This iconic Little Havana theater is starting a program with a Cuban-American pop artist

The white walls inside Little Havana’s historic Miami Dade College’s Tower Theater have almost always been bare (and ignored) for years. Moviegoers would rather look at a screen than a wall, after all.

But a local artist’s new pop exhibition — complete with a bucking cowboy, a roaring pink tiger and pair of hula dancers ripped from comic book pages — have made the blank walls a much more colorful, attention-grabbing space.

“Kitsch Medley,” a selection of works by Miami-based Cuban-American artist Daniel Marin, launched the theater’s new initiative to exhibit the work of local artists. When the show opened Friday, it was the first time the theater used its second floor as a gallery space to feature artworks that aren’t film-related. The theater plans to host a new exhibition with a Miami-based artist every three months.

The new initiative is meant to expand the theater’s mission of uplifting both Miami-based filmmakers and artists, said Nick Calzada, the interim executive director for the Tower Theater and the Miami Film Festival. The team researched and invited Marin to be the first artist highlighted, which was fitting considering the theater’s connection with Miami’s Cuban community, Calzada said.

“We don’t want to just be like a chain movie theater that just plays something and has no connection with the audience or with the filmmakers or with the artists,” Calzada said. “We really want to be a community space where we’re offering something more.”

Marin said it was an honor to be the first of many to have an art show in the space. He recalled the last time he was at the theater as a Belen Jesuit high school student. That was before the theater was renovated, and the space was much more “antique-y,” he said, laughing.

“Kitsch Medley” consists of recent artworks from the last three years, when Marin moved his family from Seattle back to his hometown of Miami. In many ways, this show is a homecoming, too.

“I love any opportunity I get to connect with the art community in Miami and with anybody who’s a patron or a fan. I always love exhibiting just because I love the dynamic,” Marin said. “But doing it in a place like this actually, it’s really meaningful.”

To get to the exhibition, visitors have to pass the tempting popcorn at the concession stand and go upstairs to the second floor.

The first piece that greets visitors as they ascend the staircase is hard to miss: a large Native American feather headdress on a bright yellow canvas. The word “ORIGINAL” is emblazoned under the war bonnet.

Marin takes imagery from antique comic books from the ‘40s and ‘50s and re-contextualizes it for his artwork. He said he was drawn to the old comic books’ artistic style, but the more he read the stories, the more he uncovered the material’s problematic undertones.

“It seems like innocent stories, but if you really put it in the context of this country and where we were as a society back then, you could see a lot of things that were instilled in young minds that unfortunately came on to become negative things in our society,” he said. “What I try to do is look for images that may have either been overlooked or misused, pull them out of that and try to give them a new narrative.”

He found the Native American war bonnet in a children’s toy advertisement. The resulting artwork, called “Original,” prompts the viewer to question what it means to be a local, a native or an outsider, Marin said. It also serves as an homage to the original residents of the United States, Native Americans.

Compared to the more complicated pieces in the show, “Original” uses negative space to its advantage. It’s the simplest — and probably most striking — work on display.

Just next to it is “You Wish,” a diptych of a vintage hula dancer drawing that has been covered and uncovered with layers of text and spray-painted flowers. It’s one of several pieces in the show that reflect on Marin’s return to Miami last year.

Marin and his family lived in Seattle for five years, including in 2020 when the city shut down because of the pandemic. Though the pandemic gave Marin more time to focus on art, it was also “a wake-up call” to return to his roots in Miami.

“It’s meant to be a tattered postcard from a far off place,” he said of the piece. “It’s representative of wanderlust that’s unrealized.”

“You Wish” is a good example of the labor-intensive process Marin uses to create his most of his works. It’s a series of layers and techniques: base coating, silkscreening, stenciling by hand and collaging. The end result mimics a décollage style, similar to partially torn-off posters in alleyways. “You Wish” took about 50 hours to complete, he estimated.

Like his pop art predecessors, Marin’s pieces reference recognizable and iconic imagery, though he takes a self-aware, “kitschy” approach to the divisive genre. Marin, a self-taught artist who said he hasn’t taken an art class since middle school, defined kitsch as a word to describe something “so poppy that it’s off-putting.” It’s meant to be widely appealing yet criticized as low brow. You either love it or you hate it, he said.

Marin’s work challenges what it means to be kitsch. Not only does each artwork tell a story, but each is one of a kind. No mass production here.

“I don’t do mass appeal,” Marin said. “When it’s one person that tells me they like it, I can go to sleep happy.”

Every artwork in the show is loud, colorful and bombastic. But a smaller, more understated piece is one of the most interesting.

The work depicts a humble rowboat on a beach underneath a palm tree. An orange sun sets behind it. Large red letters in the sand say “ISLAND TIME.”

While living in Seattle, the lack of Latino representation was glaringly obvious. The biggest culture shock Marin and his wife, who is Venezuelan, struggled to get used to was punctuality, he said. His West Coast friends learned that Marin always showed up late, proving the Miami stereotype to be painfully accurate.

It wasn’t until moving back that they realized that Miami’s “island time” is part of the city’s charm, culture and vibe, Marin said. The artwork communicates just that.

Marin made “Island Time” specifically for the Tower Theater exhibition and donated it to be auctioned. The proceeds will go back to the theater.

“It’s a love song to Miami,” he said.

If you go

What: “Kitsch Medley” by Daniel Marin

Where: Tower Theater. 1508 SW Eighth St, Little Havana

Info: news.mdc.edu

Dates and cost: Free and open to the public. On view until Oct. 12, 2022.

This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.