Expanding horizons: with the Miami art world in the throes of rapid change, the author examines the impact of growth, spurred by the arrival of Art Basel, on public institutions, galleries and artists - Report From Miami

Roni Feinstein

Over the course of the past few months, as I was gathering information to write this updated profile of the Miami art scene, I received word that yet another pair of Miami collectors, Debra and Dennis Scholl, were transforming a warehouse into a public exhibition space for work from their personal collection. I then heard that Venezuelan philanthropist Ella Cisneros was refurbishing an old office building in South Miami in which to establish a nonprofit institution devoted to presenting ambitious contemporary art exhibitions and related public programs. On an almost daily basis, news arrives about the opening of new galleries and alternative spaces. Numerous Miami-based artists, whose work I have followed with interest for years as it gradually made its way into public view, have e-mailed to tell me of forthcoming exhibitions across the U.S. and Europe. The Miami art scene is, quite simply, on fire. The city's collectors, museum directors, curators, art dealers, artists and even art students feel they have the world at their fingertips, and, in a sense, they do. Art Basel has come to town.

Art Basel, which originated in Switzerland 34 years ago, had planned its inaugural presentation on American soil for December 2001. In accord with the Swiss model, the new fair was not conceived as an isolated entity confined within the Miami Beach Convention Center, but as a citywide event, encompassing museums, galleries and Miami's many private collections, with special activities planned involving fashion, music, film, architecture and design. Although the terrorist attacks of 9/11 caused the postponement of Art Basel Miami Beach until the following year, many of the scheduled exhibitions and events went forward in December 2001 and drew surprisingly large audiences, comprising art-interested locals and numerous visitors (including the Art Basel organizers) who decided not to cancel their trips. The Miami art community put on an impressive show, generating a widespread buzz which owed much to the city's arts infrastructure as well as to its unique mix of Latin, Caribbean and Anglo culture. In December 2002, Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) drew some 30,000 visitors from across the nation and around the world.

The purpose of this article is to examine the changes and developments that have taken place in the Miami art world since the late '90s, when my previous profile appeared [see A.i.A., May and Nov. '99]. It opens with a brief sketch of ABMB 2002 and other Miami-based art fairs to convey a sense of their makeup, and to indicate the extent of involvement of Miami dealers and artists. The second section will focus on the city's art museums. The third will explore the impact on local contemporary art culture of several Miami collectors who have assumed highly public roles. Next comes an account of the art initiatives of real estate developer and collector Craig Robins, as well as of other landlords and developers following his lead, in the Miami Design District and the larger Wynwood area directly to the south (the boundary is Interstate 195). Today, these districts together form the city's most vital gallery and exhibition center. The fifth section discusses significant alternative spaces mid art schools. The sixth and final section is an overview of the commercial galleries that focus on contemporary art. The work of individual Miami artists is considered throughout the article in relation to the institutions or exhibitions that have displayed their art.

The Art Fairs

Art Basel Miami Beach is not the city's first such event: the Art Miami fair has been taking place in the Miami Beach Convention Center every January since 1990. Produced by Advanstar Communications, which is based in Chicago, Art Miami is more conservative in the art it shows and lower in its price range than Art Basel. It is geared to the South Florida and Latin American communities, rather than to a broader international one, with about 25 percent of the participants from Latin America. According to Ilana Vardy, director of the fair, 2003 attendance was about the same as that of past years, but the fair had "an off year" in terms of sales. To boost revenues, a number of lower echelon galleries were included, site said, which drew bad press that may have kept some collectors away. Art Miami 2004 will be a smaller, higher-quality fair, with 120 galleries (as opposed to 165 the year before) chosen by a newly formed selection committee. Vardy maintains that Art Basel is not Art Miami's main competition with regard to attracting exhibitors, but rather, the Palm Beach art fair, which targets a similar clientele and takes place at almost exactly the same time. (Art Miami opens Jan. 7, 2004; Palm Beach Contemporary opens Jan. 8.)

Art Miami has frequently incorporated special sections showcasing work by more progressive artists, and will do so in '04 in a series of project spaces integrated into the fair and in a "Currents" section, installed in an adjoining area of the convention center, dubbed "35 under 35" (35 galleries showing artists under 35). In "Currents 03: New Perspectives," seen last January, 40 galleries from 15 countries presented work by young and emerging artists; while uneven, the selection contained some impressive work. The younger galleries occupy small booths at discounted rates.

In terms of coverage, vitality and contemporary, relevance, however, Art Miami was thoroughly upstaged last year by the Basel event. Sponsored by the UBS Financial Services Group, which has been the primary supporter of the parent fair since 1994, ABMB featured about 169 of the world's leading modern and contemporary galleries. Samuel Keller, a Basel native, has been involved in the fair's management since 1994; in 2000 he became director. In contrast to Art Miami, only 5 percent of the participating galleries were from Latin America, the bulk of the exhibitors coming from the U.S. and Europe (with several galleries from North America and Europe showing first-rate Latin American art).

Both fairs extend over four days, and while the price per square foot of booths in the two fairs is equivalent, participants in ABMB tend on average to take larger spaces. While ABMB 2002 was extremely successful in terms of sales, the organization itself did not make a profit, due in part to losses remaining from the cancelled event of 2001, and to the higher-than-anticipated costs of union labor involved in the fair set-up. Art Basel expects to do considerably better in 2003.

Last year, four Miami galleries were included in ABMB: Fredric Snitzer, Ambrosino, Bernice Steinbaum and Diana Lowenstein. Snitzer is the only Miami-based gallery owner Lo serve on the fair's selection committee. The same four galleries will represent Miami in ABMB 2003.

