NOTE FROM MARIO: While I think we may have jumped the gun by participating in a fair during our first year of operation, I looooved how this booth came out. Feria Clandestina is a smaller incubator fair that was very local-oriented, so it felt like one big reunion party.
After two breakout shows, it was important to me that we celebrated the things we achieved throughout 2024 with some sort of impact statement.
STATEMENT: Supermarket Gallery is a small, grassroots endeavor founded by Maria Gabriela Di Giammarco, Jahi Khalfani, and Mario Rodriguez. We opened this space to represent local Florida talent, engage with the Miami community, and hold ourselves to a standard of approachability, transparency, and honesty with anyone who interacts with us. We offer a platform to incubate rising stars while never turning our back on anyone unfamiliar with the art world, who may never have been to a gallery opening, or who has never seen their lives reflected in contemporary art.
For Room 212, we chose to exhibit a “Year In Review for Supermarket Gallery". As three young professionals who all have day jobs and are self-funding this project for the love of the process, we have treasured every second of opening our gallery and introducing our ethos to Miami. Our two exhibitions (Migración de Jarana and Abuela’s House)were extremely challenging, gratifying, and electric all at once. The two artists we have worked with have a legitimate conversation with one another in terms of their work. Joan is from South America and Desi is Puerto Rican and Bahamian, but born and raised in the US; despite their distinct backgrounds, they share their experiences of Afro-Latinidad and their commitment to immortalizing their family heritage. We would love to take the opportunity to collaborate with Feria Clandestina to celebrate what we have achieved in the infancy of this gallery’s life, as well as further push the work of two well deserving and committed artists from the local community.