For this year’s National Photography Day on August 19, we are highlighting three visionary photographers, each offering a unique lens into how we see the world. Their work is currently on display at The Betsy Hotel, a premier literary and arts destination in Miami Beach.
The Betsy is a 130-room, family-owned and -operated luxury oceanfront resort in South Beach’s Art Deco Historic District. It seamlessly merges art, music and literature through its celebrated Arts & Community Engagement program.
Carefully curated permanent art galleries can be found throughout nearly all of The Betsy’s communal spaces, from the hallways to the elevators and staircases. These thought-provoking galleries are primarily composed of photography-based artwork curated by The Betsy’s co-owner and Principal Curator Lesley Goldwasser.
The story of Miami Beach’s iconic Ocean Drive throughout the ’70s and ’80s is on display in The Betsy’s Piano Beach with a series of photographs by Andy Sweet. A Miami Beach native, Sweet witnessed a unique period in his hometown’s history when it was energized by a community of older Jewish immigrants, many of them Holocaust survivors. His pioneering color photography captured the lives of these residents with stunning impact, preserving their stories for future generations.
In the Betsy’s Gallery space are photographs by Mac Stone that document his time spent in the Everglades and America’s swamps. The photos highlight Stone’s passion for attempting to change public opinion about these often misunderstood and maligned ecosystems.
Juan Carlos Zaldivar is a Cuban-American filmmaker who explores human relationships with reality, memory and technology. His works convey the moving image as a metaphor for human memory, as both are aging physical illusions often mistaken for truth. By examining the parallels between human bodies and mechanical image-makers, Zaldivar raises broader questions about identity, history and the nature of humanity. As humans continue to colonize the earth (and each other), countless species, languages and cultures face extinction, with many experiences lost forever. Zaldivar’s work at The Betsy reflects on both the potential and the limits of digital preservation, as well as the tension between human physical boundaries and the vast forces of nature.