An object is a material, solid, inanimate thing. An object is something not alive with a stable, fixed form. An object is a physical, lifeless thing perceived by the senses: visible and touchable. An object is commonly a device or article for use. Each of these sentences expresses one side of the general, classificatory definition of the word object, and they were explored by Modern photography and art. But an object always exists in a relationship between human beings, not only as a matter and form manifestation.

ArtMedia Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition Something (to tell you) about objects, which brings together works by Claudia Ammirata, Roberto Gómez, José Antonio Navarrete, and Mari Carmen Orizondo. Objects can be the base of a thesis project like those of Navarrete and Gómez: both employ objects to formulate reflections on social practices. But objects can also be part of a narrative: Ammirata's and Orizondo's proposals rely on them as the bearer of their histories.

In his series What images can do (2012-2014), José Antonio Navarrete displays items for personal use in different geographical locations to intervene and modify spaces both physically and emotionally. Photographs are the records of these interventions, but the author is interested in how images relate to each other and detonate readings unforeseen in the concept behind and the process of making them. Likewise, in Stray dog, 2012, Roberto Gómez reunites photographs taken worldwide between 2006 and 2012 into diptychs to explore how low-income sectors of the global population develop a cultural transformation of objects. Gómez crosses his art practice with sociology and urban-anthropology disciplines.

Mari Carmen Orizondo, in her synoptic version of Traverse (2018-2019), originally a large installation, proposes a metaphorical account based on a real story of clandestine maritime emigration. She joins photographs of objects she inherited from a woman survivor with details of the sea, creating an episode where personal drama and history converge. On her part, Claudia Ammirata presents several photos of her documentary series Fix Me (2017-2019), which is affiliated with new trends in documentary photography aimed to disregard the traditional ways to work with the referents of reality. Objects have an essential role in her allusive, poignant, and simultaneously hoping approach to past critical life events of one of her sons.

As you can see, everything here is about objects but conceiving them like life containers.

About the artists

José Antonio Navarrete, a Cuban-born curator, is interested in exploring the limits between curatorial and art practices. | Born in San José, Costa Rica, Roberto Gómez is a painter and sometimes photographer that lives and works in Miami. | Claudia Ammirata (Venezuelan, based in Miami) has developed a career as an art photographer in Miami. |  Mari Carmen Orizondo, a Cuban-born and Dominican Republic-based photographer, won the Photography Prize at the 29 Bienal de Artes Visuales, Dominican Republic, 2021.

About the curator

José Antonio Navarrete lives and works in Miami, FL. He is a critic, researcher, and independent curator of art and visual culture.

About the gallery

Artmedia Gallery was founded in 2012. With a location in Little River, Miami, Florida, the gallery has the mission to exhibit and promote contemporary art based on photography and video practices. One of the gallery’s central objectives is to explore the vast possibilities of the expanded notion of art through media technology.