As right-wing Floridians work to ban books, mandate forced births, kidnap trans children from loving families, and criminalize the presence of queer people in public, locals aren’t taking it lying down. Just in time for Pride month, MAD Arts—a new digital arts museum founded in Florida’s Broward County by Marc Aptakin—is hosting “Erotika II,” an exhibition of digital artwork and physical performances curated by feminist curatorial collective ClitSplash.

MAD Arts chief curator Tam Gryn sat down with Surface to discuss the state of art affairs in Florida, whether the metaverse is safer, and the show itself, which runs June 2 and 3.

Tell us about MAD Arts.

We’re a digital arts museum launching in January in Dania Beach, between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. It’s 50,000 square feet, and we’ve already done a few short-term shows while we do the build-out inside. It’s part of MAD Arts, which has been running for 22 years as a creative agency pioneering advertising work using VR and AR motion capture. One thing that defines MAD Arts is that the definition of art—just like the definition of tech—is changing. We’re testing holographic hardware and outdoor LED screens. Blockchain and Web3 technology impacts the movement.

How do you build a museum for incoming virtual tech?

We think of the space modularly: our hardware is able to move so we can have projection mapping on walls. Those walls can also change and adapt, with moveable curtains and walls indoors and outdoors.

When did you first begin working with ClitSplash?

It was founded in 2020 by two writers—one Italian and one Cuban—and came from the idea that the Web3 space was basically 90 percent cisgender male, and this created an echo chamber effect. ClitSplash stands for sexual liberation, equal representation, and diverse perspectives on human sexuality. We want to showcase digital art by women, queer, trans, and other sex-positive groups to create a new, authentic narrative in the digital space.

On social media, we’re not allowed to showcase erotic or explicit art. In the beginning, decentralization and Web3 represented this idea of an open metaverse where you could potentially explore these things. Three years in, a lot of platforms have fallen on community regulations and censorship in a similar way. And that’s one of our obstacles.

How do you navigate those obstacles?

We’ve had struggles. It’s difficult to differentiate what could be considered porn and what’s considered erotic art. We first had an NFT platform where we minted all the work, and the software these companies use immediately flagged some of the work. We and the artist had to explain the intention and back up our research as to why this is art. Another example is Web3 platforms censoring even the writing of the name ClitSplash. The clitoris is a part of the human body. So the fact that we’re banning saying parts of the human body is a problem that goes way beyond being conservative.

And you’re based in Florida…

We’re an independent organization, so we are allowed to decide what we want to stand for. But the political climate doesn’t make it easy for governments, individuals, or private companies—even those in the realm of dating apps, who you would think would be interested in supporting a show like this—to do something bold. It’s been hard to rally financial support for the show. But every single artist, performer, curator, photographer, and person involved is doing it because they believe we need to stand up right now and not back away.

We want to make sure we have a safe space to talk about erotic art and expressions by all kinds of people. Florida is the right place for these conversations to happen because people from all sides of the political spectrum are here. What is art for if not to have these difficult conversations, and to see things in a more beautiful, magical way?

What are some things attendees will see?

A selection of 18 digital artists with beautiful, large-scale work. Sasha Katz is presenting monochrome pieces where there’s a woman who has a love story with an octopus, and everything is 3D modeled with such texture. There’s Jaqueline Michelle, a Miami tantric BDSM expert, who’s doing a holographic shibari performance. In all my years of research, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s very hard to go through so much thick resistance. But we have to rally the troops and keep going.

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In 1875, James Beecher—brother of Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe—built an elegant home for himself on the banks of the highest lake in the Catskills. A century later, with the surrounding 1,400 woodsy acres still pristine, the house became a zen retreat. An extensive 2021 renovation opened it up to the sky, courtesy of a new solarium, and what’s now known as Beecher Lake, courtesy of a welcoming deck. And this June 4 and 5, guests can experience the house’s long history of uniting the senses as Hiroki Odo, who earned a Michelin star at New York’s Kajitsu, transforms it into a shojin home of his own.

