CADILLAC HOTEL & BEACH CLUB HOSTED ART TALK AND BRUNCH DURING MIAMI ART WEEK, CELEBRATING “SKIN IN THE GAME” EXHIBIT
MODERATED BY ZOE LUKOV AND BEN LEE RITCHIE HANDLER, PANEL FEATURED ARTISTS ISABELLE ALBUQERQUE AND RAUL DE NIEVES
Independent curator Zoe Lukov and Ben Lee Ritchie Handler, Global Director of Nicodim Gallery moderated a spirited, invitation-only panel discussion during Miami Art Week at iconic oceanfront property Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club, located at 3925 Collins Avenue.
Artists Isabelle Albuquerque and Raúl de Nieves participated in a candid conversation about their inspirations, artistic processes, and techniques over brunch at the Art Deco waterfront hotel on Friday, December 3. The private event was in celebration of “Skin in the Game,” an exhibition of work by 35 diverse artists, curated by Lukov, about touch, transmission, and skin – the potential, vulnerability and contained therein — as a boundary to protect from danger or as a porous border to receive.
In attendance were Nicodim Gallery owner Mihai Nicodim; Desert X President and Founder Susan Davis; Desert X Artistic Director Neville Wakefield; artists Devin B. Johnson, Alicia Adamerovich, Nicolette Mishkan, Orlando Estrada, and Allison Eden; interior designer and celebrity chef Travis London; gallerist Ana Cristea; art collector Walid Wahab; philanthropist Jenni Coba; and actress and model Celesta Hodge, among others.
“Artists create channels to the divine, that take us to another level,” said Lukov, in conversation with the panel. Nicodim Gallery’s Handler commented on “the performance and ritual of making the magic” [of art], adding cheekily, “What I like about this exhibition is that it’s not afraid to be a little dirty.” Artist Isabelle Albuquerque, a Los Angeles-based sculptor and performer, spoke of “sculpture as a memory,” a vehicle “to remember what an experience feels like.” Raúl de Nieves, a New York-based interdisciplinary artist, performer, and musician, likened art to “a celebratory skin” that provides “something to believe in, to manifest the strength within us.”
ABOUT CADILLAC HOTEL & BEACH CLUB
Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club is an oceanfront luxury hotel inspired by the 1940s Italian Riviera with a preserved Art Deco aesthetic. A Miami Beach icon, this Autograph Collection hotel is recognized as one of Miami Beach’s original Art Deco hotels. Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean with beach and city views, Cadillac is located in the heart of Mid Beach and features 357 guestrooms and suites as well as two distinct dining outlets — Donna Mare Trattoria and Bungalow by the Sea, a seaside-inspired destination just off the Miami Beach boardwalk. The hotel offers beachside and pool service at two pools — one for adults only and one family pool. Cadillac provides guests with unparalleled, tailored concierge services, several dining options and more. Cadillac encourages and facilitates genuine connections and unforgettable moments for guests of all ages, across generations, for locals and travelers alike. This is Miami Beach done differently.
ABOUT ZOE LUKOV
Zoe Lukov is a curator, producer, and writer. Formerly chief curator of Faena Art in Miami Beach and in Buenos Aires, Lukov conceived of and produced both the first and second Faena Festivals in 2018 and 2019. In addition, she organized major solo exhibits by internationally recognized artists throughout the Faena Districts. She is a founding board member of Desert X, the non-profit site-specific exhibition based in California and recently produced a documentary about Desert X 2021 that made its premiere at the Getty Museum and broadcasts on PBS in November. She produces independent curatorial projects, among them the well-received Fair, an alternative, all-women, non-commercial art fair that took place in Miami at Brickell City Centre in 2017. She got her start in the art world working for Rashida Bumbray at The Kitchen in New York, Jeffrey Deitch at MOCA Los Angeles and Franklin Sirmans on Prospect 3, the New Orleans biennial. She is a Fulbright scholar and a graduate of Oberlin College.
