EXILE + KYU
In the fervent sun of Miami, Daniel Feinberg writes about ice. Not exclusively, per se: each poem in his collection To Life, also stars Maxine—her name frosts every title. They fuse together and thaw apart; they meet “outside the Hermés store in the Design District where I first saw you sipping a Campari soda, ice cubes the size and shape of a baby tiger’s heart.” His anticipation of the “intimate clink and fizz and swirl” in a glass melt in “endless endings” through “chilled consensual cessation.” Even the book’s title, comma intended, was inspired by a botched engraving on a hotel ice bucket. This is a writer who drips words mellifluously before freezing them in cold conclusions—for him, love, like ice, is never neat.
To Life, offset print with white ink on black paper, is shelved beside neon neighbors at EXILE Books, an artists’ book shop and project space. Once a roaming pop-up cart, EXILE settled in Little Haiti and built a cultural hub where you can find under-the-radar talents like Feinberg.
“We work in an ambiguous cross-section between artists, the community, and self-publishing,” says artist Phillip Lique, a designer and administrator for the project. He notes varied collaborations, from presenting the annual Miami Zine Fair to producing a children’s coloring book with the Center for Subtropical Affairs. EXILE is a unifying experiment that, in Lique’s words, helps makers “realize the complexity of different creative mediums.”
Bridging I-195 is Wynwood, another inland district with a longer history of attracting creatives—and scene-seeking tourists. The first gallery opened here in 2000. Today there are over 70 art spaces, including Wynwood Walls with its maze of murals. Next to an auto body shop on NW 25th St is KYU (pronounced “Q”), a cube of cement and wood smoke. For a restaurant specializing in Japanese BBQ methods, our favorite plate was a plant: a gold brown crown of roasted cauliflower resting on shishito vinaigrette and chèvre cream that silkily coats the crunch. Exquisite small dishes come and go at the table like revolving exhibitions. As the poet writes, “the point is to be a cool as possible before you disappear.”
8/15/2019