Exhibitions
Cisco Merel brings the land and memory to the heart of Art Basel Miami
Zielinsky presents "The Panamanians of Miami Park ," a solo exhibition by the Afro-Panamanian Chinese artist Cisco Merel, in the Positions section of Art Basel Miami . The booth includes three distinct works: an installation activated with the participation of Latin American art assemblers and friends in the days leading up to the fair's opening, a mural made with a mixture of Panamanian and Miami clay, and a series of paintings on canvas.
Born in 1981 in Panama City, Merel has established himself as one of the most original voices in contemporary Latin American art. Trained in Fine Arts and with experience in artist residencies in New York, Paris, and Leipzig, he worked alongside the workshop of master Carlos Cruz-Diez, whose legacy has left its mark on his exploration of color and geometry.
Her work combines abstraction, typography, and architecture, employing an intense color palette and geometric forms that engage with the space. Merel transcends the boundaries of traditional painting, incorporating sculpture, installations, and public space projects, and exploring unconventional materials, such as earth, which becomes a symbol of identity, memory, and collective roots.
The artist addresses the themes of the ethnographic turn in contemporary art from a situated perspective, where people, blood, and land converge: “people” as community, “blood” as heritage, and “land” as a territory imbued with affection and memory. In his work, Merel revives traditional techniques while intertwining Western elements with the Mesoamerican worldview. In his Panamanian context, clay becomes much more than a material: it allows him to recover the dynamic of collective labor present in the traditional construction of wattle and daub houses. The earth thus becomes home, symbol, bearer of pre-Columbian cosmologies, and a reflection of popular culture, embracing Indigenous, mestizo, and Creole roots.
Meanwhile, the paintings on canvas, including Solar Silence and The World of Here and Now, are part of his research on the hyperlith, a “fantastic megalith” that transforms in form and meaning. These works function as a kind of visual musical notation, where variations in color and geometry represent intensity, rhythm, and transformation, establishing a dialogue between form, color, and emotion.
