Coming Soon Everything Must Go
A public Installation by Shane Darwent at the Good To Know Mall at 48 East Flagler.
Coming Soon Everything Must Go was fist commissioned by Good To Know.FYI for the 2019 Art Basel Miami exhibition, WE BUY GOLD.
In January 2020, GTK re-installed the installation to be displayed as a permanent artwork for the good people of Downtown Miami at the Good To Know Mall, where WE BUY GOLD took place.
48 East Flagler, Miami, FL 33130
Hours: Mon- Sat, 8:00 am - 7:00 pm.
ABOUT : Coming Soon Everything Must Go illuminates the ever shifting nature of commercial spaces and the aesthetic byproducts that result. The work is made up of 15, backlit, stretched vinyl panels that run for 38’ along East Flagler Street, serving as a meta-marquee for the mall and it’s businesses. The panoramic run of the installation displays a graphically disjointed message. The various panels seem to have once comprised a more coherent series of designs but now find themselves flipped on end or shuffled out of order, resulting in a marquee that does not help to sell anything in particular but allows us to consider the efforts of commercial enterprise more broadly.
The processes employed in Coming Soon Everything Must Go are directly tied to the commercial landscape it explores. The work approaches storefront awning vinyl - specifically the product Cooley Brite - as a painter or printmaker would build up an image. Parts of the colored vinyl are removed using solvents while other shapes are created through the use of applied vinyl overlays. In each instance the materials allow light to pass through, creating stained glass effects from the material language of the working class.
Both the means of production and the visual sensibility of the work put it in conversation with its surroundings in downtown Miami. Flagler Street itself is lined with numerous businesses which rely on storefront awnings to sell their services and distinguish their offerings from their neighbors. Inevitably, some of these businesses succeed while others fail to hold on. New businesses move into those familiar spaces and customize their awnings and facades to write the next chapter of stories. Our downtowns are built on this collage - a mashup of sensibilities and visions from successive waves of entrepreneurs. Coming Soon Everything Must Go hovers as a testament to the tenacity of these efforts and the wonderful compositions that accumulate along the way.
MORE ON SHANE DARWENT: HERE
Artwork is for sale. For inquiries: info@goodtoknow.fyi
Exterior Install for We Buy Gold, 2019
