Who Kills Ai Weiwei
Dimensions Variable (DV) presents a solo project titled Who Kills Ai Weiwei by Cuban-born, Miami-based artist Francisco Masó. The exhibition opens on June 25 and runs through September 10, 2022 in the Main Gallery.
What happens when a dissident artwork is owned by the regime it criticizes? How do you avoid the use of your work as part of government political propaganda? Is it possible to legally frame the dynamics of reception, consumption, and circulation of your practice? Taking these questions as a point of departure, Masó reflects on the ethical sense of political art through the presentation of three recent projects: Aesthetic Register of Covert Forces (2017 – ongoing), Placing Political Art (2020-2021), and Time Specific Marked Paintings (2022).
Based on documentary photographs from online archives about scenes of repression in Cuba, both series Aesthetic Register of Covert Forces and Time Specific Marked Paintings generate a geometric archive of striped polo shirt patterns worn by the secret police. During the show, Placing Political Art is activated, allowing the audience to borrow an artwork presented in the exhibition for a period of 15 days.
DV and Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) have joined forces to collaborate on a new artist opportunity. The DV—AIRIE Award is given to one AIRIE fellow who is interested in realizing a solo exhibition at the end of their Everglades residency. DV will choose the fellow and work closely with AIRIE and the artist to curate a solo project in one of its galleries. The award is a great opportunity for our two organizations to come together in support of contemporary art, diversity, ecology, and the Everglades.
Francisco Masó
Francisco Masó (b. Havana, 1988) is an AfroLatinx visual artist living and working in Miami. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Stage Design from the Instituto Superior de Arte (2014) and is a graduate of both the Behavior Art School (2009) and the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts (2007). Maso’s artwork delves into the contemporary understanding of socially shaped “unconscious behaviors” and challenges what is accepted by society as natural, necessary, and normal. He examines the concept of power and the relationships between blackness, civil rights, and the police system through the lens of his personal experiences in Cuba and the United States.
Recent collaborations include “Where’s Your Favorite Place for Political Art at Home?” at Locust Project (2021) and Dimensions Variable (2020). Selected group exhibitions include “Under the Florida Sun: South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists” at Florida Atlantic University (2021), “Where there is Power” at Oolite Arts (2021), “A.I.M Biennial.” South Florida. (2020), and “Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection” at El Espacio 23 (2019). Maso was nominated to the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2020). He received the Oolite Arts’ Home + Away residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts (2020) and at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center (2022). He is a two-time finalist of the Cintas Foundation Fellowship in Visual Arts, a 2020 Ellies Creator Award winner by Oolite Arts, a 2021 South Florida Cultural Consortium grant recipient, and a 2022 Artist in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) Fellow.
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