In 2002, ABMB offered young galleries two opportunities to participate that did not carry the high price tag of the standard booth. The first of these was the "Art Statements" section of the convention center, in which each of 21 galleries showcased a single artist. Gavin Brown, of New York, presented the mid-career Miami artist Mark Handforth, who has been showing with Brown since 1998. Among Handforth's works were pieces incorporating neon and/or aluminum tubing and two benches in steel and wood.

"Art Positions," the second venue for younger galleries, was situated at the beachfront not far from the convention center. Here, 20 galleries were housed in shipping containers reconfigured by the Basel architects Steinmann and Schmid, and equipped with white interior walls, translucent plastic doors, electricity and the ever-important air conditioning. While no local galleries were represented in '02, Miami's Kevin Bruk Gallery occupies a container in 2003.

A smaller hotel art fair was held at the Nash in 20001. Brooklyn-based art consultant Janet Phelps, one of its organizers, returned to Miami in December '02 with "Artpoint," which occupied two vacant floors of an office building near the convention center. It showcased about a dozen nonprofit and alternative spaces from outside the major art centers, ranging from the Plains Art Museum of Fargo, N.D., to Aurora Picture Show of Houston, Tex.

Phelps's 2003 project is the NADA Art Fair, a collaborative effort of the New Art Dealers Alliance Inc. that brings together 40 mostly young galleries and nonprofit spaces, mainly from New York and other U.S. cities, plus some European and Asian galleries. The NADA fair occupies a donated space in the Lincoln, a new, currently vacant office and retail building just off Lincoln Road. NADA exhibitors include Massimo Audiello and Rivington Arms, both New York; Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, Brooklyn; Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; g-module, Paris; Grimm/Rosenfeld, Munich; and Hiromi Yoshii, Tokyo.

The Museums

The Miami Art Museum's plan to expand and relocate to Miami's Bayfront Park has stirred much debate in the city's art circles [see A.i.A, June '03]. Suzanne Delehanty, MAM's director, has long maintained that the museum requires more space and that the construction of a major art institution would greatly benefit the city. The city's management appears to agree, as it has endorsed the expenditure of considerable funds in support of the new facility. Opponents declare that MAM's collection does not warrant an expanded facility, and that government monies, sorely needed elsewhere, should not be used. MAM's relocation and expansion plans are moving ahead despite the controversy.

Opened in 1984 as the Center for the Fine Arts, MAM reformulated its identity in 1996 and began to collect, while continuing to host important traveling exhibitions. Smaller shows are generated in house, such as the excellent "Visual Poetics: Art and Word," organized by assistant curator Cheryl Hartup in April 2003, which featured works from the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. Following MAM's "New Work Series," a decade-long succession of project-room exhibitions featuring one or two Miami artists per year, MAM's focus on the local art scene took a different form last winter in "Miami Currents: Linking Culture and Community," organized by senior curator and assistant director for programs Peter Boswell. The show seemed strategically devised not only to make clear MAM's dedication to art of the Western hemisphere since 1940, but to display the strengths of the permanent collection, demonstrate the museum's ability to draw important loans from private collections (many of the works being on MAM's "wish list" of promised gifts) and emphasize the museum's commitment to Miami artists. In short, the aim seems to have been to assert MAM's identity, as the city's preeminent museum, deserving of a new building and prime waterfront location.

The current exhibition can also be read as reinforcing the case for MAM's relocation and expansion: "Museums for a New Millennium: Concepts, Projects, Buildings" [Oct. 3-Jan. 18], organized by Suzanne Greub of Art Centre Basel, a private company that originates and manages international traveling exhibitions (it has no affiliation with Art Basel). On tour internationally since February 2000, the show consists of drawings, photographs and models representing 25 examples of recent museum architecture designed by prominent architects.

As Suzanne Delehanty steers MAM toward a new borne, Dahlia Morgan, director of the Art Museum at Florida International University, held a groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 16 for the construction of the new $11 million, 40,000-square-foot Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Art, to be completed in 2005. The architect is Yann Weymouth, director of design at the Tampa office of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (an international firm based in St. Louis). FIU's art museum currently presents changing exhibitions in a 2,800-square-foot gallery space in a classroom building; its new, renamed structure will be sited beside a campus lake.

In 2001, Miami Beach's Bass Museum opened, then closed (there were construction-related problems), then opened once again in its expanded new facility designed by Arata Isozaki [see A.i.A., June '02]. The museum, directed by Diane Camber, has originated several exhibitions focused on contemporary art and/or the Miami scene, among them "Inside and Out," which integrated work by internationally recognized figures and midcareer Miami artists; an exhibition devoted to self-taught Miami artist Purvis Young [see A.i.A., Jan. '03]; a show of work by Yayoi Kusama; and the first solo museum appearance of the work of Flemish sculptor Johan Creten, recently the museum's sculptor-in-residence. During ABMB 2003, the Bass will show "Dispersions: A Decade of Art front Spain--Selections from the Coca-Cola Foundation Collection, Madrid"; smaller presentations will include new sculptures by Lynda Benglis, Judith Schaechter's stained-glass works that explore social issues and photographic portraits of Frida Kahlo.

Meanwhile, the exhibition program of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami continues to be the most vigorous in the area. Bonnie Clearwater, MOCA's tireless director and sole curator, originates as many as four major shows a year, many of which attract national and international attention. A number of them have been geared to reevaluating aspects of the production of major figures, such as those devoted to Prank Stella's recent sculpture and architectural projects [see A.i.A., Junc '00], Roy Lichtenstein's preoccupation with spatial illusions and perspective [see A.i.A., July '02], Helen Frankenthaler's paintings on paper, Roberto Juarez's paintings of the past 15 years [to be covered in a forthcoming issue], and a recent show that explored correspondences between the drawings of Saul Steinberg and Raymond Pettibon. Despite receiving extensive press in Miami and elsewhere, none of these shows has traveled, except the Frankenthaler (it went to the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, in August 2003). A survey of Richard Artschwager's paintings opens Dec. 3; the occasion is the artist's 80th birthday. On view at the same time is a smaller show of Inka Essenhigh's paintings.

Clearwater regularly introduces young artists from outside Miami, as in recent shows of work by Julian LaVerdiere [see A.i.A., June '03], Christian Marclay and Sarah Morris, all based in New York, as well as by Texas artist Trenton Doyle Hancock and Haitian artist Mario Benjamin. In addition, her keen eye has helped shape the local scene; she has mounted several group exhibitions devoted to the work of Miami artists and, in the muse um's special projects pavilion, has provided any number of local artists with their first museum solos. Pieces from many of them have been acquired for the museum.

While MOCA has the distinction of being Miami's most vigorous museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, directed by Cathy Left, with its devotion to modern art, design and the propaganda arts, is its most distinctive. Among the featured exhibitions at the Miami Beach facility during ABMB 2003 is the fabulously titled and unfortunately timely "Weapons of Mass Dissemination The Propaganda of War," curated by Marianne Lamonaca, which focuses on wartime propaganda (posters, housewares, even children's books) produced during the first half of the 20th century. Also on view is "Tokyo: The Imperial Capital," centered on a 1928-40 series of 100 woodblock prints of the city undergoing modernization, made by Koizmni Kishio.

Another university-affiliated institution, the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, in Coral Gables, is an educational facility that presents a broad range of art and artifacts. The director is Brian Dursum. On view this month are permanent-collection shows devoted to Mexican saints, Chinese painting and 5,000 years of the human form in art, as well as "Red Grooms: Selections from the Graphic Work," a touring show.

For the past several years, Miami has had six major art institutions. In December 2002, following months of rumors, Maxwell Anderson, then director of the Whitney Museum, publicly announced that the Whitney was considering opening a satellite operation in a 15,000-square-foot former shoe factory in downtown Miami, offered rent-free by the property owner. Then Anderson left the Whitney, Adam Weinberg took Over, and the museum's current official position is that the project is "at this point uncertain."

On Dec. 2, 2003, a seventh major art institution, known as Miami Art Central (or MAC), did make its appearance. A nonprofit institution, it was founded, and is funded, by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CFAF), headed by Venezuelan collector and philanthropist Ella Cisneros; she is also chairman of the board of MAC. MAC's first exhibition was organized under the direction of Manuel Gonzalez, head of Art Advisory Services for J.P. Morgan Private Bank, New York. Located in a revamped office building once belonging to Southern Bell near the University of Miami campus, the art center, comprising about 30,000 square feet, will serve as a space for changing exhibitions as well as for performances and film and video screenings.

MAC's stated aim is to emphasize "contemporary artists of Latin American and Hispanic descent and the vital role their work plays in the arts globally." The inaugural presentation, "Ten Floridians," includes artists from a variety of backgrounds. Nine curators or art professionals were each invited to select a single South Floridian artist for presentation (one curator chose two). The artists are Luis Gispert (selected by Rina Carvajal), Dara Friedman (Clarissa Dalrymple), Adler Guerrier (Thelma Golden), Robert Chambers (Paula Harper), Sergio Vega (Rosa Martinez), Jacin Giordano and Gean Moreno (Ivo Mesquita), Glexis Novoa (Marcelo Pacheco), Mark Handforth (David Rimanelli) and Jose Bedia (Victor Zamudio-Taylor). Small solo shows make up the exhibition, which is accompanied by an illustrated, bilingual catalogue. MAC's next exhibition opens in May with work by the visual arts and architecture finalists for the Cintas Foundation awards, given to help Latin American artists in exile.

MAC also plans to initiate an artist-in-residence program for Latin American artists; two nearby buildings are being transformed into studios and apartments for this purpose. The residency program, as well as the operations of MAC, will be managed by the CFAF board, which includes, among others, Gonzalez, artist Guillermo Kuitca, Lisa Phillips, director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and Mariella Cisneros (Ella's daughter). Additional sources of finding beyond CFAF are being sought.

Collectors Go Public

Art Basel's Miami Beach edition came about, at least in part, through the urging of Miami collectors (particularly Norman Braman and Mera Rubell); perhaps as a consequence the fair, in turn, called upon Miami collectors to play an extraordinary role. In 2002, numerous collectors accommodated 20 to 30 visiting groups in their homes during the run of the fair. Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, who welcomed visitors every morning, also hosted a late-night dinner party for about 800 guests on ABMB's opening night. The following night, Craig Robins sponsored a giant block party in the Design District that accompanied a multitude of gallery openings attended by thousands of people. Many fair visitors went to a Saturday brunch held at the art-bedecked Sagamore Hotel on Miami Beach, owned by collectors Cricket and Marty Taplin. Fair visitors in '03 might also have a lock at the newly opened Four Seasons Hotel Miami, not on Miami Reach but the mainland; it houses a $3.3-million art collection comprising work by Miami-based artists of diverse origins, as well as by such major Latin American figures as Kuitca and Vik Muniz.

