Getting Lushy: Hernan Bas at the Brooklyn Museum.

Can you hear me now? Detail of The Loveliest Song, 2003. (Photos by C-M.)

For a coupla years now, I’ve been seeing Hernan Bas’s work on my regular sojourns to Miami — principally at the frigid concrete warehouses that are home to the Snitzer Gallery and the Rubell Collection, where the artist had a massive solo exhibit in time for Art Basel in late 2007. But last night, I saw the paintings — which marry pop sensibilities with florid 19th century romance — completely anew in the Brooklyn Museum, where the wood floors and deft lighting gave the work an added weight and drama. In addition, someone was bright enough to put a bench in Bas’s room-sized video installation Ocean’s Symphony, which, with its floating mermaids and gently bubbling water, is one exemplary piece of stonerrific distraction.

Hernan Bas: Works from the Rubell Family Collection is up through May 24.

Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.

Why yes, I think I’ll have another: Working our way through the open bar at the exhibit’s members preview.

The Loveliest Song, 2003.

Booze: Check. Patrons: Check. Sculpture: Check. Ready for lift-off.

The Day Things Changed Between Us, 2004.

The Immaculate Lactation of Saint Bernard, 2007.

The event was multimedia. The ah-tist is in the huddle to the left.

Vesuvius, 2005.

Detail of The Burden (I Shall Leave No Memoirs), 2007. Sounds like the story of my life.

Bas discusses his seminal influences: soap operas and Iron Maiden. Hell yeah!!

See you at the mermaid video in five: One young patron was wearing a very saucy tie.

For more on Bas, check out the miamiHeights documentary-in-progress online. Plus: Video of Bas’s conversation with the Brooklyn’s Charles Desmarais.