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Miami Herald NEIGHBORS - LITTLE HAITI (Posted on Sun, Apr. 10, 2005) Unusual pairing could be a slam for local artist One of Miami's gritty artistic pioneers returns home to bring together wrestling and art for a show in a venue he touts as the city's next art district. BY JASON JEFFERS [email protected] There's a certain artistic flair to the way Morbid Angel -- silhouetted in the dimly lit corner of a secluded Little Haiti warehouse -- yanks the arm of his opponent and hurtles him through the air. The thud of floor-to-flesh is enough to make the man stooping in the corner of the wrestling ring wince. ''OK, that was good,'' says the trainer, Ernie. ``Now do it again.'' Wrestling school is in session this evening, but this is no mere test of athletic prowess. For Damian Rojo, the owner of this gallery/warehouse in the newly christened St. Mary's Art District, this is art. On Saturday he'll host BAG OF TEETH, a multimedia event featuring a documentary he put together about the wrestlers, a ragtag bunch who make up the New Age of Wrestling league, plus exhibitions featuring the wrestlers, a photography exhibit, sculpture and a sound installation. 'It beats the hell out of your average performance art, you know, `man with razor and shaving cream' showcase,' '' says Rojo, viewing the film as body slams echo behind him. ``This stuff is raw.'' Rojo, a Cuban-born, Miami-raised artist, first made a name for himself by cofounding the Artifacts Salon on South Beach in 1983. A jack-of-all-trades who played a big role in crafting South Beach's gritty early art scene, Rojo's work found him creating sculptures out of everything ranging from dog skulls to old building materials. He also did production work for Miami Vice, and designed stages for musicians, including Ornette Coleman and Grace Jones. By the late-'90s, however, Rojo's love affair with the Beach started to fade. "By the time Pottery Barn made its way to the city, I knew it was over,'' Rojo said. ``Since I was already showing work out of town, I decided it made sense to just leave.'' From Miami, he traveled to California, where he dabbled in music, furniture-making and film, a medium that he had a secret yearning to explore more thoroughly. His full embrace of filmmaking coincided with a desire to return to Miami. He came back to the city two years ago. ''A lot more was happening; more people were doing stuff artistically, and I was just missing the place,'' Rojo said. Since his return, Rojo rented a warehouse at 7126 NW Second Ct., right around the corner from St. Mary's Cathedral. At first glance, the side-street appears to be yet another dingy warehouse alley, but closer inspection reveals the makings of a new hub of artistic activity with two other galleries under construction. Faktura Gallery sits right next door, an edgy exhibition room that includes an installation room and the private studio of its owner, L.A. transplant Jacquelyn Jackson Johnson. Further down the block, in a three-story building that used to be a chop-shop, will be White Vinyl Space, a cavernous gallery that will eventually also feature a drive-in video art gallery projected on the outside wall. Both spaces also have openings Saturday night. ''It's amazing there was still a neighborhood left in Miami that could accommodate us,'' said Skip Van Cel, the owner of White Vinyl. ``The area is perfect.'' Apparently, the warehouse strip was also the perfect space for a wrestling academy. When Rojo's nephew introduced him to Daniel J. Denis, the 20-year-old founder of New Age of Wrestling, a not-for-profit wrestling league that was on the lookout for a place to store its ring and practice headlocks and arm-twists, Rojo didn't hesitate in offering up his warehouse. ''When I first walked in and saw the fully-assembled ring, I was in awe,'' Rojo said. For Denis, a young, promising entrepreneur, the space afforded him a perfect place to continue building his dream company, New Age of Wrestling. From backyard wrestling when he was 13 to becoming a fresh-faced veteran of the Florida wrestling circuit, Denis has been dedicated to creating a means for young upstarts such as himself to fulfill their love of wrestling. ''A couple of us had been touring Florida and we didn't like the morale of the scene,'' said Denis, also a project manager for an engineering firm and an engineering student at FIU. ``I figured the fastest and easiest way to get a league going was to make it not-for-profit. It started in April 2003 and since then we've been doing shows from the YMCA to all kinds of churches.'' Though Denis and his wrestlers are young -- the youngest is 16 -- they are by no means tame. When Rojo started to film their first match in the warehouse, he witnessed that. ''My idea was just to make a short film, but within minutes of shooting, some kid gets his nose broken and there's blood spattering everywhere,'' said Rojo, still shocked by the scene months later. ``After seeing that, talking to them and realizing that their stories were so compelling, I decided that maybe I should make the film a bit longer.'' ''It can get pretty rough,'' Denis said. ``We never kill each other or anything, but chair shots, hitting each other with tables? Yeah, we do all of that.'' The resulting film, also titled BAG OF TEETH, will be screened at Saturday's showcase, as well as the night before at Ingalls & Associates at Dark Match, a photography exhibit of Rojo's stills of the fighters. Rojo knows the show may not fit into the average person's concept of what art is, but for him, it's what makes the work worthwhile. ''I've always enjoyed taking something that people may not want to look at, framing it in a beautiful way and drawing them in,'' Rojo said. ``This is yet another example of that.'' And while Denis might be enthusiastic about the artistic overtones that Saturday's event will take on, his focus remains putting on a good show for the audience, be they local art enthusiasts or blood-thirsty wrestling fans. If they like it, they'll be back. ''People eat this stuff up, even my mother has become a wrestling fan,'' Denis said. ``The only people who don't seem to enjoy it are my grandmothers. They came out to a show and ended up crying because they thought I was really dead. Anyway, other than them, everyone else should love it.''

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