For the past several years, increasing numbers of Miami collectors have assumed highly public roles, contributing to the city's art culture iii ways rarely seen in other American cities. In May 2003, the two-story, 30,000-square-foot warehouse that holds the Rubell Family Collection closed for a major expansion and renovation that will not be completed for a couple of years. A new exhibition will open there, however, during ABMB 2003, running into February '04. After occupying the present building, a former drug and ammunition confiscation warehouse, for almost a decade, the collection outgrew the space. Further, certain alterations to the facility became necessary as the collection began to function as a museum, with regular hours and guided tours offered daily in six languages. On property surrounding the existing site, a two-story research library and storage facility will be constructed, as well as a residence for Don and Mera Rubell. Current galleries are being refurbished, and 14 new galleries, four new-media screening rooms, a public reception area, a bookshop and a garden will be added. The bookstore, operated by Phaidon, will be inaugurated this month. A history of the Rubell Family o Collection, titled Not Afraid, written by Mark Coetzee, director of the collection since 2000, will also appear. The approximately 300page illustrated book will explore the collection and present an overview of nine years of changing exhibitions.

The show Coetzee has curated for December '03, also titled "Not Afraid," deals with the theme of risk-taking by artists, collectors and institutions. Among the 150 art works by about 100 artists will be newly acquired pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Paloma Varga Weisz, Aernout Mik, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba and others.

The Rubells' activities go beyond the warehouse facility and its programs. In 2001, they initiated a curatorial studies project, which attracts students from all over the world. Earlier this year, having long noted the paucity of guests at Miami Beach hotels during the summer months, Mera Rubell worked with the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council to inaugurate an artist-in-residency program. In its first year, the program provided workspace and lodging for eight artists, most of them from the Northeast, at Miami Beach hotels for 45 nights (the hotels provided the rooms free of charge); receptions and other events were held to foster a sense of community.

About half a mile from the Rubell Family Collection is the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, which opened in 1999 to house Martin Z. Margulies's ever-growing photography collection. Already enlarged, and due for an additional 10,000-square-foot expansion to be completed in 2004, the space currently occupies 35,000 square feet. Margulies's personal collection is vast, multi-faceted and extends back over many years, as does his working relationship with collection curator Katherine Hinds. His apartment on Key Biscayne holds a trove of American art dating from the early '50s to the present, with excursions into European art of the same period. Sculpture has long been one of his major preoccupations; the Martin Z. Marguiies Sculpture Park on the campus of FIU contains more than 50 sculptures, many of monumental scale; the works have been on extended loan there since 1994. Margulies began acquiring photographs in 1998, and rapidly assembled a comprehensive collection of 20th- and 21st-century photography, currently comprising about 2,500 images. Tim warehouse was originally intended for the display of photographs, but space has been increasingly allocated to large-scale sculptures, video and installation works.

Presently on view at the warehouse is a newly acquired collection of Bauhaus photography (1919-33), along with photographs by Gregory Crewdson and Santiago Sierra, plus large sculptures and installation works by Frank Stella, Ernesto Neto, Thomas Hirschhorn, Takashi Murakami, Ann-Sofi Siden, Sara Sze, Franz West, Olafur Eliasson and Gilles Barbier. A mezzanine is divided into viewing rooms for film and video work by various artists.

Collectors Debra and Dennis Scholl have recently established another venue in the Wynwood warehouse district. World Class Boxing consists of a former boxing gym and an adjoining warehouse that have been converted into exhibition spaces and a storage facility. The Scholls are expanding their collection to include large-scale sculptures and installations. World Class Boxing opened with Olafur Eliasson's Light Ventilator Mobile (2002), a piece never before shown. It consists of a pole, 19 feet long, suspended from the ceiling. At one end is an oscillating fan and at the other a theatrical spotlight; random, moving circles of light are thrown against the wall as the piece is propelled by the fan. The Scholls also own warehouse space across the street from World Class Boxing that will be developed into galleries and artists' studios. Snitzer is the Scholls' partner in this venture.

The Scholls also collect contemporary photography, which was recently featured, together with a few films and videos, in "Imperfect Innocence: The Debra and Dennis Scholl Collection," seen first at the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, and then at the Palm Beach ICA. In each of the past few years, the Scholls have invited a noted curator to come to their Miami home to rehang their collection, which includes work by leading Miami-based artists. In 2002, Rochelle Steiner, chief curator of London's Serpentine Gallery, was responsible for the installation. In September of this year, Dominic Molon, associate curator of Chicago's MCA, oversaw the reinstallation; it includes two new site-specific pieces by Scottish artist Jim Lambie, one a myriad of narrow bands of brightly colored tape that climb a flight of stairs, the other a wooden door painted peach and equipped with accordion pleats. Both of the Scholls are on the boards of several museums; together they chair the Tate American Acquisitions Committee. Dennis is also chairman of the board of Locust Projects, one of Miami's most active alternative galleries.

The Key Biscayne home of Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz is both a residence and an exhibition space. Art fills an extended series of adjoining white-walled galleries of varying dimensions, many with soaring ceilings, designed to accommodate the growing collection. While their museum-residence is not open to the public on a regular basis, the de la Cruzes frequently welcome art-interested visitors. The collection began with, and remains heavily committed to, art from the Latin diaspora, including multiple pieces by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jose Bedia, Ana Mendieta, Teresita Fernandez, Pedro Reyes and Arturo Herrera, some of whom have strong Miami ties. A large upstairs gallery presents about 50 works by Gabriel Orozco. Counterpointing the Latin focus, an adjoining all-red space features British artist Isaac Julien's double-projection video installation Vagabondia (2000). The collection also includes work by Tracey Emin, Sarah Morris, Thomas Schutte, Peter Doig, Gerhard Richter, Jim Hodges, Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami and many others.

