pairs of strange bedfellows, beginning with Documenta curator Rodger Buergel and Art Newspaper editor Anna Somers Cocks, adding JP Morgan Chase art advisor Manuel Gonzales and critic Phyllis Tuchman, and coming to a rousing finish with collaborating artists Lawrence Weiner and Julião Sarmento. Whew!



Rodger Buergel was in Miami for the opening of "How Do We Want To Be Governed? (Figure and Ground)," an exhibition he curated with critic Ruth Noack for Miami Art Central. On view through January 30, 2005, it is the third in a series of five - titled Die Regierung (The Government)- taking place in five different countries. Buergel is an independent curator and lecturer in visual theory at the University of Luneburg in Germany, and the first recipient of the Walter Hopps Award for curatorial achievement presented by the Menil Collection. He has also been appointed artistic director for Documenta XII opening in June, 2007.



Anna Somers Cocks is the very terrific editor of the The Art Newspaper, the international weekly based in London. She produced a special daily edition for each day of the Art Basel Miami Beach fair.



Manuel Gonzalez is Global Art Executive at JPMorgan Chase bank.



Phyllis Tuchman is an art historian and critic, and the author of monographs on George Segal, Dale Chihuly, Anthony Caro and Nancy Graves, among others.



Lawrence Weiner is known the world over for his enigmatic stencils and films that use the history of language and its cultural baggage as his primary medium. (He is represented by the Marian Goodman Gallery.



For Miami's nonprofit Moore Space, in Miami's Design District, Weiner collaborated on a film, "Drift," with the artists John Baldessari and Julião Sarmento, who is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York. The film is projected on several screens that wrap around the viewing space - and the viewer. It has also appeared at the Fundacao Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon, Portugal and the Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico.

•