borderline
Harumi Abe, Gabriela Ayza Aschmann, Tony Chirinos, Filio Galvez, Liang Lansi, Leah Mendez, Alejandra Moros, Gustavo Oviedo, Johnny Robles, Victor Urroz, Ana Vergara
November 20–December 15, 2024
A collaboration between Miami Art Society, Queue Gallery, and Supermarket Gallery at the Goodtime Hotel
Sometimes, it really is about trusting the whole “trust the process” process.
Scouting spaces as a nomadic gallery is a flexible endeavor—just because you’ve found a potential space for a potential exhibition, they may not align with everyone’s needs perfectly. Such is the case with Eso No Se Toca at La Sala at Hoy Como Ayer. Carrying exhibitions in my back pocket is a given, but I never know how long it’ll take to manifest them, and I also don’t ever know if they’ll come to pass.
The interesting thing about Eso No Se Toca is how fluidly it came together. Group exhibitions aren’t always easy, but a summer show is best known for ease, play, and connection-making. We’re lucky to have a diverse ceramics scene in the magic city, which was ultimately the reason we were able to pull off what is Supermarket’s best show yet.
borderline borrows its title from the 1983 Madonna single, a biting plea for normalcy from a hot and cold lover that’s evolved into a nostalgic dance classic. In this exhibition, “borderline” refers to the nature of the artists’ work, and participating galleries’ approaches to tastemaking in an evolving culture that now exists somewhere between tangible and digital. The works chosen for this exhibition toy with expected uses of familiar media—at the thresholds of reimagined, rebellious, and provocative.
In Mary Lambert’s 1984 music video for Borderline, Madonna sings, “Come on baby, set me free. You just keep on pushin’ my love over the borderline,” as she leans longingly against a streetlight. This scene takes place outside a baby-pink bar with faded signs reading “Cold Beer” and “Pool Room,” where we find her lover playing pool.
The scene captures a familiar sense of desire and frustration while visually mirroring the aesthetic of the goodtime hotel’s library, home of this collaborative exhibition. Surrounded by pink velvet couches and decorative palms, one can only imagine sitting with the same ambiguous angst and anticipation, cocktail in hand, waiting for a supposed lover—a feeling we have all known.
Whether through reappropriated eBay photographs, photo-ethnographies of cockfights and criminalized dog breeds, or palm trees rendered in various shades of pink and rose, the works unfold like surreal odysseys and uncanny visual diaries. Baked clay resembles the softness of a body at rest, aerosol meditation guides linger like faint prayers in the air, and painted horizon lines recall the push “over the borderline.” Within both the exhibition and the very room it inhabits, there is a feeling that recalls Madonna’s glorious longing—a shared longing for our city of romanticized sunsets and toxic lovers.
Statement written by Catherine Mary Camargo (Queue Gallery), Maria Gabriela Di Giammarco and Mario Andres Rodriguez (Supermarket Gallery)
Flyer by Catherine Mary Camargo (Queue Gallery)