Another energetic contemporary collector, Arturo Mosquera, has an unusual presentation strategy. Mosquera, an ardent supporter of several Miami museums and a member of the board of Locust Projects, has been collecting advanced Latin American art with his wife, Liza, since the late '80s, acquiring some 400 works in all mediums; they are installed not only in the couple's home, but in the offices of his orthodontic practice. For several years, the waiting room has served as one of Miami's most unusual art spaces, featuring solo shows of often challenging work by Leandro Soto, Glexis Novoa, Ana Albertina Delgado, Jorge Pantoja, Eduoard Duval-Carrie, Luisa Basnuevo, Elizabeth Cerejido and others.

Art and Real Estate

Craig Robins, whose real estate company, Dacra, was founded in 1987, has been a leading force in the development of the Miami Design District, a once dilapidated 18-square-block neighborhood between downtown Miami and South Beach that is now a major center of the home furnishings and interior design industries in South Florida. In large part through Robins's efforts, it is also currently replete with galleries, alternative spaces, artists' studios and public projects, many of these originally (and some on a continuing basis) funded by Robins himself. Robins is the district's biggest landlord (he owns or is in the process of developing some 35 buildings), and, as in his previous projects, like the development of Lincoln Road in the early '90s, he encourages the area's growth through the incorporation of art and design. (Lincoln Road, once studded with contemporary galleries, enjoyed a brief flowering as an art center until rising rents and the lack of a local art market in the mid-'90s caused its demise.) In 2000, Dacra began Aqua Development Project on Allison Island in North Beach, a luxury residential development of modernist design; now under construction, it will feature commissioned public art works by Kuitca, Richard Tuttle, Handforth and others.

In the Design District, where Robins began acquiring property in the early '90s, he has commissioned public works of art from Antoni Miralda, Kenny Scharf, and the husband-and-wife team Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt, who have executed a number of public projects in the area, including Kids! (2002), polychrome life-size statues of a boy and girl standing atop a pair of 35-foot pillars sited in front of the district's public Design and Architecture Senior High, a magnet school known as DASH. In 2003, German sculptor Thomas Kiesewetter served as unofficial artist-in-residence for several months, producing large-scale sculptures in a space provided by Robins; several of these have since been shown in assorted Design District venues. For the past two years, Miami artists Tao Rey, Martin Oppel and Bhakti Baxter have shared a studio space in one of Robins's buildings; their recently opened Placemaker Gallery (more this later) occupies a storefrnnt owned by Robins.

During ABMB 2002, the Design District offered a sprawling art festival. Over 50 exhibitions and events wore presented in area showrooms and galleries, with an additional 20 in Dacra-owned spaces. Many of the latter came about when various galleries and art organizations petitioned Robins for the loan of space. Highlights including a jutted exhibition of works by members of the Miami Art Exchange, a group of artists without commercial gallery ties organized by gallery owner Bernice Steinbaum, and a show of Lucy Orta's "Connector Wear," jointly presented by Florida Atlantic University and DASH, which consisted of interconnected clothing units (individual silver rain jackets joined by extra "sleeves") later donned in a performance by 100 children.

Works from the Craig and Ivelin Robins collection were situated in several Design District locations, among them the Dacra storefront office and the huge lobby of the Buick Building. Permanently installed in the latter is Rirkrit Tiravannija's Untitled (Playtime) of 1997, a child-scale model of architect Philip Johnson's 1949 Glass House (it measures 16 by 28 by 6 feet 4 inches).

In recent months, Robins and his curator, Tiffany Chestler, have reviewed dozens of letters from artists, galleries, alternative spaces and arts groups requesting the loan of space for the period of the fair. Among those who have been accepted are Deitch Projects, New York (presenting Kehinde Wiley's "hip hop Baroque" chapel), the University of Florida (for a faculty show curated by Steinbaum) and local artist/curator Odalis Valdivieso (for a show of 17 artists of Latin American and Hispanic descent). At the Design District block party on the evening of Dec. 4, Tiravanija is scheduled to present a new cooking performance. Opening (with fireworks) on the same date for one night only is "Miami Midtown Midway," an art carnival by Miami artist George Sanchez, located in the Buena Vista railroad yard in Wynwood; the elaborate project is underwritten by developer Michael Samuel, who owns the yard. In addition to a 50-foot Ferris wheel and platforms for performance artists and musicians, the carnival features a midway framed by 20 sideshow banners, each devoted to a South Florida collector or collector couple (one shows "The Great Margulies," a lion tamer).

Alternative Spaces & Art Schools

At the time of the cancelled ABMB 2001, Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz had planned to present an exhibition of work by young Miami artists in their home. Delays in the construction of their newest set of galleries led

Rosa to approach Robins for the loan of a space. The result was "Humid," a group show curated by Dominic Molon that inaugurated what is now known as the Moore Space, a 10,000-square-foot showroom in the Moore Furniture Company building. This 1920s structure has become an important venue for contemporary art. In May 2003, the Moore Space, whose facility, programs and catalogues had been wholly supported by the de la Cruzes and Robins, was given nonprofit status. Eugenio Lopez, founder of Mexico City's Coleccion Jumex, now provides additional financial support. Silvia Karman Cubina, an independent curator from Puerto Rico, has been appointed gallery director.

