Xavier Cortada, “Necrologie la Repubblica,” 2020.
On March 17th, 2020, there were a record number of 475 coronavirus deaths in Italy. As of that date, the country had 41,035 coronavirus cases leading to a total of 3,405 deaths. A precursor to Cortada’s “Miami Pronouncement,” this performance has the artist recite names from an Italian obituary to acknowledge the loss and to warn about the deaths the pandemic would bring to Miami. About the Artist: Xavier Cortada is an artist and professor of practice at the University of Miami Department of Art and Art History. Over the past three decades, the Cuban-American artist has created art at the North and South poles and across 6 continents, including more than 75 public artworks and dozens of installations, collaborative murals and socially engaged projects. The crux of Cortada’s work finds itself rooted in a deep conceptual engagement of his participants. Particularly environmentally focused, the work Cortada develops is intended to generate awareness and action towards issues of global climate change.