Can Miami Art Exchange Imagine?

by Onajídé Shabaka

Having taken position of editor of Miami Art Exchange some years ago (2002), I imagined this journal large enough to accommodate the ideas and images of all those who participate in the making of contemporary art. Students of art history are often warned about the writings and statements of artists. The creators of art, students are often told, make the worst critics — the least responsible judges of their contemporaries, the most subjective interpreters of their time. Yet I believe that reflections of artists on their own work, or that of others, enhance our understanding. Not everyone who has contributed to this site has been an artist, nor art historian. There have been a number of people that just plain love art and want to share and talk about it in their own words.

I want to continue to offer those various people, and you, the opportunity to continue to write, submit and, create projects for Miami Art Exchange. I want to let artists’ words flow in and out of the pages. I want to leave each person free to choose his/her own topic, and to use her/his own preferred approach: sociological, political, historical, poetic, personal. The work may be written, visual, or both.

Of the qualities valued, it is possible to enumerate a few: a spirit of experimentation that values questions more than answers; a willingness to risk a nonformulaic language; and the courage to convey urgent, even disturbing messages. In the world of which we artists live, many languages are spoken. We must listen to the proliferation of exciting, even contradictory signals all around us. Imagination and reality can meet as we break thru boundaries to enter new territories. It is at these crossroads, these checkpoints, that the ultimate is still conceivable.

Now, if I go back to my original statement that I imagine this journal large enough to accommodate the ideas and images of all those who participate in the making of contemporary art, one can gain a better perception about the nature of this publication, this philosophy has remained consistent since my tenure beginning in February, 2002. It remains so.

Please feel free to make further contact regarding publication of your work.