Pastiche
Solo exhibition at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
For its 2024 Contemporary Arts Program Exhibition, Vizcaya presents Pastiche, featuring site-specific work by Miami-based artist Lauren Shapiro. The exhibition explores the enduring legacy of Vizcaya’s artistic advisor, Paul Chalfin (1874 – 1959), whose 150th anniversary we celebrate this year. Interpreting Vizcaya’s architecture, history, and environment through this lens, Shapiro will debut a series of sculptures in response to three spaces decorated by Chalfin: the Breakfast Room, Enclosed Loggia, and Reception Room.
Pastiche will be on display from October 23, 2024, to May 19, 2025, inviting visitors to experience a blend of historical reverence and contemporary innovation.
Garden Lantern I + II, 2024 Each: Glazed stoneware and gold luster, blown glass, kiln-cast glass, plexiglass, LEDs, 20.5 x 10.5 x 9 inches
Shapiro’s approach to studying Chalfin parallels her methods of studying nature. Whereas she typically explores the Everglades and the ocean to gather her source material, for this project Shapiro turned to Chalfin’s contributions at Vizcaya, particularly the use of pastiche – the blending of styles and influences to create a cohesive whole – to inform her own work. The resulting ceramic, glass and technology-infused vessels, in decidedly artificial and yet quintessentially Miami neon pinks, blues and greens, create a visual language that evokes the past while resonating with the present.
Spectral Nature, 2024, Glazed stoneware and gold luster, blown glass, plexiglass, LED screen, 28.5 x 12 x 12 inches
Tea at Sunset, 2024, Glazed stoneware and gold luster, plexiglass, 15 x 10.5 x 8 inches
Text from Vizcaya Museum and Gardens’ catalog presenting Pastiche:
“Guided by her interest in public spaces, Shapiro selected three communal rooms at Vizcaya designed by Chalfin: the Enclosed Loggia and Reception Room on the first floor, and the Breakfast Room on the second floor. While each of these spaces has distinctive features, they all served similar functions one hundred years ago: they were intended for gathering and entertaining, whether for resting and communing with nature, hosting formal events or sharing informal meals. Shapiro’s sculptures directly engage with these settings, exploring their functions, idiosyncratic décor and architectural features.
As a trained ceramist—one of the oldest artistic traditions—Shapiro acknowledges the challenges of creating large, intricate and often gravity-defying decorative architectural elements in the 1910s. Under Chalfin’s creative direction, skilled craftspeople and artisans produced Vizcaya’s intricate decorative schemes using traditional, labor-intensive methods. Today, modern innovations such as photogrammetry and laser cutting allow for experimentation and greater time efficiency in Shapiro’s work. For instance, she employs advanced 3D printing technologies to create plastic molds, replacing the laborious, centuries-old lost-wax technique to cast glass. While her work engages with the past, her fabrication processes are firmly oriented toward the future.” Written by Helena Gomez, Curator
Click here for the press release.
Pastiche is commissioned by the Contemporary Arts Program (CAP) at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and supported by The Danielson Foundation, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, anonymous donors, the State of Florida Department of State Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, visit the website.