This past summer, the Moore Space featured "... Butt Seriously: A Show About Humor," curated under Cubina's direction by Aja Albertson, a student at New World School of the Arts. Albertson integrated work by a few fellow students, among them Jiae Hwang, Pepe Mar and Ali Prosch, into an exhibition featuring more established artists from Miami and elsewhere. Standouts were sculptures by Robert Chambers and drawings by Hwang. Among the pieces by the former was a sculpture in black marble, based on the ethanol (alcohol) molecule, which strongly resembles a poodle. Hwang, an adept draftsman, presented an intricately worked wall mural in Day-Glo colors featuring a cornucopia of junk foods and candy; eyes and partial faces peek out, as if to beckon or spy. This exhibition grew out of the Moore Space's commitment to working closely with students at New World and DASH, the latter located directly across the street from the Moore building.

In addition to mounting four exhibitions a year and offering various public programs, the Moore Space plans to establish a curator-in-training program that will draw from the local community. A sharpened focus on curatorship is something Miami currently could use; given the variety and sophistication of Miami area work, there is a need for a critical framework.

Opening this month at the Moore Space is a show organized by Hans Ulrich Obrist, a curator at ARC/Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville tie Paris. It consists of a site-specific installation by Jim Lambie titled Paradise Garage, videos by Shanghai-based Yang Fudong (including Seven intellectuals in the Bamboo Forest) and "a sonic event" co-curated by Philippe Parreno (the show runs through Mar. 31, 2004).

Locust Projects, situated in an unmarked yellow warehouse in Wynwood, is Miami's leading artist-run alternative space. The venture was founded in 1999 by three artists, painter/sculptor Westen Charles, photographer/video artist Elizabeth Withstandley and the performance artist known simply as Cooper. Since then, it has earned both respect and support (financial and otherwise) from the Miami art community. Charles is currently Locust's director, and Gean Moreno, an abstract painter, is assistant director. In 2001, the space became nonprofit and acquired a board of directors. Locust is funded by private donations together with support from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.

Dedicated to experimental work, the Locust Projects program offers a well-considered mix of local (Charo Oquet, Wendy Wischer, Ivan Depena, Jose Reyes and others) and international artists. During ABMB 2003, it presents the work of New York artist Nathan Carter and a new video by the British team Nick Relph and Oliver Payne.

The House is another important artist-run alternative space. It was founded in December 2000 in a modest, two-story wood-frame house in the Edgewater section of Miami, near downtown, by the three artists who live there--Tao Rey, Martin Oppel and Bhakti Baxter. About once every month they would showcase new work by themselves and their peers, forming a core group of about 15-20 young artists. They drew favorable attention, and, in 2001, Bonnie Clearwater mounted "The House at MOCA," which introduced their work to the wider public [see A.i.A., Dec. '01]. Many of those featured in the show, among them the three founders of The House as well as Natalia Benedetti, Jason Hedges and Daniel Arsham, have since become highly visible figures on the Miami scene, their work moving into several major Miami collections. While The House continues in its original quarters, in October 2003, Placemaker Gallery opened in a 5,000 square-foot storefront in a Design District building owned by Craig Robins; Oppel and Arsham are its co-directors. According to the press release announcing its opening, Placemaker is intended to serve, through selling art works, as a "fundraising entity" for The House, which the artists hope will thus be able to "maintain uncontaminated autonomy over its program."

Tao Rey, whose solo show "and I quote" opened Placemaker, has for several years been developing a body of work based on the evocative power of the written word; here he showed lyrical, calligraphic writing on elegant, monochromatic paintings. Placemaker's December exhibition, titled "Ever," is made up of artists from The House as well as a few more established participants from Miami and New York. The House proper is showing the work of a New York collective, SALT. In exchange, the artists from SALT will feature the work of The House/Placemaker artists in April 2004 at the Guild & Greyshkul Gallery in New York.

Many of the artists associated with The House, like several who have shown at the Moore Space, Locust Projects and elsewhere, attended New World School of the Arts. New World is an innercity, magnet public high school for the arts as well as a four-year arts college offering a B.F.A. For several years it has turned out some of the city's most interesting young artists. The students learn from a faculty of actively exhibiting midcareer artists, among them Maria Martinez-Canas [see review in this issue, p. 112], Carol K. Brown and Karen Rifas. Westen Charles and Wendy Wischer are on the high-school faculty. Gallery owner Fred Snitzer is on the college faculty as well, which helps him keep in touch with the emerging scene. Snitzer's summer '03 exhibition, "Made in Miami: Alumni of the New World School of the Arts," featured a host of Miami's young talents, several of whom are part of the gallery's regular stable.

Students and recent graduates of New World (like those of DASH, the University of Miami, F.I.U. and elsewhere, although students from these other schools have yet to show promise in equal numbers) are among the first generation of Miami artists to reap the full benefits of the city's flourishing art community. While these young artists' frames of reference do not generally go back beyond the past few years (the '60s being, for them, as for so many art students, something of a dark age), the work they produce is savvy with regard to contemporary trends. Although Art Basel Miami Beach was surely not organized for their benefit, from their viewpoint it might as well have been, given the opportunities for learning and exposure that it has afforded.

