Bars Exhibited: Purvis Young x Marcus Blake

Bars Exhibited [BEing]: A glimpse into an iconography of Purvis Young Miami, FL — The City of Miami Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum proudly presents BARS Exhibited [BEing] on exhibit through June 28th, a powerful curatorial experience illuminating the legacy of Purvis Young (1943–2010)—the visual griot of Overtown, whose voice resounds through color, texture, and truth. Featuring 15 original works by Young, with several of the works never before publicly displayed, the exhibition explores the recurring motif of jail bars and shackles in his art, symbolizing both physical confinement and spiritual endurance. These works, composed on found and upcycled materials, stand as visual testimonies to a life shaped by struggle, hope, and creative defiance. It is believed that following a brief period of incarceration, Young returned to his practice with renewed fervor; a love for art that was initially introduced to him through his uncle who was also a self-taught artist. His works in BARS Exhibited [BEing] are sourced from individuals who are deeply connected to the artist’s life and the community he never stopped portraying. In dynamic dialogue with Young is Marcus Blake, a Jamaican-born multimedia [medium] artist whose installation practice, TAPEnoLogy, offers a complementary meditation on presence, legacy, and liberation. Together, the works ask us to consider art not just as expression, but as awareness; a way of BEing in the world that honors truth and transformation.

Curated by Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant, the exhibition is informed by [re]search in spatial analytics and the geographies influences that gave rise to both artists’ practices. It threads together individual and collective responsibility to the art form that typically gets them classified as an outsider artist. Exhibition Contributors: Modern Artifacts Contemporary Masters Gallery | Silo Crespo Family Collection | Black Collectors Gallery | JET Art Service Sponsored and Supported by: Southeast Overtown/Park West Community Redevelopment Agency (SEOPW CRA)

Art of Black Miami