Monica Uszerowicz

Dec 5, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Monica Uszerowicz

The late Purvis Young, a native of Miami’s Overtown neighbourhood and arguably the city’s most beloved artist, developed a visual lexicon comprised of his own unique iconography. Horses—appearing in his paintings as dreamlike, occasionally transparent, figures in clusters—represented freedom, while eyes sometimes signified authoritarianism and an ever-present surveillance system.

Dec 4, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Monica Uszerowicz

Located in Little Haiti, IPC ArtSpace’s name only narrowly defines the purpose of this unique hub. Led by the photojournalist Carl-Philippe Juste, the director of the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance (which is housed in the same building), and named for the Iris Photo Collective—an independent group of artists and documentary photographers—IPC ArtSpace is not simply a gallery. It is also a community meeting point, a home for gatherings, projects and experiments.

Dec 3, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Monica Uszerowicz

Exit the Earlington Heights Metrorail station in Miami’s Brownsville neighbourhood and head to the lawn right at its entrance. There, you’ll find a cluster of sky-blue concrete stones, cradled by ferns, live oaks and other subtropical flora. Their colour was once weathered, the surrounding vegetation having left its muddy mark—but even before they were given a fresh coat of paint, the stones would briefly shine, almost incandescent, in the golden-hour light of sunset.

Nov 22, 2024 | burnaway.org | Monica Uszerowicz

In Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1997), the titular princess, a girl named San raised by a wolf-goddess, wears the furs of her lupine clan, her scent camouflaged away—and, with it, part of her humanness. She is both maiden and wolf. In Lee Pivnik’s Chimeras—an exhibition inspired by the artist’s speculative, sci-fi story, set in 2086—animal guises shield the eponymous chimeras, safeguarding them from prying eyes and functioning as markers of solidarity. Who are the chimeras?

Aug 12, 2024 | jewishcurrents.org | Monica Uszerowicz

Ten years ago, my friend Harmony made me eat aloe vera. The plant was growing tall and spiky in the front yard of our shared home in Miami, and Harmony cut the top of one of the thick serrated leaves and squeezed out a cube of glistening gel, like a freezer pop. I’d been suffering from stomach ailments for over a month; the aloe relieved my pain almost immediately. Seven years later, Harmony, who was about to move to New York, left the plant in my new backyard.