ASSUME VIVID ASTRO FOCUS

The São Paulo–based multidisciplinary art collective fuses drawing, sculpture, video and performance into large-scale installations and happenings where gender, politics and cultural codes freely interact. Inhabiting the social forms of discos and dance parties, avaf invites museum visitors to engage with the exhibition environment, creating lived experiences that contribute to the continually evolving social dynamics inherent in their work. The collective reimagines artistic conventions and challenges the mythology of the singular artist, co-creating their projects alongside viewers and collaborators while fluidly traversing diverse themes and media.

Originally installed at the home of Miami-based collectors Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, and premiering during the 2004 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, XI embodied a communal sense of excitement in the local arts scene and signaled Miami as a new global contemporary art destination. Fast-forward two decades and assume vivid astro focus: XI marks the twenty-year anniversary of that watershed moment and this groundbreaking work. Miami continues to leave its mark on XI in this new iteration at The Bass. Central to the reinstallation of XI is a newly commissioned mural by avaf that pays tribute to local drag performers—Adora, Akasha O’Hara Lords, Daisy Dead Petals, Ebonee Excell, Fantasia Royale Gaga, Kitty Meow, Tiffany Fantasia, and TP Lords. The mural celebrates their vital community-building role in Miami, embodying the spirit of inclusivity at the heart of avaf’s practice.

Anchoring XI is the video program Butch Queen Realness with a Twist in Pastel Colors, a nearly seven-hour compilation of 93 short videos spanning a range of genres and creators—artists, pop-culture figures, and anonymous contributors—all of whom have influenced the collective’s practice. Curated by avaf in 2004, the selection ranges from historical work by such figures as László Moholy-Nagy and Paul Sharits, to more recent work by Mike Bell-Smith, Miguel Calderón, Dearraindrop, Black Leotard Front, and Kembra Pfahler. Interspersed are music videos by Blondie, Grace Jones, and La Tigre, footage from Soul Train in the 1970s, underground performances at New York’s Pyramid Club in the 1990s, and Harlem vogue balls in the early 2000s. Queerness—less an overt reference to sexuality than a strategy to destabilize the status quo—is a prominent, pulsing thread running through the videos, intertwined with explorations of underground subcultures, art collectives active during the era, and experimental uses of moving-image technologies.

avaf’s installations showcase the flexible, open-ended and collaborative ethos that drives their practice, blurring lines between exhibition, performance and immersive experience. The generosity and openness of their approach to art-making welcomes a multitude of figures and ideas into the fold, possessing extraordinary relevance, even urgency, today as the social and political climate exhibit increasing hostility toward difference.

The exhibition celebrates the de la Cruzes’ 2024 gift of XI to The Bass, reconfigured in the museum’s Gallery 5.

__assume vivid astro focus: XI is organized by Claudia Mattos, Associate Curator of New Media Art.