More than twenty Miami-based artists, writers and architects will get together at CEE Miami this June for a multidisciplinary project called Miami: City - Metaphor. At CEE, visitors will have the opportunity to see an interesting mix of works inspired by the trepidant pace of the city, in an interesting mix of emerging, mid career and established artists that are currently living and working away from the “Miami mainstream”, - mostly dominated by Miami natives. Many of the artists selected come from different places but they have one common denominator: they have stayed to live and work in Miami, and many of them have contributed a great deal to what we can experience today as a paradise for the arts. But more than a group show with “la città” as the main theme, this project is also intended to function as an open forum for discussion on subjects around the arts in the city, its history, architecture and urbanism, making it relevant not only to artists, but to any resident in the community.

Miami is generally taken for granted when it comes to its future as a city. It sure has most of the ingredients. A strategic southern location with a sea port to Latin America, an enviable ethnic diversity - only criticized by the most radical nationalists - a well developed visitors industry, and of course, a great weather. But for the last 50 years, the city has experienced many transformations that have turn it into the metropolitan city in which we live today. Together with its stressing rush hours, never-ending constructions and international banks, culture is also making its way through.



And it is that Miami has never been part of any center, and in the constant spinning of contemporary society, the edges hold way more dynamism than the calm, super-established centers such as New York or Berlin. From the Mariel boat lift in the early eighties, riots and civil disobedience, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s intervention on the bay, through hurricane Andrew in the early nineties and beyond, Miami continued experiencing a growth in many other aspects of its socio-economic life and cultural diversity that attracted the visionary eye of shrewd investors and not few celebrities and personalities that undoubtedly contributed to put the city on the map. Ready for the take-off in 2002, in the peak of the real estate furor came Art Basel Miami Beach as the catalyzer for the international attention that Miami was already receiving.
Today, neighborhoods such as Wynwood , Design District, North Miami, and even the popular Calle Ocho are hosts for different ways to see and appreciate contemporary art. Gallery walks can typically be found in developing communities, where most intellectuals understand the advantages of generating strategies that encourage the community to embrace the arts as an enriching experience. But Miami has also many institutions that carry on with their own particular agenda. CEE in Coral Gables is one of them.

Organized by Eduard Reboll and Jesús Rosado, with the direction of Grupo Este / Oeste (East / West) spearheaded by Alfredo Triff and Rosie Inguanzo, Miami: City - Metaphor includes a group show, roundtables, conferences and poetry readings. Among visual artists invited to exhibit their Miami-thematic works are Ana Ochoa, Arturo Cuenca, Avraham Zúñiga, Carlos de Villasante, César Trasobares, Ernesto Restrepo, Francis Ferrara, Gory, Gustavo Acosta, Juan Si González, Joaquín González, John Sánchez, Karla Turcios, Lili(ana), María Adelaida López, Mariano Costa Peuser, Mariu Beyro, Odalis Valdivieso, Pancho Luna, Pedro Portal, Pedro Vizcaíno, Rebeca Guarda, Vicenta Casañ and Zayra Mo.

Of a particular interest is a conference about city-planning, design and environment presented by UM Professor Rafael Fornes where conversations will move around the rise and fall of real estate boom in Miami, and the consequent crisis that is currently affecting our life in the city. An important question arises from this theme: Could Miami sustain the same frantic pace without affecting its ecosystem, environment and life of its habitants?

Honoring the “metaphoric” on its name, the event also includes a segment dedicated exclusively to poetry. Organized by Rosie Inguanzo it will focus on the encounter between day-to-day communication forms and the sublime expression of language in poetry.

CEE Miami is one of the most active cultural institutions around. Under the enthusiastic direction of Maria del Valle, it hosts a year round program that knows no boundaries of discipline, themes or nationality. Miami: City - Metaphor is a good example that will serve as reference for better understanding the cultural complexities of the history and life of a growing community. A community in which inhabitants are determined to stay and grow along with it. No matter what.