Public Art Wednesday 12.17: BEST MURAL OF 2014

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HIS ARTICLE WAS ADOPTED FROM: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/bestof/2014/award/best-mural-4129151/

Wynwood may be the heart of a growing global graffiti movement, but some of its murals are surprisingly soulless. Whether they depict a cool-ass dragon perched atop a mountain peak or cartoon characters committing acts of violence, many are brilliantly drawn but little more, like flashy wallpaper for warehouses. Few of the works strive to stir something inside passersby. On the southwest corner of NW Third Avenue and 27th Street, towering gold letters spell “I remember paradise” against a rainbow background. The mural, by Londoner Lakwena Maciver, is meant to invoke human longing for a lost era. “We all have this sense that there is something wrong with the world but that once there was something perfect,” Maciver told New Times. It’s a beautiful painting, and one that has formed the backdrop for Beyoncé Instagrams and glossy magazine spreads. But it’s actually the mural cater-cornered that makes us nostalgic. There, a heavily tattooed man holds a gorgeous woman in a tender embrace. A shuttered doorway is transformed into a birdcage. The mural, by Peruvian duo Entes y Pésimo (Beings & Dreadful), perfectly captures modern-day Miami: young, Hispanic, interracial, part tattooed thug, part tender romantic. The man’s face is pensive, his stance protective. The woman, unashamedly in love, stares straight out at you. How wonderfully disarming to walk through Wynwood on a weekend night, past posturing dudes and pretending chicks, and stumble upon such intimacy.

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