The Art Center/South Florida is the last bastion of contemporary art on Lincoln Road. It recently initiated a program of three-month residencies for selected students from New World School of the Arts. It also offers subsidized studio space for artists, who in exchange open their studios to the public. While some of the work to be found there is sub-par, a number of well-known Miami artists occupy its studios, among them Franklin Einspruch, Annie Wharton, Gabriel Delponte, Vickie Pierre, Nina Ferre, Karina Chechik and Luciana Abait. In an attempt to revitalize the Art Center's often-lackluster exhibition program, Jeanna Yoo, an independent curator from San Francisco, was invited to curate an exhibition of work by resident artists during ABMB 2003.

The fact that, in addition to many private initiatives, the Design and Wynwood districts are increasingly seeing the development of nonprofit spaces and other organizations with long-term plans bodes well for the future of art in these neighborhoods. Even if much of the Design District were eventually to go the way of Lincoln Road, developing to the point that artists and galleries would be priced out of the area, a number of independent factors suggest that the larger gallery district could remain healthy and vital.

Galleries

For more than 25 years, Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables has served as the prime area for the display and sale of Latin American art. Gary Nader Fine Art, which shows the work of Matta, Wifredo Lam, Botero, Julio Larraz and many others, has long assumed a leadership role through its organization of exhibitions, auctions, publications and, more recently, art fairs devoted exclusively to Latin American art. Cernuda Arte, owned and directed by Ramon Cernuda, a collector of Cuban art and a major force behind Miami's Cuban Museum of Art and Culture during the 1980's (it closed in the early '90s [see A.i.A., Feb. '92]), opened in fall 2000. Just off Ponce de Leon Boulevard is Artspace/Virginia Miller Gallery, which since 1974 has shown both Latin art and work from the U.S. and Europe.

Although Fred Snitzer will move his gallery to a warehouse space in the Wynwood area in mid-March '04, for the moment it remains in a warehouse neighborhood adjoining Coral Gables, in a building shared with Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, the latter a branch of a Buenos Aires gallery that primarily shows art from South America. Snitzer, whose gallery goes back more than 25 years, has cultivated some of South Florida's leading artists and is today Miami's most prominent art dealer. For years he was frustrated at the paucity of interest in Miami-based artists, but his persistence has begun to pay off (six of the artists selected for MAC's "Ten Floridians" are in his stable).

During ABMB 2002, Snitzer mounted a show by Hernan Bas titled "First Comes the Blood, then Comes the Boys." Bas, whose work consists of drawings, paintings and installations, has shown with the gallery since 1998. He had his first museum solo in the special projects pavilion at MOCA in March 2002. While the paintings in his MOCA exhibition focused on the implicitly sexual bonds formed by adolescent boys, in a style influenced by the illustrations found in vintage magazines, the male bonding rituals pictured in the Snitzer show assumed a more sinister tone, as evidenced by the liberal use of red ink (blood) as well as various occult symbols. For ABMB 2003, Bas is producing an installation in the raw space of Snitzer's new Wynwood gallery.

This past fall, Snitzer exhibited laser prints by Danish-born Miami artist Mette Tommerup, who employs digital technologies to contort or blur figurative images in highly painterly ways. The often violently erotic drawings of Naomi Fisher (better known for her large color photographs of a similar ilk) and a new installation by Chambers are on view at the gallery during ABMB 2003. This mouth, Snitzer is also showing Chambers's work in an empty design showroom building on the Wynwood/Design District border, lent to him by furniture and carpet design entrepreneur Stephanie Odegard. The New World School of the Arts has work in the upstairs space. An adjoining building has been lent by Odegard to Miami-based artists Robert Miller and Carlos Betancourt.

A high-profile relative newcomer in the Design District is the Kevin Bruk Gallery, established in late 2000. In sparsely hung, handsomely designed shows, Bruk regularly features work by Miami artists as well as by New Yorkers and internationally known figures. He has presented solo exhibitions of work by Peter Halley, Fabian Marcaccio and Warren Isensee, all based in New York, by Tokyo-based Japanese photographer Shoichi Aoki, and by Miamians Annie Wharton, David Rohn, Gean Moreno and Pablo Tamayo. A smart show in April 2003 featured work by three women, all of whom use photographs to explore issues of voyeurism and identity. Stephanie Diamond and A.L. Steiner both live in New York (although Steiner is a native Miamian); Francie Bishop Good lives and works in Fort Lauderdale. Good's "Carly as Everywoman" series consists of large, digitally manipulated photographs in which the face of her young niece is superimposed upon those of a variety of women from different cultures and backgrounds. In conjunction with ABMB, the gallery is presenting two artists from New York, abstract painter Alexander Ross in the main space and neo-realist painter Doug Wada in the project room. The gallery's "Art Positions" container offers an installation consisting of a grid with compartments measuring 30 by 40 inches, within which each artist associated with the gallery--the 18 artists in Bruk's stable as well as a host of "friends"--has made a work.

Next door to Bruk is the Daniel Azoulay Gallery, whose owner is a former fashion photographer. Although the gallery is largely devoted to photography (having presented Joyce Tenneson, David Levinthal, Horst P. Horst and Alessandra Sanguinetti), work in other mediums is shown as well. Miami gallery veteran Barbara Gillman, who has relocated numerous times, continues to represent some interesting Miami-based artists, among them sculptor Robert Thiele, painter Janet Paparelli and ceramist Peter Kuentzel. Her gallery is now resituated in a Design District space shared with an architectural firm; Gillman opened in Octoher 2003 with a show of Rosenquist prints.

