The Bakehouse Art Complex presents Urban Steeling

Saturday, May 5th from 7-10pm join us at the Bakehouse Art Complex for Urban Steeling, the last exhibition of the Baked-in-House series for the 2017/2018 season in the Swenson Gallery, featuring artists Scott Brennan and Ralph Provisero. Curated by Ombretta Agró Andruff, Urban Steeling celebrates Miami’s deeply urban, gritty side, the “anti-tropical paradise” look that is rarely brought under the spotlight. The exhibition is on view through June 24, 2018.

Away from the pristine beaches, blue skies and swaying palm trees of Miami Beach, and the glass and steel skyscrapers that give Brickell its futuristic look, Urban Steeling pays homage to a side of Miami that is often ignored and yet is crucial to the identity of our multifaceted city. Bakehouse artist Scott Brennan’s photography builds on the legacy of urban photography legends such as Eugene Atget, Brassai and Lee Friedlander, whose work focused on landscapes, urban and not, with an almost complete absence of human presence. On the atrium wall, Brennan’s Dead Pay Phone series documents these urban “archeological” relics: for years a critical means of communication, they became obsolete soon after the advent of cheap mobile phones; now, too expensive to remove, they populate the streets of metropolises around the globe, a stern reminder of the pace of technology in our contemporary world. Inside the Swenson Gallery, images of parking garages, empty lots with the occasional street sign or lamp post, chain-link fences and abandoned cars enter in a fascinating dialogue with the steel and bronze sculptures of Ralph Provisero.