Wet Heat Project presents: HOTBED Miami 2010
Fountain Miami Art Fair
A special event and film in-the-making for art fair week. December 2 through 5, 2010 at the Fountain Art Fair in the heart of Wynwood
Within the momentous global art world gathering the week of Art Basel Miami Beach, Wet Heat Project will stage a high-visibility platform on which four local art students are challenged to represent the innovative, spirited and relevant voices of Miami artists.
That platform is in the heart of Wynwood during the busiest art week of the year, at the pioneering fair that describes itself as “the installation-based exhibition of avant-garde galleries.” Fountain Miami Art Fair responded to our HOTBED concept with enthusiasm and support, and with the sponsorship of Miami-based advertising agency Alma DDB a prime booth space was secured.
Selected from New World School of the Arts in downtown Miami were four senior-level, next generation artists of diverse disciplines and backgrounds. They were given this direction: “Within 6 weeks, conceive, create and present a site-speciï¬c performative installation that will engage visitors to Fountain Miami 2010 and represent the artistic merit of Miami. Absorb input and feedback of mentor artists and art professionals. Plan to install, present and strike within one of the four calendar show days of the fair. Work with your fellow artists to decide the best order of exhibition.”
To launch pre-production, a special 3-hour Mentor Artist Workshop was conducted at the de la Cruz Collection on November 5, sponsored by New World School of the Arts. The HOTBED artists presented their ideas to four established, experienced Miami-based artists of diverse disciplines: Maria Jose Arjona, Richard Haden, Gean Moreno and Jen Stark. HOTBED artists were challenged by these mentors to express their ideas with clarity, to invest their developing work with relevance, visual accomplishment, depth, and not to lose sight of some old-fashioned fun.
Wet Heat Project will concurrently shoot a documentary film capturing the linear process of decisions, interaction and hard work that will bring each student artist’s ideas to fruition for one day on the floor of the crowded fair (production of the film is sponsored by LMNT / Gino Tozzi). A dedicated website enables the public to follow the progress and process of the artists: www.hotbedmiami.com
Wet Heat Project Director Bill Bilowit comments, “Through our films we tell stories about the people who make art happen in Miami, but with HOTBED we’re in effect staging a demonstration of that special energy, invention and community we encounter all the time. It’s our own experience from making Wet Heat Project, expressed to a visiting art world as a series of live performances.”
Wet Heat Project Producer Grela Orihuela explains, “We’d been working on a group of films for our “Why Me?” series about Miami art students for wetheat.tv – that’s launching soon – and on the way we met many amazingly talented young artists. The full effect of these kids transcended that specific series, so we invented HOTBED. It’s a fusion of two things, really – our interest in documenting the action of Miami’s art students, and our big-picture goal of revealing the scope and relevance of Miami’s art world.”
Bilowit adds, “Another important distinction about HOTBED is that the focus for the students is not about selling work, they know their role is to represent the quality and accomplishment of Miami artists at the earliest level of career. It’s about exemplifying a leading edge we believe exists here. There’s no commerce involved in HOTBED, it’s an act of sharing a piece of genuine Miami aesthetics right in the middle of the largest art market gathering in the Americas.”
Participating artists:
Jessica Laino, limchoy lee, Jose Felix Perez, sleeper
Participating artist mentors:
Maria Jose Arjona, Richard Haden, Gean Moreno, Jen Stark
Participating sponsors:
Alma DDB (installation space, HOTBED artists, online scrapbook) www.almaddb.com
LMNT / Gino Tozzi (production of Wet Heat Project documentary film)
New World School of the Arts (mentor workshop) nwsa.mdc.edu
de la Cruz Collection (mentor workshop) www.delacruzcollection.org
Participating supporter: Fountain Miami Art Fair www.fountainexhibit.com
About Wet Heat Project
Through multiple visual media formats, Wet Heat Project documents and personiï¬es the ongoing achievements, processes, development and outreach of the Miami art scene. Our expanding catalog of short ï¬lms can be viewed on www.wetheat.tv. Our longform documentary ï¬lms such as the “miamiHeights” series (with episodes on Hernan Bas and Bert Rodriguez) are distributed on DVD homevideo at art museums, collections and online, and are available for screenings at art and educational venues. For more info on Bill Bilowit and Grela Orihuela go to www.wetheatproject.com.
For more information about local openings and events, please visit www.miamiartguide.com
