Concrete Facade is a group photography exhibition that explores the complex interplay of form, memory, and politics through the lens of architecture. Featuring works by Anastasia Samoylova, Linet Sánchez, Edison Peñafiel, Gian Paolo Minelli, Amanda Linares, and Mitzi Falcón, the exhibition examines facades as both masks and mirrors—structures that conceal deeper truths while shaping perception. Through their images, the artists peel back layers of history, identity, and power embedded in the built environment, inviting viewers to question the authenticity of the surfaces that define our surroundings.
Curated by Edison Peñafiel and accompanied by an exhibition essay by Aldeide Delgado, Concrete Facade is presented with the support of ArtSeen365 and MAD Arts.
About the Artists
Anastasia Samoylova (b. 1984, Russia) is an American artist whose practice alternates between observational photography and studio work. Her work has been showcased in major institutions, including a survey at the Saatchi Gallery, London (November 4, 2024–January 20, 2025), and her exhibition Floridas: Anastasia Samoylova and Walker Evans at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (October 14, 2024–May 11, 2025).
After relocating to Miami in 2016, Samoylova developed FloodZone, a photographic study of environmental threats faced by flood-prone communities, which became her first monograph. Her Floridas project presents a multifaceted portrait of the state’s cultural and political landscape. In Image Cities (2023), she expanded her focus globally, capturing the visual surfaces of major urban centers.
Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Nasher Museum of Art, C/O Berlin, V&A Dundee, Fundación MAPFRE (Madrid and Barcelona), Amerika Haus Munich, the George Eastman Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, and Kunst Haus Wien. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Pérez Art Museum Miami, High Museum of Art (Atlanta), and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), among others. Her published monographs include FloodZone (Steidl, 2019), Floridas (Steidl, 2022), Image Cities (Fundación MAPFRE/Hatje Cantz, 2023), and Adaptation (Thames & Hudson, 2024).
Edison Peñafiel (b. 1985, Ecuador) is a South Florida-based artist whose multimedia installations explore the experiences of migrants, laborers, and the surveilled. His work critically engages with themes of power, displacement, and the cyclical nature of historical conflicts. Drawing from German Expressionism and the aesthetics of surveillance, Peñafiel crafts unsettling visual narratives through sculpture, photography, animation, and video, prompting viewers to reconsider the realities they often overlook.
Born in Ecuador, Peñafiel migrated to the United States in 2002. Since earning his Fine Arts degree from Florida International University (2016), he has developed large-scale, site-specific, and immersive projects exhibited at The Bass Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, the Orlando Museum of Art, the Elsewhere Museum, the Contemporary Art Center New Orleans, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the USF Contemporary Art Museum, among others. His accolades include grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, the Green Family Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Gian Paolo Minelli (b. 1968, Geneva, Switzerland) is an artist working at the intersection of photography, social inquiry, and urban exploration. He has exhibited widely, with solo shows in Zurich, Berlin, New York, Almaty, Krakow, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Rotterdam, and Los Angeles, among others. His work has also been featured in over 80 collective exhibitions worldwide.
Minelli was awarded the Swiss Art Awards in Basel (2008) and received residencies at the Cité des Arts in Paris (2009–2010) and the Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr Foundation in Berlin (2012). His work is held in notable collections, including The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum (Miami), Museo de Arte Moderno (Buenos Aires), Museo d’Arte Cantonale (Lugano), Musée des Beaux-Arts Tourcoing-Lille (France), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Berlin), UBS Art Collection (Switzerland), and the Princeton University Art Museum (USA).
Mitzi Falcón (b. 1985, Mexico City) is a self-taught visual artist and a design graduate from UNAM. Her work explores social realities and the overlooked beauty of everyday life. Deeply influenced by her mother’s experiences, her photography is rooted in personal narratives, reflecting on themes of collective memory, social resilience, and human connection.
Her work has been exhibited in prominent venues and is part of the art collections of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, El Colegio de México, and various private collectors.
Amanda Linares (b. 1989, Havana) is a Cuban-born visual artist based in Miami, Florida. Working across design, drawing, installation, and photography, her practice is informed by literature and spatial awareness, incorporating poetic language, found objects, and typographic elements to explore themes of identity, displacement, absence, and reconnection.
Linares studied printmaking at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts (Havana) before earning a BFA in Graphic Design from New World School of the Arts (Miami). She has exhibited at Oolite Arts, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, and the Bakehouse Art Complex, where she is currently a resident artist.
Linet Sánchez (b. 1989, Cuba) works primarily in photography, drawing, and sculpture. She is a graduate of the Visual Arts program at the University of Arts (ISA) in Havana, Cuba, and a member of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC).
Her artistic practice centers on meticulously handcrafted miniature architectural models, exploring memory, the built environment, and symbolic imagery. Through these fictional spaces, she examines the idea of “the unreliable narrator,” creating surreal yet tangible representations of psychological and collective memory.
Sánchez has exhibited her work internationally, including at CC Mechelen (Belgium, 2022), the Southeast Museum of Photography (Florida, 2018), Rostrum Gallery (Sweden, 2018), Foto Museo Cuatro Caminos (Mexico, 2017), The Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles, 2017), Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center (Havana, 2016), and Factoría Habana (Havana, 2010). She has received numerous accolades, including the Havana Culture Residency at Havana Club International (2013), First Prize at Post-it (Artis 718 Gallery, Havana, 2013), and a FotoFest grant (Houston, 2018). Her work is held in both public and private collections worldwide.
