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The Frost Art Museumâs Target Wednesday After Hours Celebrates Four New Exhibitions

Mike Kelley, Upright and Inverted Form A/Upright Chaste Form (Unfolded and Debuttered) of the Land-O-Lakes Girl B/Inverted (Sexualized) Chaste Form (Unfolded) Illustrated with the image of the Spit-into Pumpkin Containing the name of the Lost Love (High Priestess), 1996 Acrylic on wood, Each panel: 55 x 44 inches

MIAMI, FL (October 8, 2012) -The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University presents four new exhibitions during the Target Wednesday After Hours reception, on October 17, 2012, from 6pm-9pm. The exhibitions are to beauty: A Tribute to Mike Kelley; Mark Messersmith: Fragile Nature; American Sculpture in the Tropics; and Material and Meaning: Earthenware, Stoneware and Porcelain from The Wolfsonian-FIU Collection. The reception is free of charge and open to the public.

to beauty: A Tribute to Mike Kelley highlights a sampling of the works by the late artist, who is often acknowledged as one of the most influential and significant artists of our time. Kelley created highly symbolic, representational and ritualistic works that vastly transcended the mediums of film, music, drawings, sculpture, collage and performance. His works frequently dealt with class, youthful rebellion and popular culture, and attacked the sanctity of cultural attitudes toward religion, history, education and family. This exhibition is curated by Klaudio Rodriguez and runs through February 24, 2013.

Mark Messersmith, The Night They Returned, 2011, Oil on canvas, carved wooden elements, mixed media predella, 84â x 67â, Courtesy of the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, FL

Mark Messersmith: Fragile Nature is the latest exhibition in the Frost Art Museumâs Florida Artist Series. Messersmith continues his exploration of the tension between this wild, living place and ever-increasing human expansion. Drawing on inspirations ranging from the Pre-Raphaelites, to Martin Johnson Heade and southern folk art, to medieval manuscripts, the paintings of Messersmith are dense, radiant and sculptural depictions of the flora and fauna of northern Florida, struggling to survive. The exhibition runs through December 9, 2012. The public is invited to come early, at 5pm, for a Meet the Artist session with Mark Messersmith.

John Henry, I Lean, 2012, Steel painted red, 312 x 204 x 120 inches, Courtesy of the Artist

American Sculpture in the Tropics: The Frost Art Museum and The Sculpture Park will welcome the addition of 10 monumental sculptures for an unprecedented outdoor exhibition for the fall-winter season in its American Sculpture in the Tropics. Made from a variety of materials including steel, aluminum, cast fiberglass, copper, concrete, wood, and rubber tires, each work represents the best of contemporary sculpture through its most recognized artists (John Henry, Verina Baxter, Chakaia Booker, John Clement, Isaac Duncan, Terry Karpowicz, Peter Lundberg, Albert Paley, Bret Price and F. Douglass Schatz) and the diversity of styles, themes and technical approaches that characterize our times. The exhibition runs through May 20, 2013.

Tiles, c. 1905 Ernst Teichert GmbH, Meissen, Germany Glazed earthenware 5 Â¾ x 5 Â¾ inches The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, Miami Beach, Florida, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection 85.7.318 Photo: Lynton Gardiner

Material and Meaning: Earthenware, Stoneware and Porcelain from The Wolfsonian-FIU Collection reveals the expressive and functional potentials of the three major types of clay. The exhibition shows how designers and artists have adapted the fixed material qualities of earthenware, stoneware and porcelain to achieve diverse outcomes. From elaborately ornamented Art Nouveau vases to utilitarian salt-glazed stoneware, and from whimsical figurines to propaganda porcelains, modern ceramics have played a role in intimate, domestic spaces, in architecture, and in the realms of politics and ideology. The exhibition, curated by Tori Arpad-Cotta, runs through January 13, 2013.

Support for the exhibitions listed above has been provided by R. Kirk Landon, Bernice Steinbaum and Helene Berger.

In addition to the openings for these four exhibitions, the Frost Art Museum will be showing the 2012 edition of films4peace, the annual video commissioned by PUMA.Peace in support of the United Nationsâ World Peace Day. The video is comprised of 17 short 35mm live action, experimental animation and fine art segments that will be projected continuously on the outside wall of the Museum from 6 pm to 9 pm.

About the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University
The Frost Art Museum opened its current 46,000-square-foot state of the art building in November 2008. Over 125,000 people have visited the Museum in its new building since its opening in November, 2008. Admission to the Museum is always free. The Frost is an American Association of Museums accredited museum and Smithsonian affiliate. It is located at 10975 SW 17th Street, across from the Blue garage and adjacent to the Wertheim Performing Arts Center on the Modesto A. Maidique Campus. Hours of operation are Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. â 5 p.m. and Sunday noon-5 p.m. Closed on Mondays and most legal holidays. The Frost Art Museum receives ongoing support from the Steven and Dorothea Green Endowment; the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Mayor and the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners; The Miami Herald; Target; and the Members & Friends of the Frost Art Museum. For more information, please visit http://thefrost.fiu.edu or call 305-348-2890. Follow the Frost Art Museum on Twitter and Like Us on Facebook.

About FIU
About FIU
Florida International University is one of the 25 largest universities in the nation, with nearly 50,000 students. About 110,000 FIU alumni live and work in South Florida. Its colleges and schools offer more than 180 bachelorâs, masterâs and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. As one of South Floridaâs anchor institutions, FIU is worlds ahead in its local and global engagement, finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission, with research expenditures of more than $100 million per year. For more information about FIU, visit FIU Online.

The Frost Art Museumâs Target Wednesday After Hours Celebrates Four New Exhibitions

The Frost Art Museumâs Target Wednesday After Hours Celebrates Four New Exhibitions