Spinello Gallery has Closed.
Spinello Projects Live On.

UPDATE: Spinello Gallery 2020

An aside: With all the craziness surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, I was glad to see Spinello is still hanging in there. Unlike Florida, the governor of New York really stepped up when New York City was getting clobbered this past Spring. The surge in NYC was scary. Fortunately the state has flattened the curve and some businesses are opening up this Fall. Museums are opening, but only with reserved tickets and stringent rules regarding the wearing of masks and social distancing for visitors. Some art galleries have been creative in their approach to presenting new shows. Recently I called my oriental rug cleaners in NYC to see if they were open and taking customers. H&S Rug cleaning and Restoration, with its cleaning and full restoration of antique oriental rug services is my "go to" rug cleaning company. I normally would have had some of my rugs cleaned this past spring, but with a city wide shut down during the surge, I obviously had to put it off. I had just gotten off the phone with H&S when my buddy in Miami facetimed me. Unlike New York state, Florida's response to Covid-19 was much less stringent. In May NYC was locked down, but Miami permitted non-essential businesses to open on May 18 with supposedly stringent capacity and safety rules in place. They saw a peak in July and August and then their curve started to slowly come down. As of September cases are rising again in Miami. My friend told me that there is actually a 11:00 p.m. nightly curfew and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez formally extended the City of Miami's state of emergency declaration. Whoa!

Nevertheless, I read the announcement that the Spinello Projects kicks off their 15th Anniversary season with a solo show featuring new works by 2019 Whitney Biennial participant Eddie Arroyo. Known for his paintings focused on the effects of gentrification through landscape, his debut solo exhibition with the gallery, SAFE SPACE, consists of a suite of works, painted in-real-time, between May 30th and June 6th, 2020. These works recount scenes from the Miami Design District and Downtown Miami, shortly after the public killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers..

My friend was calling to tell me about the show. He had scheduled an appointment and went, wearing a mask, of course. I went to the gallery's current website to have a virtual tour of the show. I encourage you to do likewise. The focal point of the exhibition, June 5, 2020, is the largest painting in the exhibition. Based off an image by Miami photographer Sharif Slimting taken on June 5th 2020, the painting shows the site where a battalion of Miami Police Officers cloaked in riot gear, formed a human barricade blocking protestors during a Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Heavy. Below is a screenshot of the painting.

Spinello Gallery

2010 By Manuela Gabaldon | www.miamiartguide.com

The kind of hit that American businesses, big and small, have been experiencing over the last couple of years calls for an active response, approach, and effective survival plan. Anthony Spinello, of Spinello Gallery, is exactly that type of active player in the arts.

This young yet seasoned curator is always thinking of innovative events to keep the community involved and interested in the arts. His new location in the Design District is the perfect spot for this creative curator as he plays a crucial role in the formation of what he calls an “up and coming block”. Spinello Gallery is a space for the unconventional, representing artists such as graffiti writer Typoe, conceptual photographer Lee Materazzi, and the two person collective Blackbooks.

Spinello, a veteran of the Miami art scene at only 26, is proof that “do what you love” is anything but a cliché. Having had the opportunity to work a 9-to-5 job with a comfortable salary/benefits after completing his formal education, Spinello opted for the road less taken – a decision he attributes to his early experience living the gallery scene. A few years ago, Spinello was a new graduate living above the Liquid Blue Gallery in Wynwood. One gallery night, an inspired Spinello gave Liquid Blue Gallery owner his opinion on the show.

Spinello’s critical and honest opinion earned him an instant job offer as Liquid Blue Gallery’s director – an offer he could not refuse. In 2005, after some time as director, the gallery had to close its doors, leaving Spinello jobless and hungry for more. Instead of searching and settling for that comfy 9-to-5, Spinello decided to sell all the furniture in his second story walk-up on Craigslist and turn his own living space into a curator’s project that he called the Red Dot Project. “Red Dot Project was never meant to be a gallery,” says Spinello, “it was a nomadic curatorial project that grew into Spinello Gallery.” Spinello relates his success to his persistence and passion for curating and the following he has had since Red Dot Project.

