Sites of Assembly

Films, photographs and works on paper examine the places where people gather, connect and shape public life. Sites of Assembly is on view Saturday, June 6, through Sunday, August 2, at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU. Drawing from the museum’s permanent collection alongside additional works, the exhibition considers how shared spaces help form relationships, routines and collective identities.

The exhibition looks at gathering places ranging from homes and nightclubs to workplaces, streets and neighborhood spaces. Some works focus on leisure and celebration, while others reflect the rhythms of labor, movement and daily ritual. Together, they suggest that public life is built through repeated acts of presence, exchange and community rather than through a single fixed idea of civic space.

Featured artists include Rafael Domenech, Kevin Jerome Everson, GeoVanna Gonzalez, Quisqueya Henriquez, Sky Hopinka, Ryan Kuo, Gary Monroe, Ruth Orkin, Terence Price II and Purvis Young, among others. Through film, photography and works on paper, Sites of Assembly reflects on how gathering places can hold memory, change over time and continue to shape how people understand themselves in relation to others.

Image: Quisqueya Henríquez, Untitled (Baseball Players), 2007. Newsprint on archival paper, 37 x 48 inches. Gift of Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz, FIU2018.4.5. © Quisqueya Henriquez Estate. Courtesy David Castillo