Uploaded October 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Watch An Apex Melody/Predator Dyes/Vultures Eat The Body/Flys (2021) by Franky Cruz, the first video in the museum's fourth season of Digital Commissions.
An ode to the circularity of life, An Apex Melody/Predator Dyes/Vultures Eat The Body/Flys merges two time-lapse videos simultaneously depicting moments of death and rebirth. As vultures devour the remains of an alligator that has been decapitated by a combustion fueled guillotine and left on the side of the road, two monarch butterflies—raised in the artists’ Vivarium Meconium Lab—emerge out of a chrysalis, reborn from the death of their larval stage. Inspired by the ancient Tibetan sky burial practice, in which a human corpse is left on top of a mountain to be exposed to the elements or eaten by vultures, Cruz’s piece reflects on corporeal sovereignty and nature’s innate processes of transmutation.
Franky Cruz (b. 1984, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) received his BFA in Painting from the New World School of the Arts, Miami, in 2011. Solo exhibitions have been staged at Locust Projects and Spinello Projects in Miami, respectively. He has participated in group exhibitions such as Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly at MOCA North Miami, FREE! At Brickell City Centre (Miami) and Mere Fas;ade at Spinello Projects (Miami). He has received awards such South Florida Cultural Consortium, Ellies Creator grant, and The WaveMaker grant. He has also participated in numerous artist residencies such as Home Base Project (Berlin) and AIRIE: Artists in Residence in Everglades (Miami). Cruz currently lives and works in Miami.
Franky Cruz's ongoing project has led him to create a series of new painting methods collaborating with the natural life cycles of Monarch butterflies. The Vivarium Meconium Laboratory (VML), where the studio has grown into a butterfly-rearing and painting laboratory where Cruz adapts native species conservation techniques in diligently raising the creatures with both scientific methodologies and personal, deeply-vested care. The pollinator is raised from egg to larvae to chrysalis. Then it is suspended on a grid above a sheet of watercolor paper that will capture the colorful liquid secretions - remnants of their metamorphosis - in shades of umber, ochre, magenta, and green. The cycle achieves completion When the Butterflies are released into the Florida ecosystem. Cruz describes VML as a "butterfly painting machine with butterflies as its exhaust," Also, an important environmental indicator, a "canary in a coal mine" that alerts us as to the condition or dangers in the biosphere. VML is a call to action encouraging the general public to support regenerative and balanced ecosystems while exploring new ways of seeing in new methods of painting.
He has participated in group exhibitions such as Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly at MOCA North Miami, FREE! At Brickell City Centre (Miami) and Mere Fas;ade at Spinello Projects. He has received awards such South Florida Cultural Consortium, Ellies Creator grant, and The WaveMaker grant. He has also participated in numerous artist residencies such as HomeBase Project (Berlin) and AIRIE: Artists in Residence in Everglades (Miami).
Inaugurated in 2020, ICA Miami’s Digital Commissions series is made possible by the Knight Foundation and expands the museum’s commitment to fostering artistic experimentation and commissioning new works, as well as engaging audiences with innovative artistic voices. The projects have been organized by ICA Miami’s Director of the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center, Gean Moreno, and ICA Miami Curator Stephanie Seidel.
Stay connected: icamia.org/subscribe
Plan your visit: icamia.org/visit
Watch more on ICA Channel: icamia.org/channel
#icamiami #icadigitalcommissions #frankycruz
Watch An Apex Melody/Predator Dyes/Vultures Eat The Body/Flys (2021) by Franky Cruz, the first video in the museum's fourth season of Digital Commissions.
An ode to the circularity of life, An Apex Melody/Predator Dyes/Vultures Eat The Body/Flys merges two time-lapse videos simultaneously depicting moments of death and rebirth. As vultures devour the remains of an alligator that has been decapitated by a combustion fueled guillotine and left on the side of the road, two monarch butterflies—raised in the artists’ Vivarium Meconium Lab—emerge out of a chrysalis, reborn from the death of their larval stage. Inspired by the ancient Tibetan sky burial practice, in which a human corpse is left on top of a mountain to be exposed to the elements or eaten by vultures, Cruz’s piece reflects on corporeal sovereignty and nature’s innate processes of transmutation.
Franky Cruz (b. 1984, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) received his BFA in Painting from the New World School of the Arts, Miami, in 2011. Solo exhibitions have been staged at Locust Projects and Spinello Projects in Miami, respectively. He has participated in group exhibitions such as Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly at MOCA North Miami, FREE! At Brickell City Centre (Miami) and Mere Fas;ade at Spinello Projects (Miami). He has received awards such South Florida Cultural Consortium, Ellies Creator grant, and The WaveMaker grant. He has also participated in numerous artist residencies such as Home Base Project (Berlin) and AIRIE: Artists in Residence in Everglades (Miami). Cruz currently lives and works in Miami.
Franky Cruz's ongoing project has led him to create a series of new painting methods collaborating with the natural life cycles of Monarch butterflies. The Vivarium Meconium Laboratory (VML), where the studio has grown into a butterfly-rearing and painting laboratory where Cruz adapts native species conservation techniques in diligently raising the creatures with both scientific methodologies and personal, deeply-vested care. The pollinator is raised from egg to larvae to chrysalis. Then it is suspended on a grid above a sheet of watercolor paper that will capture the colorful liquid secretions - remnants of their metamorphosis - in shades of umber, ochre, magenta, and green. The cycle achieves completion When the Butterflies are released into the Florida ecosystem. Cruz describes VML as a "butterfly painting machine with butterflies as its exhaust," Also, an important environmental indicator, a "canary in a coal mine" that alerts us as to the condition or dangers in the biosphere. VML is a call to action encouraging the general public to support regenerative and balanced ecosystems while exploring new ways of seeing in new methods of painting.
He has participated in group exhibitions such as Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly at MOCA North Miami, FREE! At Brickell City Centre (Miami) and Mere Fas;ade at Spinello Projects. He has received awards such South Florida Cultural Consortium, Ellies Creator grant, and The WaveMaker grant. He has also participated in numerous artist residencies such as HomeBase Project (Berlin) and AIRIE: Artists in Residence in Everglades (Miami).
Inaugurated in 2020, ICA Miami’s Digital Commissions series is made possible by the Knight Foundation and expands the museum’s commitment to fostering artistic experimentation and commissioning new works, as well as engaging audiences with innovative artistic voices. The projects have been organized by ICA Miami’s Director of the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center, Gean Moreno, and ICA Miami Curator Stephanie Seidel.
Stay connected: icamia.org/subscribe
Plan your visit: icamia.org/visit
Watch more on ICA Channel: icamia.org/channel
#icamiami #icadigitalcommissions #frankycruz
