Put aside Miami’s devotion to epidermality. Ignore the swan migrations of its art fairs and a current, hyped art scene stenciled, in setting and content, from Manhattan templates. That Sargassopolis should have lifted precariously from a low-lying wetland beside a stormy sea will be seen as a high watermark in the history of urban vanity. But a litany of ironies should not obscure the stubborn work of sculptors who have been crafting a visual language that reflects what is, strangely, often ignored: that Miami is the first bi-hemispheric metropolis with a corresponding art scene. Miami is the siren that has learned the lured tongues of her fractured sailors, melding them into something potentially original. Four emblematic artists whose works manifest the cardinal points of the aesthetic consciousness that has been forming in South Florida since the early ’70s are Robert McKnight, Carolina Sardi, Robert Thiele, and Angel Vapor.
