Galerie Lelong & Co. looks forward to returning to the Miami Design District with a new seasonal exhibition space at Paradise Plaza from end of November 2021 through January 2022. On November 29th, the gallery will open with Common Borders, a rotating group exhibition featuring artists from its roster; a second exhibition will follow in January. Within the Plaza, Galerie Lelong will present its program alongside neighbors Goodman Gallery, South Africa and London, and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. All three galleries will collaborate on public programs and share the same opening hours.

Galerie Lelong has participated in Art Basel: Miami Beach since its inaugural edition in 2002 with its Vice President and Partner, Mary Sabbatino, serving on the board of its Selection Committee from 2013 to 2020. In addition to participating in the upcoming iteration of the art fair, the gallery is pleased to continue fostering a deeper conversation with Miami’s vibrant community by presenting Common Borders. This rotating group exhibition brings together historical and new works that expand upon the gallery’s longstanding commitment to artists from the Global South and art that examines aspects of our shared human consciousness. The artworks on view invite the audience to reflect on common borders between individuals: shared experiences, ancestry, language, cultural traditions and spiritual practices, that reimagine identities beyond defined physical borders. Encompassing a wide range of media including painting, work on paper, sculpture, and photography, the show will feature works by Etel Adnan, Petah Coyne, Leonardo Drew, Ficre Ghebreyesus, Alfredo Jaar, Samuel Levi Jones, Ana Mendieta, Hélio Oiticica, Jaume Plensa, Zilia Sánchez, Tariku Shiferaw, Nancy Spero, Michelle Stuart, Antoni Tápies, and Juan Uslé.

Common Borders builds upon the presence of the gallery’s artists in Miami, re-establishing their ties within the local community, while introducing and opening dialogues on artists who are lesser known in the region. Institutions such as the de la Cruz Collection, Lowe Art Museum, and Pérez Art Museum Miami will have works on view by gallery artists during the coming weeks.

In conjunction with Miami Art Week, Samuel Levi Jones will be giving the Distinguished Artist’s Lecture in-person at the Lowe Art Museum on December 4 and Alfredo Jaar will be giving an in-person lecture on December 5 for the Frost Art Museum’s 17th annual Breakfast in the Park. Most recently, for the Faena Festival 2020, Jaar’s work A Logo for America (1978/2018) was staged as a public intervention on the water and visible from the Miami beach shoreline. Within the Design District, the de la Cruz Collection presents an ongoing and extensive exhibition of works by Ana Mendieta—comprising sculpture, drawing, photographic and filmic documentation of her Siluetas and other interventions within the landscape. At the Pérez Art Museum Miami, a 39-foot public sculpture by Jaume Plensa, Looking Into My Dreams, Awilda has been permanently installed since 2017, becoming a local landmark in the community. A recent solo exhibition of works by Leonardo Drew, Cycles, From the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, was held at FIU’s Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum.

Artists who recently joined the gallery will also be introduced with works presented in Miami and to the general public for the first time. These include the Estate of Ficre Ghebreyesus, Tariku Shiferaw, and Juan Uslé. The selection of never-before-seen paintings by Ghebreyesus expands on the artist’s curated Kabinett presentation on view at Art Basel: Miami Beach (Booth F21).

Mary Sabbatino, Vice President and Partner shares, “Within the U.S., Miami has been and continues to grow as a diverse community, coalescing stories and traditions from around the world. The selection of works by the international and multi-generational artists in the program invites the Miami community to reflect and discuss themes of identity and borders that continue to speak to our social histories. Permeated throughout the city, we look forward to celebrating the artists with on-going presence in different institutions in Miami. We are delighted to be joining the discourse with our program and presenting alongside our Chelsea neighbor Mitchell-Innes & Nash and SOUTH-SOUTH founding collaborator Goodman Gallery.”