Now in his new location in the Design District, the young curator and gallerist is as active as ever. With Art Basel 2009 in mind, plans for the second edition of his own art fair Littlest Sister 09 are in motion. Littlest Sister is a creation of Spinello that plays off the fact that Art Basel Miami Beach is the little sister of Art Basel Switzerland.

This invitational takes place in Spinello Gallery where scaled down booths for individual artists resemble the larger structure of the major fair – definitely something to look forward to come Basel.

Agustina Woodgate's "Collectivism": Animal Rugs and Human Ha

LIZ TRACY | APRIL 8, 2011 | https://www.miaminewtimes.com

Woodgate told us, "I am using material people relate to, materials they see everyday (that are) loaded with cultural meaning. People relate to this." We all had stuffed animals, so we have memories to talk to each other about when we're looking at the rug.

"Collectivism" is a multimedia collection featuring work from earlier in her career with "Changes" (2005) and one of the items from her rug project, No Rain No Rainbows. Of the show, she said, "I am excited myself, because this is the first time that I am going to be seeing my own work, two of my own works in the same room together."

The Argentine artist currently lives in Miami and is taking pilot lessons. We asked her, why flying, and she said, "Why not?" An admirer of Amelia Earhart, she continued, "I am kind of obsessed with the idea of flying, and our human possibilities of transporting that way. Learning to fly in any possible way is my endeavor."

She has exhibited and performed her all over the globe, from Los Angeles to Puerto Rico. Woodgate's rug collection is not only visually stunning, with patches of colors creating patterns that reflect the titles, but, like we mentioned, made of stuffed animals.

"Although the choice of using stuffed animals began from a personal memory, it quickly became an observation about cultural archetypes and our relationship with objects." We imbue life in these objects, and then discard them, but, "These toys exist as memory items and as a consequence it's hard to get rid of them." She doesn't cut the material, she reorganizes it like a puzzle, stitching intricate shapes.

She considers herself a humanist and an environmentalist but not so much a feminist. Yet her work speaks largely of work women do. "Now that I'm doing all of these rug productions, these rug collections, I started researching the production of the rugs, how they're made, the history. They're done by ten women at the same time."

Her other earlier work, "Changes," is a collection of 24 monoprints featuring hairless portaits of the artist, and panels where she sewed her hair into the shape of her figure. "I collected one year of the hair that was falling from my head in a jar, when I was taking showers."

Her work involves long processes that involve many players and interactions. "I gave haircuts in the streets for almost four years, I would set up my chair in random corners and just provide a free service, in exchange I would get the discarded body parts." The hair, presumably.

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"At the time I wasn't very sure why I was collecting all this hair, but there was something about the process that was very interesting to me. This idea of giving haircuts in the streets, the conversations that arise from those moments, people's reactions, questions, and curiosities. Then I started finding envelops and bags at my studio door, people were collecting it for me. They would cut their hair and save it. Same thing happens with the stuffed animals. People found a place for these loving animals other than the trash or the thrift store."

She said of her work, "I love creating this narrative."

Agustina Woodgate's exhibitions will be displayed at Spinello Projects (155 NE 38 Street, 101, Miami) this Saturday, April 9, from 7 to 10 p.m. The exhibition is open till May 28. 

CLOSER GROUP EXHIBIT

Contributed by Mariana Ochoa. Images Courtesy of Spinello Projects | 12/03/2012

Spinello Projects, one of our favorite local contemporary art venues founded by Anthony Spinello, will be repping Miami with a special group exhibition – CLOSER.

Last Tuesday, November 27, we hit up the Press & Collector’s Preview for a first look at the exhibition and found ourselves discovering how artists, lovers, strangers, and relatives interact in a single moment or throughout their lives. CLOSER presents fifteen emerging artists and their perspectives on the qualities that create, bind or dissolve relationships. The featured artists represent nine countries (Argentina, Great Britain, France, South Africa, Israel, China, Croatia, Venezuela, and the United States) making the project versatile through an international perspective on a subject matter that is both universal and often times contextual.

