[NAME]

Opening reception: Saturday April 19,  7–9 pm
Exhibition on view through May 31, 2025

Join us Saturday, April 19, 2025 at [NAME] for the opening reception of STRAPERLO PARLOR, an installation by Westen Charles.

For the exhibition, Charles has transformed [NAME] into a backroom gambling parlor where you can play the skill-based roulette game, Straperlo. The Spanish word “Straperlo” is a slang term referring to a “scam” or “hustle.” Its usage became common during Spain’s post-war “Autarchy” in the 1940s, where dealing in illegal black-market trade was a way of life. Its origin, however, came from a fraudulent motorized roulette game that was named after and promoted in Spain by Dutch partners Daniel Strauss and Jules Perlowitz. The game and its inventors unexpectedly became the flash point that ignited the Spanish Civil War. Charles, an avid casino chip collector, discovered the first ever recorded example of a gambling chip used to play Straperlo. This find inspired a body of work researching facets of the game and the consequences it brought to Spain. The public is invited to play the game of “Straperlo” on Charles’ hybrid reconstruction of a Straperlo table at [NAME] and take part in the resurrection of a historically relevant, yet highly consequential game.

Westen Charles is a Miami-based artist and professor who co-founded the non-profit art space Locust Projects in 1998 and currently serves on the Executive Board. He earned his BFA from Pratt Institute in 1995 and his MFA in sculpture from the University of Miami in 1999. Charles’ approach to creating work has taken various forms throughout his career, however, there is a common concern and affinity for making meaning through discovery and associative potential. Charles is an obsessive collector by nature and his art practice is often inspired by researching and organizing the things he collects. Charles has worked with unusual materials such as laundry lint, sports trophies, thrift store bowling balls, and rare antique gambling chips. He manipulates form and function while creating visually riveting work with a conceptual edge. His most recent art projects have investigated consequential figures in history, leading towards exhibitions that extend into large-scale installations that are accompanied by published research articles. Charles has exhibited in galleries, museums and alternative spaces, locally, nationally and internationally including the Curfew Tower- Northern Ireland, Officinas Culturales- Sao Paulo, Stefen Stux Gallery- NYC, NFA Gallery- Chicago, and in Florida at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery, South Florida Arts Center, The Frost Museum, The Ringling Museum of Art, The Lowe Art Museum, Locust Projects, The HistoryMiami Museum and [NAME] Publications.

Westen Charles: STRAPERLO PARLOR is made possible with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, Teiger Foundation and The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation.