Welcome to the Knight Arts Blog Round-Up, a biweekly look at what's happening in the South Florida Arts community. This week: Haiku, Friends With You, Artists Enter the Wild of Chilly Arts Climate,and The Miami Symphony Makes Move to Bigger Future.

Do You Haiku?

The Knight Foundation and the University of Wynwood are pleased to announce their inaugural haiku contest. Beginning today (Mon, Oct 25), we’ll be accepting entries from all members of the Miami community via KnightArts.org. Traditionally, haiku is a Japanese verse invoking the natural world, but we’re looking for a haiku that addresses a much more localized topic – the Miami-Dade County Commission’s review of public arts funding. Feel free to be as political and provocative as you like – no limits. Click here to apply & get additional details.

Friends With You News

 They’ve been called everything from cute to magical, accessible to subversive - even Miami’s answer to Takashi Murakami. Local duo Friends With You has been making art since 2002 and is still finding new ways to infiltrate the culture at large and reassess the ways in which audiences interact with art. Here are just some of the projects FWY have in store for fall: a brand new, super top secret interactive theme park in Los Angeles this week in honor of Hello Kitty’s 35th anniversary, new limited edition...continue reading.

Artists Enter the Wild of Chilly Arts Climate

The cold front did not arrive in time for the opening of “Into the Wild”, a wilderness-themed show at Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art last Friday night. The art crowd sweat among the campfire paintings and Enrique Gomez de Molina’s bizarre churkendoose sculpture (okay, it was more like a peacock-crab-squirrel, but anyway it was disturbing) and huddled in Carol’s air-conditioned-ish house, passing up the free wine to guzzle cups of ice water. Yet we all knew the cold was coming, and not just in terms of the weather. Rather than the latest trends — portraiture is back! video in performance is de riguer! — talk turned to the latest signs of the economic downturn in the arts continue reading...

Miami Symphony Makes Move to Bigger Future

 How does one go about rebranding a symphony orchestra? If you’re the Miami Symphony Orchestra, you get this message across: We want to be a world-class orchestra, and we’re taking big steps to get there. The group has hired its first director of development, has a new executive director, and has named the Venezuelan conductor Eduardo Marturet as its music director. And judging by what I heard Sunday evening at Gusman Hall, it really is an orchestra with promise, and perhaps there may be something to its dream of becoming a world-class band. continue reading...

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