![\"watercolor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776259508_793_Harmony-Korine-Shirleys-Temple-2016.-Watercolor-on-linen.-Craig-Robins-Collection.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHarmony Korine, Shirley’s Temple, 2016. Watercolor on linen.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHarmony Korine, Shirley’s Temple, 2016. Watercolor on linen.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Craig Robins Collection<\/p>\n
If Miami didn\u2019t exist, Harmony Korine<\/a> might have had to script it into existence.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Magic City, both surreal and really real, is a cultural m\u00e9lange in which the writer of the 1995 indie cult classic Kids and writer\/director of such exuberant, wild, transgressive fare as Gummo (1997), Spring Breakers (2012), and The Beach Bum<\/a> (2019) thrives. So much so, in fact, that Korine relocated here<\/a> around fifteen years ago. And as if to showcase how the city has slowly evolved into his creative canvas, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Miami is hosting the first United States museum survey of Korine\u2019s lesser-known yet beguiling multidisciplinary work, \u201cfrom early drawings and collage to later paintings, photography, and recent digital experiments\u201d \u2014 entitled, appropriately, Harmony Korine: Perfect Nonsense. The exhibition is on view through October 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHarmony is, in his own unique way, a very astute observer of society, and a lot of his work has been preoccupied with the idea of an outsider,\u201d ICA artistic director\u00a0and Perfect Nonsense co-curator Alex Gartenfeld\u00a0tells New Times. \u201cI would say one of the throughlines in this exhibition is the idea of people who are nonconformist, who don\u2019t exactly fit into society. And I think that one of his fascinations with Miami is the ways in which this city not only embraces the outsider but also brings together such diverse populations in close dialogue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For the vast majority of those who primarily know Korine as one of the most influential and consequential indie filmmakers of the last quarter century, Perfect Nonsense will undoubtedly prove a revelation. However, simply because the way Korine has melded and traversed artistic disciplines is understudied or, to some degree, unheralded, does not mean it is some bolt-from-the-blue shocking mid-career left turn.<\/p>\n \u201c[Harmony\u2019s work] moves between multiple media, and it has actually done that from the beginning,\u201d says Gean Moreno, director of the ICA\u2019s Art + Research Center and co-curator of the exhibit. \u201cSo, while the painting practice has come to the fore recently, the quest to make new images has been there all along. I think it will be quite interesting for viewers to trace that arc across three decades.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Here is one example of this progression, as described in a press statement to give readers a bit of flavor: \u201cSome of Korine\u2019s earliest works feature childlike figures and writings, and often explore the coming-of-age genre and its complex unfoldings. These childlike and coming-of-age themes have evolved into a ghostly form he calls \u2018Twitchy,\u2019 found in paintings that are produced by combining images captured on an iPhone with painterly techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n The flip side of this fluidity and interconnectedness is that Perfect Nonsense does not ignore or distance itself from Korine\u2019s films. Quite the contrary: It nurtures a deeper, edifying experience of his popular work. \u201cI think many people will be surprised at the extent to which Harmony\u2019s collages and notes sometimes help form the structure of his films,\u201d Gartenfeld says. \u201cAnd vice versa: There are frames from some of his iconic films that became the starting point for artwork as well.\u201d The exhibit, then, strives to mirror this, moving through different periods in Korine\u2019s life, biography, and production, spotlighting symbiosis rather than siloing.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll see the development of the seamlessness with which Harmony works across medium from some of his earliest works, which are closely related to some of his earliest films,\u201d Gartenfeld says,\u00a0 \u201cto his work on black metal\u201d \u2014 recall, Korine has a credited appearance in the controversial landmark Norwegian black metal doc Until the Light Takes Us \u2014 \u201cand other subcultures.\u201d<\/p>\n As we move closer to the present day, Perfect Nonsense tackles Korine\u2019s recent grappling with technological augmentation. \u201cHarmony has experimented in medium with an eye towards the forces that are so rapidly changing society,\u201d Gartenfeld says. \u201cHis adaptation of both digital tools as well as digital image types, I think, will be new and certainly very timely for audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n If that sounds like a lot, well, provocateurs are gonna provoke. It\u2019s not exactly a quiet or sensible moment in this city, nation, or world, and it hasn\u2019t been for some time. Amidst all of this, Korine\u2019s sprawling, crackling Perfect Nonsense is the rare case of an event actually worthy of the Hunter S. Thompson maxim quoted typically unduly and ad nauseam: \u201cBuy the ticket, take the ride.\u201d Really, would any self-respecting Korine fan want it any other way?<\/p>\n