Leonel Matheu: Crossroads to the Dystopia
Saturday, 07/12/2014 – 09/14/2014 06:00 pm – 09:00 pm
The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum – FIU
10975 SW 17th Street,
Miami, Florida 33199
Webpage Link
Cost: Free

If a single symbol could summarize the iconic work of Leonel Matheu (Havana, 1967), this would be that enigmatic head –a sort of dome- that appears as a constant throughout his work. Self-portrait and collective portrayal of a nation marked by diaspora and dystopia, this symbol embodies the symptoms and stigma of contemporary global society.
With a masterful use of the synthetic graphic design language, Matheu builds up a personal and yet universal iconography that interweaves in intimate fables of our daily existence. Spirituality, technology, passion, solitude, dreams, chimeras and deceptions are at the core of this thoughtful body of works.
“Crossroads of the Dystopia” is the first major museum survey exhibition of this midcareer versatile artist whose work ranges from drawing with colored pencils, ink on paper, oil on canvases, video and multimedia installations, to public installations and qualification of architectural spaces. Presented by Dotfiftyone Gallery and curated by Janet Batet, the exhibition resumes moreover twenty years of work and provides a comprehensive overview of Matheu’s most distinctive imagery.
Leonel Matheu, who presently resides between Miami and Los Angeles, has been one of the figures that have marked the local arts Miami in the last twenty years. He graduated at the Institute of Graphic Design of Havana in 1987. In 1992 he settled in Miami, Florida. His artwork is part of public collections in various art museums, between them are the MOCA-Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami Beach, The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami, The Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, The Young at Art Museum in Davie, Georgia Museum of Art at University of Georgia in Athens, The Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama, The University Art Museum in Radford University, Virginia among others.

By Janet Batet
art wirrer and curator