Maria Brito
Y
our first encounter with Maria Brito’s show at the Frost Art Museum could
This will be the first solo exhibit at the Frost
be confusing. You may even wonder
Art Museum for the FIU graduate, although her
why it’s there. If so, you’ll please Brito, a rebel
art has been in group shows at the previous
at heart who is unafraid of controversy.
museum space. The Frost also holds two Brito
A celebrated artist of “The Miami Generation,” the FIU alumna traces her
sculptures in its permanent collection. Brito’s art has been shown in every major
defiant spirit to the long-ago moment when
exhibition of Cuban-American artists and
she concealed gold jewelry in her clothes
in venues around the world: the Second
on a Pedro Pan flight from Havana to Miami.
Iberoamerican Biennial of Lima, Peru; the
Everyone knew doing this risked terrible
Olympic Sculpture Park in Seoul, South Korea;
consequences, but she couldn’t leave the
Cuba Twentieth Century: Modernism and
beloved bracelet behind knowing it was a
Syncretism at the Centre d’Art Santa Monica
serious financial effort for her parents to buy it
in Barcelona, Spain; and in The Decade Show:
for her 12th birthday. Decades later, Brito still
Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s in New
cherishes the bracelet.
York City at various venues including Studio
Her longstanding aversion to doing what’s
Museum in Harlem. Her art was part of the
predictable, as well as considerable talent, has
traveling exhibit, Arte Latino: Treasures from
led to “As of 24/03/07,” Brito’s mixed-media
the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
installation at the Frost that runs through April
Frost Art Museum director and chief curator
24. A small shrine—dedicated to a mysterious
Carol Damian has known Brito for more than
figure and recalling saints’ altars—is an
20 years. As a professor, Damian includes
ominous part of the work. The shrine recalls
Brito in her art history courses, especially
the conservative Cuban Catholic upbringing,
given her own interest in women artists. Brito
especially for girls, of the Cuban community
is “an artist of great complexity that can be
transplanted to Miami in the early 1960s.
inspirational to my students,” said Damian,
In her artwork, Brito endows simple,
“especially in South Florida with all her
familiar objects with disturbing symbolism.
references to growing up here as a child of
This installation evokes a modest scientific
exile.
laboratory where human forms are created in
26 | SPRING 2011
news reports about biological experimentation.
“María has long represented herself and
a clandestine manner. “It has to do with social,
her life experiences in multi-media works
ethical issues related to the manufacturing
that combine ceramics, painting, sculpture
of human life,” said Brito, who is intrigued by
and installation in constructions that embody