Marta Minujín is a leading artist from Argentina whose groundbreaking happenings and performance and media art was in the forefront of the 1960s and 1970s avant-garde movements. She is known for famously incinerating her own works in Paris as part of The Destruction (1963). Afterwards, she turned to immersive environments including works like The Long Shot (1964) and Mayhem (1965). With Simultaneity in Simultaneity (1966) she became a forerunner in mass media art. In 1983, her Parthenon of Books – a towering monument to censored literature and a critical testament to freedom of education – celebrated Argentina’s return to democracy. Minujín’s practice continues to explore what she understands as the potential of art to “intensify experience.”

Dreamscape in the Design District’s Jungle Plaza featured two of Minujín’s monumental inflatable sculptures. Sculpture of Desires was a towering monumental soft sculpture composed of intertwined arms, forming a luminous blow-up portal. Emotional Candy constructed of leaning inflated structures created passageways inviting visitors to wander through.

The fluorescent patterns of both sculptures recall Minujín’s pioneering mattress sculptures from the mid-1960s; their playful, multicolored installations were meant to be entered and explored. And this is just what Minujín and a troop of white clad dancers did to inaugurate the display!

In both sculptures, ambient birdsong recordings encouraged visitors to whisper their wishes into the vibrant, undulating forms. Well, that’s what the press said, if you read it!

Overlooking Minujín’s oversized inflatables is Interdimensional Portal, a monumental mural by the Brazilian artist Criola. A group of Afro-Brazilian women in bright bold colors and vibrant geometry, engaged in rituals of healing and protection has overlooked happenings in Jungle Plaza since 2022.

*Spring Break Miami Beach. The past few weeks the much-hyped Miami Beach Spring Break is a time when hundreds of university students descend upon our famous beaches and nightlife venues has been the concern of Miami Beach officials. Students take a brief break to shake off the tensions of the winter semester, often seeking reprieve in warm-weather locations. Spring break is associated with riotous partying. For the past few years, our city leaders have tried to break the vacationing and encourage raucous groups of young people and send them to other locations. During this period crossing over the causeways to and from Miami often include long, uncomfortable waits in extraordinary traffic.