May 2020
The month of May presented a rare opportunity for Fountainhead to focus on the issues facing its local community. With the month’s originally scheduled residents forced to postpone their plans, Fountainhead invited local artist misael soto and curator Julianna Vezzetti, one of the co-founders of the Miami-grown art collective Good to Know. The invitation proved serendipitous for both, as misael’s planned residency at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts was postponed, and Julianna’s accommodations in Miami had fallen through. Past residents Qinza Najm and Norberto Rodriguez also continued working within the residency, with Norberto extending his stay while preparing to start a new project, and Qinza moving to a new home nearby while maintaining her garage studio.
“I really appreciate how Kathryn [Mikesell, the co-founder and Executive Director of Fountainhead Residency] is always trying to work on the puzzle facing artists,” misael says. “When I shared a bit about what I had been going through, she offered the residency and designed opportunities for programming, and it’s led to some really generative ideas on projects for our local community.” In June, misael, in partnership with local artist GeoVanna Gonzalez and Fountainhead, is spearheading a series of community dinners with local artists to understand what the local arts community truly needs in this moment of uncertainty.
“There is a lot of chaos everywhere else, but it’s been awesome to kind of just be here and want to make the best of my time here, while deepening my relationship with Fountainhead,” Julianna says. Both artists agree that it was somewhat difficult to concentrate on work, though the residency offered a welcome distraction. “After spending the first half of the lockdown on my own, it’s been a change of pace to be living with others and have some accountability,” misael says. “I still feel lost and confused and overwhelmed by what’s going on in the world, but I’m hopeful because the work I’ve done has really guided me into what might be next in my practice.”
misael soto’s practice tests the theory that involving artists in governmental planning can lead to more engaged and effective civic involvement in major decision-making processes. With a practice that incorporates both aesthetic and ephemeral elements -- but is ultimately designed to lead to discussion toward progress on policies that impact everyday citizens -- misael questions, subverts, and topples structures that contribute to dysfunctional civic frameworks.
When choosing subject matter, misael is particularly drawn to liminal spaces, which they define as ideas that feel “immediate, but where simultaneously the immediacy has lost its edge.” Of late, that urge has drawn them toward projects that reflect on climate change, with performative and time-based works that focus viewers’ attention back on its immediate danger. Projects like Reflecting Pools, a temporary public water feature consisting of two reflecting pools with walls made of sandbags and two industrial gas-powered water pumps, like those used for emergency flooding situations; and Provisional Obstruction (Little Haiti, Miami), which highlights ongoing construction in the gentrifying neighborhood of Little Haiti - driven largely by its low property values and high elevation - shine a light on the myriad social and environmental issues related to climate change in Miami.
misael has also situated themselves within Miami Beach government to bridge the disconnect between government and its local residents on issues pertaining to sea level rise in the city.
Their seminal project, the Department of Reflection, creates this mutual exchange. Located within available governmental buildings, the Department of Reflection collaborates internally with the City of Miami Beach to interrogate the direction of their work. “On the one hand, we’re creating a space so government can understand art and art-making, but we’re also creating a conduit and space for the meeting of residents who can understand the issues and contribute to artwork that acts as a framing device for their feelings on an issue,” says misael.
At Fountainhead, misael has been building on the Department of Reflection’s inherent purpose - to bridge the gap between policymakers and local residents - by developing a series of community dinners alongside local artist and fellow June resident GeoVanna Gonzalez. In addition, they have been at work on a number of digital commissions that focus on Miami Beach’s sordid past, which involved the careless destruction of the city’s natural habitat in favor of rampant development.
Independent curator Julianna Vezzetti doesn’t limit her creativity. After receiving an art history degree, her meandering journey toward contemporary art has involved ventures in jewelry making, leather goods, personal styling, poetry, photography, and an ongoing stint at New York-based gallery The Hole. “I’ve always weirdly created jobs for myself,” she laughs, as she explains that her first creative business emerged when she was just 16, and has followed a similar trajectory ever since. Perhaps that’s why Julianna is so focused on discovering and uplifting emerging talent - her curatorial platform Good to Know, which she co-founded in 2017 with Miami artist Alex Valls.
“Good to Know focuses on creating site specific experiential exhibitions, and while this isn’t necessarily breaking the mold in what we’re seeing in contemporary art today, we are keeping it unique by making it artist-focused, and considering how its presentation can connect them with new audiences,” she says. “It’s about creating a bond with that audience in order to foster our artists’ careers.”
As a nomadic curatorial platform, Good to Know’s exhibitions are often situated within the context of their immediate local environment. Last year’s Miami Art Week exhibition, We Buy Gold in the Flager district of downtown Miami, responded to the area’s historic Seybold Building, which houses predominantly immigrant jewelry manufacturers and purveyors. In 2018, La Bodega y Mas, held on Calle Ocho, paired artists with storefront windows as a comment on the American strip mall experience.
Developing a model that works toward the goal of making art accessible to new collectors, Julianna and her co-founder create affordably priced editions of works, and often consider how their artists’ work can transform into memorabilia like t-shirts and prints. “Having that takeaway makes it easy to support the artist,” says Julianna. It offers a stronger link to their work because it's something you’re seeing in everyday settings.”
While in residency, Julianna was focused on mounting Good to Know’s virtual exhibition of paintings by British artist John Bartlett, while preparing for an upcoming exhibition of outdoor sculpture at Bhumi Farms in the Hamptons. For the show, Good to Know prioritized working with artists who had recently lost work due to canceled exhibitions. trying to reestablish or even build a new structure. “In this new phase, we’re going to have to rebuild and rebake things, and be aware of the sensitivities of this climate,” she says.