Ruben Millares
Yes/No, 2021 - various corners in Downtown Coral Gables
Project Description
At this historic era where our country has erupted protesting racial injustice, the image of the barricade has become ubiquitous on our streets. Previously an innocuous symbol demarcating “no access,” barricades were mainly associated with providing safety and crowd control at celebratory events like parades or creating a queue for sporting and music events. In the current political environment in the U.S. where the right to a peaceful protest is being threatened, a metal barrier conjures anxiety and is used as architecture to separate and control bodies in public space.
Using barricades as a symbol of our global climate of resistance, artists Antonia Wright and Ruben Millares offer their new work, a site-specific sculptural light installation entitled Sí, No. By lighting the barricades being used by the Illuminate exhibition throughout Coral Gables, the artists aim to highlight the ubiquitous nature of these objects and their ambiguous intent to protect and control. By transforming a utilitarian object into a light work, the glowing objects will create a line throughout the streets of the city, highlighting the divide and connection between our bodies.
Ruben Millares was born in Miami, Florida in 1980. As a visual artist he is medium agnostic as he attempts to define balance as a concept. Through the use of sculpture, drawing, performance, installation, print‐making, painting, music and video he is able to capture the essence of an idea without limitation. For Millares time, more than an inspiration, is a powerful raw material. As an artist with a formal educational training as a Certified Public Accountant and Financial Planner, as well as in art and music, Millares is in a constant search for the fusion between practicality and imagination. Informed by two opposite worlds, his work gives an impression of great poetry with a serious yet playful airiness.
Recent and upcoming exhibitions include solo shows at Untitled Art Fair/Art Basel, Pan American Art Projects, Volta NY, National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Art & Culture Center of Hollywood, The Central Bank of the Bahamas and Spinello Projects. Group shows include Pan American Art Projects, Ping Pong Art Basel Switzerland, The Tampa Museum of Art, Spinello Projects, Philadelphia City Hall, White Box Gallery, Hillside House Gallery Nassau, Fountain Art Fair New York, The Invisible Dog Art Space Brooklyn and Crane Art Space Philadelphia. Millares’ video/performance piece with collaborator Antonia Wright, Job Creation in a Bad Economy, was featured in the 2011‐2012 exhibition at the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. His work is included in the permanent collections of Martin Z. Margulies at the Warehouse, Dennis and Debra Scholl Collection, Hadley Martin Fisher Collection, The Bass Museum of Art and the Robert Borlenghi Collection.
Millares has been presented in articles in the Miami Herald, Miami New Times, St. Petersburg Times and El Nuevo Herald among others and featured in the ArtNewspaper’s Basel edition on Miami artists. He has also participated in prestigious artist residencies including Pioneer Works, Red Hook, NY and Elsewhere, Greensboro, NC.