Allora & Calzadilla unveil new commission at ICA Miami

Opening on 1 December to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach 2017, Allora & Calzadilla unveil a special commission for the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami's new building in the Miami Design District. Titled Unspecified Promise, the work consists of a Caterpillar tractor and a 15-foot-high, 55-ton boulder of American black granite. It is conceived as a monument to all the unfulfilled promises that nevertheless have impacted and entangled the lives of people in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Cuban and Puerto Rican diasporas in the United States (Miami, and Florida in general, most prominently).

Similar to previous pieces by Allora & Calzadilla, including their recent performance-based installation Black Out at Lisson Gallery London, Unspecified Promise combines sculpture with performance art. Audience members become performers as they move around the mirror-like granite, their shapes and perspectives changing in the reflection. The mirror, the artists say, gives the impression that the whole machine is there. “So many promises are illusions, and we’re trying to make that tangible,” Jennifer Allora said in a recent interview with the New York Times.

ICA Miami will inaugurate its new permanent building with 'The Everywhere Studio', a scholarly thematic exhibition exploring the importance of the artist's studio. Works by Art & Language, Rodney Graham, Giulio Paolini, Joyce Pensato and Laure Prouvost are included.

The new museum, a whitewashed, three-story-high building with floor-to-ceiling hurricane-proof windows overlooking a garden of sculptures, palms and native Florida trees and shrubs, was designed by Aranguren + Gallegos Architects in Madrid.

Visit ICA Miami's website for more information.