Sydney Rose Maubert | Smile for Me: The Flea
January 18 - February 15
mtn space gallery is pleased to present Smile for Me: The Flea, a solo exhibition by artist and architect Sydney Rose Maubert.
“The exhibition presents work that considers layered explorations of Southern flea markets, as a point of Black and Indigenous exchange. This work specifically reflects on the flea market as a site of cultural production, through the fashion and musical expression of Miami and Atlanta Bass culture. Flea markets are emblematic of Bass culture, a sub-genre of Southern hip hop and its attending visual culture, a material residue of Black and Indigenous intersectionality from the Saltwater Railroad. Debuting new paintings, metalwork sculptures, and site-specific installation — the works document movement between people, objects, and space witnessed in Miami and in recent travels to Decatur and Sapelo Island, Georgia.
One of the most vulnerable sites of erasure in Miami, in the wake of climate gentrification and the vulnerable American economy, is marketplaces. Miami’s flea markets provided a site of exchange for Black and brown communities, providing a unique material index, ranging from grillz, gold jewelry, airbrushed clothing or nails, and Brazilian jeans, to more basic amenities. The items found in the flea market allude to a broader cultural geography, including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cuba, Georgia and the Carolinas. Marketplaces make legible Miami’s Bahamian history and its unique ties to a larger cultural geography of Caribbean and Southern Black aesthetics. This work argues for the importance of flea markets as sites of cultural exchange and the maintenance of care, construction of self, and racialized gender in the built environment.
One of the unique phenomena that emerges in the flea market, specifically in Miami, is the spatialization of gender. Flea market booths were gendered spaces with programs such as nail salons, grillz, jewelry stands, and more. Through constructing a single 1:1 installation that explores media in the language of these lost flea markets, I explore gender construction and fungibility by creating sculptures and furniture that make clear the swift movement of gender, by dismantling gender through signification. I intend for this work to specifically honor Black femmes and queer folks who share heritage with flea market spaces or Black culture at large. This work is urgent and timely because of the lack of public discourse surrounding the historicity or ramifications of displacing Black and brown Indigenous people from the South. Situating our contemporary culture within the history of this land also contextualizes our practices as part of a unique liberating fugitive story, while also expanding our visual and architectural repository.”
Sydney Rose Maubert (b. 1996) is a Haitian-Cuban artist and architect based in Miami and Chicago. She holds degrees in architecture from Yale University and the University of Miami, with double minors in writing and art. She is the founder of Sydney R. Maubert LLC., her art and mural practice, which has been awarded by the Graham Foundation, Oolite Ellies Creator Award, NALAC Foundation, GreenSpace Initiative Grant, Miami-Dade Individual Artist Grant, Cornell Council for the Arts Award, Yale Moulton Andros Award, and University of Miami Alpha Rho Chi Award. Her work has been exhibited at TenBerke Architects, Augusta Savage Gallery, Artist in Residence in the Everglades, GreenSpace Miami in Miami ArtWeek 2023, and Cornell Hartell Gallery, and most notably in 21C Museum’s permanent collection. Currently, she is the Jeanne and John Rowe Fellow at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture. She was the Strauch Fellow at Cornell College of Architecture (2022- 2024). She sits on the board of the Center for Architecture’s Scholarship Committee (2023- ). She has assisted in teaching courses at Yale University, Morgan State University, City College of New York, and the University of Miami. Her work has been published in Log, Drawing Matter, and Yale Retrospecta. She was listed as a New Progressive in Architect Magazine.
About mtn space gallery — Founded in 2020 by Melissa Delprete, mtn space is a contemporary art space located within a carefully renovated 1951 art deco cornerstone of Lake Worth Beach. Melissa and Gallery Director Tina Caso are committed to exhibiting emerging and established artists who are deeply rooted in their practice and whose work is informed by the greater global arts community. For information, updates, and to stay current on events, please join our mailing list at mtnspace.com/gallery or follow us on Instagram: @mtnspacegallery