One Is Two and Two Are Many More

Marking Oolite Arts’ 40th anniversary, “One Is Two and Two Are Many More” examines the institution’s role within Miami’s evolving cultural landscape. The exhibition traces the networks and artist-led initiatives that have intersected with Oolite over four decades, including the Alliance Film/Video Co-Op, Ground Level Gallery, Imperfect Utopia, the Listening Gallery, and CAVA.

Featuring works by Carlos Betancourt, william cordova, Dara Friedman, Regina José Galindo, Luis Gispert, GeoVanna Gonzalez, Jillian Mayer, Robert Melee, and Tag Purvis, and activations such as a film series curated by Barron Sherer, the presentation underscores how artmaking and collaboration have shaped the city’s creative fabric.

“Hold the Mic with a Grudge, 1998″
Luis Gispert
Wood, carpet, speakers, sensors, audio
Dimensions variable

In “Hold the Mic with a Grudge, 1998“ Luis Gispert channels the energy of late-1990s Miami underground culture. A wooden platform covered with carpet and embedded with speakers and sensors transforms audience presence into an instrument.

Emerging from the DIY environments that shaped Miami’s bass and speaker culture – its experimental art scene, garage bands, skate ramps, and makeshift clubs – Gispert’s work converts those collective forms of expression into a sculptural language. It anticipates a generation of artists who approached art as a social amplifier rather than a fixed object, linking the physical gesture to sonic and communal intensity.

Here, as throughout “One Is Two and Two Are Many More,“ the work reminds us that cultural production in Miami has often begun with the building of platforms, literal and metaphorical, where different scenes could collide and generate new vocabularies.