In the next couple months, the art world's elite will slowly trickle their way towards Miami in anticipation of one of the world's most popular cultural gatherings: Art Basel.
“Good day, monsieur,” they’ll say, flicking their monocles aside. “Would you kindly lead me to your boiling city's best art." Just smile, nod and order them an Uber to Miami's most underrated display of public art: the red Solo Cup poet of the Palmetto Expressway.
The challenging, often confrontational work of the P.E.P. is familiar to commuters heading to work from the western edges of Miami-Dade. With nothing but the crumpled drinking devices of drunk FIU students, the P.E.P. crafts prose that is at once heartbreaking (who could forget the magnum opus "U Deserve Closure") and triumphant (the defiant "IRMA A THOT" remains his/her most powerful work).
Journey with us now as we embark on a retrospective of five of the P.E.P.'s greatest hits.
1. A touching tribute or subversive warning? You decide.
2. It is pure emotion translated through Solo Cups. Do not try to hide your tears. Let them flow free.
3. Experts have debated whether this was a romantic message or a desperate attempt by P.E.P. to get out of the dog house.
4. And here marks P.E.P.'s distinctive turn toward the powerful simplicity that would come to define his/her most recent work.
5. And, finally, P.E.P. breaks the fourth wall with a subtle nod to the viewer, who, presumably has been sitting in traffic for some time now and does, one would suspect, have to "pipi."
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