Ingrid Lee, Das Rote Sprachrohr (Still), Performed by Ingrid Lee and Taylor Brizendine, Filmed by Rowan Smith, 2012

The exhibition includes video, audio, installation, performance, drawing and sculpture, providing an opportunity for the audience to experience the concept through a variety of platforms and voices. A standout piece of the exhibition was a sound installation entitled For You (Closer) by an Israeli artist, Naama Tsabar. The installation was built within the gallery’s own architecture as an audio source. This installation allows the walls to actually talk, making this type of communication part of the building’s physical foundation. CLOSER also includes beautifully made films by Paris-based artists, twins Abby Double and Federico Nessi, demonstarting the lyric, poetic nature of collaboration, an all important element of our interactions.

Ana Mendez & Federico Nessi, Untitled Video (Still), 2011

At the opening preview, we caught a performance entitled ‘Drinks on Me’ by artists, Antonia Wright and Rube Millares. This performance embodied the interaction between two individuals leading one to question the implications of the interaction. Throughout the performance, the artists threw wine and ink-filled balloons at each other while engaging in dynamic movement. The performance begs the question, are these two at play or at war?

In a nutshell, the exhibit shows the complexities that occur when we strive to get closer to each other and speaks to our struggle to maintain communication. Take our word for it and make sure you pop in to check it out, this exhibit is not to be missed during this weeks inundation of openings and events.

Spinello Projects  presents, CLOSER, a group exhibition with a live performance program by Augustina Woodgate on December 4th 7-10 p.m. Exhibition runs through January 5, 2013.

The madness of Lee Materazzi

By BY COLLEEN DOUGHER | MAR 30, 2011 | www.sun-sentinel.com

Mothers often go to great lengths to help their daughters further their careers. For Miami real estate broker Alice Kellogg, this has meant dumping chicken noodle soup over her own head, shoving her noggin into a plastic container of Cheerios and cramming herself into a cabinet beneath a kitchen sink.

Kellogg is the mother of Lee Materazzi, whose solo exhibition Feels Like Home will open Saturday at Spinello Gallery in Miami. Through photos Materazzi and her mother took of one another, the 27-year-old photographer explores domestic rituals such as doing laundry, baking a cake and making a sandwich in a way that's anything but routine. In one photo, Materazzi pours laundry detergent on her head. For another, she shoved a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into her face. In a photo triptych, she transformed her mother's face into a chocolate cake.

"She wanted to make a cake out of my head," Kellogg recalls. "So I had chocolate frosting all over my face and my hair, and we were laughing so hard. And I'm like, 'Lee, you've got to stop laughing because this has to be in focus. I'm not doing this one again.' Then, I hear the sprinkles go on and she's got candles. Now, I can't see a thing. But then, I hear her lighting the butane lighter and I go, 'Lee, you're not lighting the candles! I swear if you set fire to my hair … "

By now, Kellogg is accustomed to her daughter's messy, sometimes painful photo shoots. Two years ago, Materazzi presented In Between Spaces, an exhibition in which many of the subjects' heads were encased in a wall, table, dirt or other object to make them appear decapitated. For "Head in Table," Materazzi required her mother to stand on one leg, lean over and jam her head into a hole in a table.

"This was a new series for [Lee] so she wasn't really taking into account that maybe the hole for your neck should be a tiny bit bigger than your neck," Kellogg remembers. "So you get pinched in there pretty bad, and the worst part was that we had to reshoot it three time. Whenever I was done, I would say, 'Oh, thank God.' "

In Between Spaces, Materazzi’s first solo exhibition, opened at Spinello Gallery in May 2008. By the show’s end, 80 of the artist’s limited-edition photographs had been sold. At the time,

Anthony Spinello said it was the gallery’s most successful show.

"It was really overall the best reaction you could want," Materazzi says. "I just hope with every show that I move in a different direction and explore new ideas. I think people can get stuck and say, 'OK, that was successful. Let me do it again.' I'm trying to not follow that formula."