ABOUT SKIN IN THE GAME
Skin in the Game, an exhibition of work by 35 diverse artists, curated by Zoe Lukov and presented by Palm Heights, is a collective offering. The exhibition is about touch, transmission, and skin—the potential, vulnerability and risk contained therein—as a boundary to protect from danger or as a porous border to receive. It seeks to establish a dialogue with the erotic and has through lines that touch on game, color, race, the hunt, sport, religious iconography and competition. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, will be on view from November 29 – December 10, 2021.
ABOUT BEN LEE RICH HANDLER
Ben Lee Ritchie Handler is the Global Director at Nicodim. Since starting with the gallery in 2017, Ritchie Handler and his drag alter-ego Olivia Neutron Bomb have curated a number of genre and dimension-bending exhibitions, including PAPA RAGAZZE!, Nicodim Los Angeles and Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, 2020–2021; Hollywood Babylon: A Re-Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (with Jeffrey Deitch), Jeffrey Deitch, Nicodim, and AUTRE Magazine, Los Angeles (2020); TRANS WORLD, Nicodim Los Angeles and Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, 2019; BioPerversity (with John Knuth), Nicodim Los Angeles, 2018; and Homeward Bound (with Oliver M. Furth), Nicodim Los Angeles, 2017. Prior to Nicodim, he curated FLASH FLASH FLASH: An Exhibition As Tattoo Parlor for Gagosian, in which contemporary artists were commissioned to create original tattoo designs which were then permanently inked and numbered on the bodies of patrons in editions of six at MoMA PS1, New York, The Geffen Contemporary at MoCA, Los Angeles, and SFMoMA, San Francisco.
ABOUT NICODIM
Nicodim opened its first gallery in 2006. With locations in Los Angeles, Bucharest, and New York, the gallery and its international roster of artists share a common interest in reassessing art history from an outsider’s perspective and challenging its established framework. Nicodim’s roster includes Isabelle Albuquerque, Razvan Boar, Michiel Ceulers, John Duncan, Dominique Fung, Adrian Ghenie, Georgina Gratrix, Devin B. Johnson, Hortensia Mi Kafchin, Philipp Kremer, Larry Madrigal, Ciprian Muresan, Simphiwe Ndzube, Katherina Olschbaur, Jorge Peris, Daniel Pitín, Cristian Raduta, Mosie Romney, Serban Savu, Moffat Takadiwa, Hugo Wilson, Robert Yarber, and Zhou Yilun.
ABOUT ISABELLE ALBUQUERQUE
Isabelle Albuquerque is a Los Angeles-based sculptor and performer. In Orgy for 10 People in One Body, her current project, Albuquerque casts and 3D scans her own body to create ten headless, human-scaled figures that unpack deeply personal and poetic moments from her life set against history, myth, and wider contemporary socio-political movements. The work explores emergent systems of intrapersonal communion from outside the body, invoking collective identity, transhumanism, plurality, love, loss of self, relocation of memory, pleasure, and power. Sextet, Albuquerque’s critically acclaimed first solo exhibition with Nicodim, opened in September of 2020 with six sculptures from the series. Recent exhibitions include The Emerald Tablet, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2021); Nuestrxs Putxs, Human Resources, Los Angeles (2021); PAPA RAGAZZE!, Nicodim Upstairs, Los Angeles (2021); When You Waked Up the Buffalo, Nicodim Los Angeles (2020); Hollywood Babylon: A Re-Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Jeffrey Deitch, Nicodim, and AUTRE Magazine, Los Angeles (2020); and Skin Stealers, Nicodim Los Angeles (2019). Her work will be featured in the upcoming “Skin in the Game” exhibit, curated by Zoe Lukov in Miami Beach, FL, from November 29 to December 10, 2021.
ABOUT RAUL DE NIEVES
Raúl de Nieves is a New York based, Mexican interdisciplinary artist, performer, and musician whose multifaceted practice includes stained-glass-style narrative paintings, animated performances, densely adorned figurative sculptures encrusted with bangles, beads, bells, sequins, and other homespun materials. His sculptural, installation, and performance pieces make reference to religious iconography, mythology, and BDSM in conjunction with Mexican tradition and drag culture in order to explore themes of transformation and the mutability of sexuality.
