Visiting the "NO MAN`S LAND" exhibition at RUBELL MUSEUM

The other day me, my significant and our precious one decided to embark on an escapade to South Miami or in other words Miami Beach but mind it, NOT Downtown Miami - these are two completely different parts of the city. Actually to be more precise, our destination was Wynwood, the artsy-trendy district of Miami filled with warehouses, industrial buildings, street art, quaint little cafes and bake-shops. We were planning to visit the Rubell Museum located in the heart of it since we missed out on the major happening of Miami Art Basel. Hence we decided to make up for the lost impressions with a mini-outing to Rubell exhibition instead. My main recommendation to whoever stays in Sunny Isles or any other place located farther away from the main city of Miami - rent a car. We did not and that is why needed to take a bus. And buses stop often. We changed two buses and our total trip time to Wynwood was around 2 hrs. But the exhibition was worth the pain. At first, after being greeted by a polite courteous receptionist, I looked around and thought it was kind of small - however the artworks presented on the ground floor were intriguing - large red clay colored sacks hanging in bunches like tumors or grapes from the vine or countless testicles of some giant Gulliver in one spacious hall

, then a cathedral made of long wool (or some other natural fabric) stripes; then a flirtatious matchstick-skinny mannequin and various abstractions. But the key pieces of the exhibition were one floor up - a fabulous selection of female (predominantly) body (and spirit) representation by females: Marlene Dumas, Cecily Brown, Cindy Sherman, Miriam Cahn - just to name a few. My personal favorite was "Jealousy in the Harem", 2005 by Dumas - a relatively recent watercolor and inkwash on paper. These media plus the reclining pose gave it the effect of fragility and insecurity but also of an exuberant femininity.

There were also numerous artworks by emerging young artists, some of the paintings were done in 2015 and when I walked around them, I felt the strong smell of fresh paint. Among the up-and-coming artists my attention was drawn to Hayv Kaharaman, an Iraqi artist, whose works reflect the controversial issues of gender, honor killings and war, all issues that plague her home country of Iraq. One of her paintings, the photo of which you can see here, is called "Migrant". The featured wood panel depicts a beautiful woman in a noose.

There were a lot of other striking works worth mentioning but as they say it is better to see it once than to hear it one hundred times - that is the way it goes, right? ):