Instead, Materazzi plays with ideas until finding one she wants to explore on a deeper level. The artist, who moved from Miami to San Francisco six months ago, has numerous passions that sometimes overlap in her art. She spent a year studying fashion design in London before pursing a fine arts degree. She also has studied sculpture. "So there's that sculptural element of the body in the work," she explains. "However, I always ended up documenting it with photography, which is how I became known as a photographer even though I see myself as more of a sculptor."

Her projects often are inspired by ordinary objects and happenings. Her 2006 series

Work

evolved after she and Miami art writer Thomas Hollingworth wore the same colored clothing to work. “I’d drive him to work every day,” Materazzi recalls, “and one day, we were dressed the exact same and we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if we did that everyday?’ ”

So they started arriving to work in matching attire, including accessories. "It came to the extremes of him borrowing his wife's clothes to try to mimic me, and we would try to find a ring and both wear it on our pinky finger," Materazzi says.

Despite their efforts, no one noticed. They recruited a co-worker to photograph them each day and exhibited the photos in a collaborative show. "It was actually very funny," Materazzi remembers, "because my bosses and colleagues came to the show and they were like, 'Oh, you got us! We had no idea!' "

Materazzi's 2009 exhibition Cluttered was inspired by the chaos in her utensil drawer and depicted images of people jammed into spaces they regularly attempt to organize. She says the idea was to "show the humor and ridiculousness of trying to organize spaces that are organically messy and how that was a metaphor for a train of thought, not just a space, but a mental space."

Her current show, Feels Like Home, includes photographs and videos of Materazzi and Kellogg doing such things as making smoothies with a topless blender and playing catch with a bowl of SpaghettiOs. The show examines everyday practices Materazzi learned from her mom.

Materazzi says Kellogg, a former commercial photographer, is technically more proficient than her. "So first, it was me shooting pictures of her. And then I was like, 'Well, why don't you get behind the camera if you're so good at this?' So it started really organically, with me taking pictures of her and her taking pictures of me doing everyday things," Materazzi explains. "She would come up with ideas as much as I would and it came into this really interesting play of being either the performer or the photographer. Then, there's that relationship of her also being my mother and that these are things that she has guided me to learn since I was a kid. 'This is how you do your laundry and you eat breakfast.' Just these very everyday things."

The photographer does, however, leave room for play, manipulation and dramatization in images such as the aforementioned "PBJ."

"There's something extremely juvenile about it," Materazzi admits. "It's almost something a little child would do, like an attention thing or saying, 'I'm gonna find my own way of dealing with this everyday thing.' "

Kellogg says she had a difficult time shooting “Chip Clip,” in which Materazzi appears with the title objects — clips used to keep bags of potato chips closed — clamped all over her face.

"If you saw what her face looked like at the end of that, you would not have believed it," Kellogg says. "I said, 'Lee, this is where I stop. That's the one where you've crossed the line. What are you gonna do — get a staple gun next?' I would not have shot that one again. No, I take that back — we did it twice."

Kellogg says the madness of their shoots is too much for her husband. "He's like, 'Do not hurt your mother today,' " she says. "So we would have to do it when he was away fishing and stuff. We'd have to plan it around him because he couldn't handle seeing the messes we made. They're not to be believed."

Once the photos are taken, however, he helps edit them. "When the proofs come, he cooks for us and we lay them all out on the table," Kellogg says. "It's a big family event. [We discuss] whether it's a strong enough piece, what we could do to improve it. So we're all in it together. He just doesn't want to come home and see chicken soup, frosting and peanut butter all over the floor. He's a neatnik."

So this Saturday, Materazzi and family will attend the opening of Feels Like Home. "It will be exciting to show this new body of work to people who haven't seen something from me in a while," Materazzi says.

She also is inviting people to bring their dirty laundry to the gallery and place them in an on-site washing machine titled "Mother." "No quarters or soap needed," she says. "And there will be a clothesline installed in the space for drying."