January 7, 2015

Exile Books in Dazed Digital

What’s Miami’s art scene like post-Basel?

As the dust settles on the city’s biggest annual cultural event, meet the creative spaces flying the Florida flag in its wake

Miami is a transient city, one through which people pass but never really stay. It is a nexus for the convergence of outside cultures, the Gateway to the Americas. It is luxurious, hedonistic and for a week in December, Art Basel Miami Beach attracts collectors and patrons the world over. However, for all its interest and financial benefit, the ephemeral nature of ABMB, with its here-today-gone-tomorrow attitude, somehow tends to overshadow what is really happening artistically in Miami.

Local artist and writer Martha Raoli sums up the situation best: “If Miami were punctuation it would be a colon: porous and prophetic.” But, if one bucks the trend and sticks around long enough, what you will find is that Miami is in fact home to a diverse, energetic and experimental art scene that continues to grow into an exciting future, one that is imbued with a host of endless possibilities. Here are our highlights of the most invigorating art spaces the city currently has to offer.

EXILE BOOKS

Conceived by artist Amanda Season Keeley, Exile Books is an experimental, traveling pop-up artists’ bookstore. Keeley, whose last project saw her manage Printed Matter Inc, hopes that Exile will serve as a “platform for the exchange of ideas and projects grounded in the spirit of collaboration”. Staying four to six weeks in specific locations, the mobile bookstore presents a curated selection of works thematically linked to its public programming. With the Miami Herald having already taken notice, Exile Books seems destined to continue to reimagine and influence the way people in Miami view local artist publications.

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