Miami-Dade Public Library System

Mark Parascondola, Butcher Barber (Mini-Hollywood), 2012, pigment print. Courtesy of the artist.

April 26 - June 3
Main Library – 1^st and 2^nd floor exhibition space

During the 1960s and 1970s, the region of Almeria in Spain, was host to dozens of filmmakers who constructed elaborate movie sets, invoking locations from the American Southwest to Bedouin Arabia. Films shot here include Cleopatra, Lawrence of Arabia, Patton, and Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood, of which some were inspired by both real-life events and fictional plays by Spanish poet/author Federico Garcia Lorca. Film directors sought to manipulate the otherwise uninhabitable landscape in order to create a world more imaginary than real. Four decades later remnants of the old movie sets remain in the desert, providing seemingly tangible evidence of human settlements that never really existed.

This series of photographs focuses on the architecture and locations used in classic films over the years. Some of the buildings shown were constructed solely as temporary sets, while others are pre-existing structures with their own history, discovered and reused by foreign movie directors. The prints on display are limited-edition digital prints made using archival pigment inks.

Nava Atlas, Love and Marriage, 2008, laser-printed, altered comic book, Permanent Art Collection of the Miami‑Dade Public Library System.

January 5 - September 23
West Dade Regional Library
9445 Coral Way • 305-553-1134

The Miami‑Dade Public Library's Permanent Art Collection includes works on paper, photographs, paintings, artists' books, multiples and publications. Much of the work references language, literature, or Miami life and history. This exhibition highlights new additions to the collection from 2009 to the present. Paintings, prints, sculptures and artists' books by Bhakti Baxter, Jenny Brillhart, Ramon Carulla, Jason Hedges, Kathleen Hudspeth, Brandon Opalka, David Spitzer, Sam Winston, and many others will be on view.

Agustin Fernandez, Untitled (from portfolio 20 años de exilio, 1959-1979), 1978, lithograph, Permanent Art Collection of the Miami-Dade Public Library System.

January 5 - August 31
Hispanic Branch Library
1398 SW. 1 St. • 305-643-8574
 
The late Agustín Fernandez's portfolio of lithographs, 20 Años de Exilio 1959-1979, was created in 1978 to commemorate twenty years of Cuban exile. The work juxtaposes eighteen of Jose Marti's best-loved poems with Fernandez's surreal dream imagery. The poems were translated from Spanish to English by children, ages 8-16, born to Cuban parents in Paris, Havana, and Miami.

Carl Van Vechten, Untitled (Horace Pippin), 1940, hand gravure print, Permanent Art Collection of the Miami‑Dade Public Library System.

March 16 - October
North Dade Regional Library
2455 NW 183 St. • 305-625-6424

Harlem Renaissance novelist, music critic and photographer, Carl Van Vechten (1880 - 1964), photographed fifty highly acclaimed African American artists, writers, and musicians during 1930 through 1960. This exhibition features part of Van Vechten's O, Write My Name' American Portraits – Harlem Heroes portrait series. The photographs themselves were reproduced using the hand gravure technique of ink printing from copper plates by photographer/printer Richard Benson. Alongside each portrait is a literary quotation by or about the subject, together with a biographical note.