An Italian art collective and a Rome-based gallery are hoping to spread environmental consciousness this winter through a few dozen curious messengers landing on Miami Beach:
Snails: That is, 45 pink, gigantic, roaming gastropods made of recycled plastic.
ARTKABINETT social network of fine art collectors will see them all over town in celebration of the Art Basel Fair.
Starting this past Monday, the massive works of art -- in some cases eight feet tall and 11 feet long -- will begin appearing in public spaces, including Maurice Gibb Memorial Park, Lummus Park and the Venetian Causeway. Workers from a local company will slowly move some or all of the pieces over time until they all are gathered in Collins Park by mid-December.
Though the snails will be a whimsical pink hue, they are meant to carry a serious message about the way we live and treat the environment.
Run too much
"We run and we work too much, and the snail is one of the slowest animals on earth,'' said Gloria Porcella, co-owner of Galleria Ca' d'Oro, which is backing the project and is opening a Coral Gables gallery on San Lorenzo Avenue in December.
The concept is the snail wants us to think about ourselves and they want to teach us something. We run, run, run but what are we reaching? What are our goals? We are destroying our planet.''
Porcella said the timing of the project's arrival is meant to coincide with Art Basel and the opening of the Gables gallery.
The snails would be positioned in several spots on the Venetian Causeway, in Maurice Gibb Memorial Park at the east end of the causeway, at Alton Road and 20th St., on Dade Boulevard between Meridian and Michigan, in Lummus Park at 10th Street, on the Fifth Street median between Lenox and Jefferson, on Alton Road at 41st Street, and in Collins Park after the end of Art Basel.
The snails comes in two sizes: large (7 feet 7 inches tall, 5 feet 11 inches wide and 10 feet 6 inches long), and small (2 feet 8 inches high, 2 feet 2 inches wide and 3 feet 7 inches long).
In total, there will be 26 large and 20 small snails. To be accurate, the large ones are slightly bigger than a Smart Car, a tad smaller than a Mini Cooper.
The Venetian Causeway will host six large and five small snails. There will be three large and two small critters in Maurice Gibb Park.
Some snails will be lighted with solar up-lights ìfor optimum nighttime effect.î They will be anchored and filled with sand or water for stability, and treated with anti-graffitti coatings.
Already seen in countries such as France, the REgeneration Art Project's appearance in South Beach is due to a collaboration of Galleria Ca' d'Oro and the sustainability-minded Italian art collective Cracking Art Group, comprised of six artists who work with recycled plastic to create gargantuan creatures.
Renzo Nucara, (pictured here) the founder of Cracking Art Group, will be in town for the installation's Friday opening.
He wrote in an e-mail that each animal recreated by the group -- they have also made rabbits, meerkats and penguins, to name a few -- is done so because of a certain value the creature represents.
The snail was chosen because:
It carries its shelter on its back, evoking a sense of living and place.
The snail and shell are shaped in a spiral like an ear, urging people to listen.
The snail and shell are also shaped like the @ symbol seen in e-mail addresses -- Italians call the sign a snail -- and refers to digital communication.
Nucara said recycled plastic, taken from landfills, is key to the symbology of the group's art.
"We transform plastic into [works] of art [and] give them a cultural and economic value so that people consider the plastic for what it actually is: artistically appealing, technologically irreplaceable, and socially useful,'' Nucara wrote.
The environment
Porcella said the goal is to spur conversations about recycling and the environment, and mentioned the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher disaster several times.
"The whole world is aware of what happened in the Gulf of Mexico,'' she said. ``If we don't take care of our world our children won't grow up in the world we grew up in.''
The installation will be in town until Jan.3
courtesy, Miami Herald
For more information, visit www.pinksnails.com.
