Invitation to Openness: The Frost Art Museum's Listening Room Explores Jazz, Improvisation, and Cocreation

On view through November 8th at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU, Invitation to Openness is a listening room and site of observation dedicated to artists and musicians whose commitments to collaborative practice rippled outward into the world around them.

At its core are listening stations featuring music from landmark jazz collectives and solo avant-garde practitioners active primarily from the 1960s onward — the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Black Artists' Group (BAG), and Mongo Santamaria, among others. Their work pursued improvisational techniques and experimental approaches to sound while rooting their practices in the places and people around them.

Alongside the sonic contributions, the exhibition offers visual works by Terry Adkins, Sam Gilliam, Masimba Hwati, Bertina Lopes, and Pauline Oliveros, whose practices deepen considerations of improvisation, listening, and history. The exhibition borrows its title from jazz pianist Les McCann's 1972 album.

On November 4th from 6–9 PM, Frost After Dark: Sounding Out Other Worlds brings together DJ Akia Dorsainvil (Masisi Radio), FIU Associate Professor Andrea Queeley, Chief Curator Natalia Zuluaga, and co-curator Graham Eng-Wilmot for an interactive listening session. The Frost Art Museum is at 10975 SW 17th Street, Miami, FL 33199.