Miami Art Museum’s Jose Bedia restrospective surveys 30 years of a city icon

THE MIAMI HERALD
By John Coppola

Mama quiere menga, menga de su nkombo (Mama Wants Blood, Blood of His Bull), 1988

FLORIDA -- Cuban artist José Bedia’s stark silhouettes and totemic figures are Miami icons — Among the few places where his Afro-Cuban-inspired images have not been regularly seen are in the city’s public museums. That gap has now been filled with the opening of Transcultural Pilgrim: Three Decades of Work by José Bedia at the Miami Art Museum. Much of the MAM exhibition’s appeal does, in fact, come from its exploration of the sources of Bedia’s images in indigenous cultures and religions of the Caribbean, Mexico, South America and Africa. It includes not only Bedia’s paintings and drawings, but also examples of the ethnographic objects he collects and uses as references. [link]

Miami Art Museum: “Transcultural Pilgrim: Three Decades of Work by José Bedia’’ (Ends Sept. 2) 101 W. Flagler St., Miami, (305)375-3000, or miamiartmuseumv.org