Carlos Betancourt, Let Them Eat Pink (Pop Up at Awarehouse), NE 29 St, March 10, 2012, No longer viewable

( Coutesy of Betancourt studios)LET THEM FEEL PINK! was commissioned by ABSOLUT® Vodka as part of its series of OUTrageous events that “celebrate 30 years of going out and coming out.” Coordinated by New York-based curator Claire Breukel, the invitation-only event unveiled Betancourt’s spectacular Schiaparelli-pink installation, a 25-foot table covered in hundreds of objects acquired from Betancourt’s travels throughout Florida — a pop-culture- melange of high heels, crowns, flamingos, garden statuary, souvenirs and kitsch — all coated in gallons of shocking pink resin for a delicious, sexy and wonderfully disturbing effect.

LET THEM FEEL PINK! was informed by the artist’s meticulous accumulation of seemingly nonsensical elements, artfully piled into a bizarre table to build a vibrant new cosmology of contemporary art and urban culture. In creating a loopy new strand of aesthetic DNA, Betancourt merges traditional American pop culture with a freshness and relevance that defies current classification through his use of flamboyant use of color and form, and a borderline-perverse inclusion of kitsch and vintage, melancholic references. LET THEM FEEL PINK! evokes Betancourt’s influential works, taking the conceptual art memes of appropriation and deconstruction to unexpected new levels. His artworks are influenced by a multitude of references, including Oscar Wilde, Auntie Mame, Celia Cruz, Jeff Koons, Neo Rauch, The Bauhaus, Morris Lapidus and trans-Caribbean influences. As Robert Farris Thompson (dean of the History of Art department at Yale University from 1978 to 2010) once said about Betancourt’s artwork “the more he mixes, the more you feel his mind.”

Luciana Abait, Light Box Installation, Four Seasons Hotel, 1435 Brickell Ave

Artist’s Statement
Underwater Series is the result of my fascination with Miami’s swimming pools, lifestyle and culture. I believe swimming pools are a main component of Miami’s identity.

Under the surface, my work explores themes of presence and absence through architectural landscapes found underwater in swimming pools. Walls, ladders, numbers and lines lose their sense of usefulness to attain a symbolic quality. Swimmers are presented as anonymous simple beings, insect like, moving across vast liquid masses. Light is essential, creating surreal and theatrical atmospheres.

Water is an element commonly connected with concepts of freedom and unrestraint. Swimming pools, by means of walls create boundaries and confinement. My intention is to create engulfing environments that enable the viewer to explore not only themes of presence and absence but also the relationship, tension and limits between inside-out, what they can see underwater and what’s above the surface, subject to their imagination.