Odo’s iteration of the traditional Japanese vegan cuisine will focus on ingredients sourced from the Catskills itself: a sample menu includes an Aemono offering of morel, chanterelle, and summer truffle; while the Shiru dish balances white miso, charred eggplant, lotus root, and ramps. The intimate experience is limited to ten guests per day, and keeping with the spirit of presence, neither alcohol nor cell service will be available—but meditation sessions and tea ceremonies led by Rev. Dr. Masaki Matsubara will take place in the retreat’s welcome absolute silence.

In 2010, two years before Oscar Niemeyer’s death, the Brazilian visionary of tropical modernism designed his final work, a white pavilion gently threading its way through the Château La Coste vineyards of Aix-En-Provence. Unveiled this spring, his namesake auditorium is now engaging in a conversation with another Modernist icon: glamorous French functionalist Pierre Paulin.

Paulin’s midcentury Pierre Paulin Program proposed a grid of dual layouts in six models of modular horizontal and vertical designs. The models, part of the Centre Pompidou’s collection, were unrealized until 2014, and perhaps find their ideal setting in Niemeyer’s curving structure. His Big C and Club C seating arc in counterpoint to Niemeyer’s walls, while the topographic Ensemble Dune seems to rise naturally from the floor. Organized in collaboration with the family-owned business Paulin Paulin Paulin, the show runs until Sept. 3.

The Blanton Museum of Art might be most famous as the site of Ellsworth Kelly’s chapel Austin, which the late artist finished in 2018, but museum director Simone Wicha noted how “people have a hard time finding our front door.” That might be because the institution’s main two buildings blend in with the surrounding Spanish Revival–style architecture. To address this, she tapped Snøhetta for landscape revamps that will establish a bolder presence.

The Norwegian-American firm achieved that by building 15 elegant, petal-shaped structures that form a shade canopy at the southern end of the two buildings’ shared Moody Patio. Each generates a playful dappled light effect during the day and will be illuminated at night, creating a one-of-a-kind visual marker for the museum that shields passersby from the sweltering Texas sun. Kelly’s chapel will be in good company: Animating the museum’s loggia is a site-specific mural by the late Cuban-American abstract painter Carmen Herrera, which joins the newly established Butler Sound Gallery whose inaugural commission, by composer Bill Fontana, recreates the sounds of Texas Hill Country wildlife.

On May 24, the Guggenheim’s Young Collectors Council turned out for a seated dinner and benefit dance party in celebration of Stephanie Dinkins, the inaugural recipient of the LG Guggenheim Award. Artists, patrons, and museum leadership toasted to Dinkins against the backdrop of a Blade Runner-esque digital installation created by LG and artist-musician Farah Al Qasimi. After dinner, guests danced, mingled, and toasted to another successful year of fundraising for the museum and the Young Collectors Council Art Fund.

When was it? May 24

Where was it? The Guggenheim, New York

Who was there? Naomi Beckwith, Jung-Jae Lee, Neil Hamamoto, Charlie Jarvis, Maria Vogel, and more.

Ellsworth Kelly first took interest in birdwatching shortly after his family moved to Oradell, New Jersey. “I believe my early interest in nature taught me how to see,” he explains in his 2018 Phaidon monograph. An experience of seeing a redstart—“a small black bird with a few very bright red marks”—would prove formative to one of the 20th century’s most influential abstract artists, whose hard-edge paintings captivated with bright hues and clever techniques that emphasized line, form, and distilling concepts to their very essence.

Kelly, who died in 2015, would be celebrating his centenary this year. His seven-decade legacy is being commemorated in a wave of centennial exhibitions this spring, including at the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The most notable is taking place at the Glenstone Museum, the Maryland art stronghold founded by collectors Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales. More than 70 seminal works will be on display, spanning early abstractions and totemic wood sculptures to Yellow Curve, a giant painting installation on view for the first time since debuting at Frankfurt’s Portikus am Main in 1990.

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