The nearby Casas Riegner, directed by Catalina Casas, focuses on advanced work in various mediums, much of it conceptually based, by both established and emerging Latin diaspora artists. Recent solo and group exhibitions have featured Maria Fernanda Cardeso (Sydney), Liliana Porter (Rye, N.Y.), Ester Partegas (New York City), Matilde Marin (Buenos Aires), Sandra Ramos (Havana), Patricio Reig (Barcelona) and Leyden Rodriguez-Cassanova, Eugenio Espinosa and Frances Trombly (all from Miami). Silvana Facchini recently closed her Design District gallery to enter into a joint venture with the Jacob Karpio Gallery from Costa Rica (the latter made an impressive showing in both ABMB 2002 and in Art Miami the following month). The Karpio Facchini Gallery, which opens in Wynwood in January '04, will represent a number of artists who deserve to be more widely known, especially the Costa Rica-born Priscilla Monge and Cinthya Soto.

At a one-block remove from the Design District is the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, which relocateded from Greene Street in New York to a spacious, two-story, modernist building in February 2000. Steinbaum is a dynamo who has contributed to the Miami art community through her gallery and its lively and varied exhibition program, through her various independent curatorial projects and through her founding of Miami Art Exchange for unaffiliated artists. Upon arriving in Miami, Steinbaum quickly absorbed into her stable a number of midcareer Miami artists, many of considerable local reputation, who previously lacked strong gallery representation. Among them were Ruben Torres-Llorca, Ana Albertina Delgado, Edouard Duval-Carrie, Maria Brito, Karen Rifas and Robert Huff. Steinbaum gradually took on younger figures such as Glexis Novoa, whose exhibition of highly detailed drawings of fantasy cityscapes on marble was among the highlights of the 2002-03 season. An installation by Novoa will appear in the gallery this month, while Santo Domingo-born Elia Alba will exhibit in the project room.

As a further manifestation of her commitment to the local scene, during the past year Steinbaum purchased, refurbished and then sold to artists at low cost a series of studio lofts in the Little Haiti neighborhood. She is currently looking for further properties to develop for artist studios and housing near the Design District and Wynwood. In late May 2004, Steinbaum's gallery will present "For the Birds," a show which will consist of birdhouses, both real and imagined, by about 50 artists, architects and landscape architects who were invited to participate in the project. The show will tour for at least two years across the U.S., the latest in a series of traveling invitationals the Steinbaum gallery has organized.

Just sooth of Steinbaum is Rocket Projects, opened in June 2003 by Nina Arias and Nick Cindric. Cindric previously owned galleries in Boca Raton and Port Lauderdale; Arias worked as director of the Kevin Bruk Gallery (and of an "underground" gallery at her loft apartment). That Rocket Projects opened to crowds and much fanfare during the summer mouths reveals the extent to which the Miami art world has become a year-round phenomenon. Its debut show was "Customized," consisting of sculptural projects with architectural references; included were Daniel Arsham, Martin Oppel, David Rohn and George Sanchez. Arsham's piece was a small gray model of a parking garage complete with tiny streetlights; seen from overhead, the structure formed the word "regret" written in cursive script. The gallery's project room held an installation by the local collaborative FeCuOp, consisting of Jason Ferguson, Christian Curiel and Brandon Opalka.

The gallery intends to focus on emerging artists from Miami and elsewhere. This month, an abstract painting show titled "Beautiful Pressure" features work by Opalka and Emilio Perez (both of whom Arias featured in Scope New York 2003), as well as by fellow Miamian Annie Wharton, San Francisco artist William Swanson and San Antonio-based artist Kim Squaglia. In a huge space next, door, lent to Rocket Projects by its landlord, Jeff Morr, three installations appear: a collective drawing by FeCuOp, a site-specific piece by David Rohn, and a video lounge with work by five young Miami artists. In Scope Miami 2003, Rocket Projects will present a mixed-medium installation by Odalis Valdivieso.

Also in the Wynwood district is the Dorsch Gallery, a 5,000-square-foot warehouse space. For almost a decade before moving to this space in 2000, Brook Dorsch operated a gallery out of his second-floor apartment south of downtown; he now lives in his gallery's back room and uses an empty house next door for installations and performances. Dorsch presents Miami artists both in solo and group shows. In January 2003, paintings by Miami resident Robert Miller were shown in the main space [see A.i.A., Nov. '03], and an installation by Rene Barge appeared in the project room. The latter, titled "tinte y textura," consisted of 11 small, subtle abstract paintings in tones of blue hanging on the walls of a dimly lit room; a meditative electronic hum created a tranquil environment, a happy pairing with Miller's abstractions with a Buddhist theme. A very different mood was generated by the mixed-media installation of the Miami art duo Guerra de la Paz in the house next door. Guerra de la Paz consists of Alain Guerra and Neralda de la Paz, who have been collaborating since 1996; together their names mean "war of peace." Their installation was a cohesive, multipart work about desire, eroticism and Christ.

Dorsch exhibited Franklin Einspruch's heavily impastoed portraits and nudes in February 2003, followed by abstract work by Miami artists curated by Einspruch in April. Dorsch is currently presenting a large group show of his regulars titled "CODE"; included are Mary Malm, Jordan Massengale, Marie-Jose Arjona, Ralph Provisero, Carolina Salazar, Claudia Scalise, Kyle Trowbridge, Kerry Ware, Mark A. Koven and Brian Reedy.

In 2000, Genaro Ambrosino moved from an enormous, double warehouse around the corner from the Snitzer Gallery into a considerably smaller storefront across the street from MOCA on 125th Street in North Miami. While he no longer produces exhibitions of the scale and ambition he did previously, Ambrosino represents a host of prominent Miamians whose work he intends to promote internationally. (In February '03, at the invitation of curator Antonio Zaya, the Ambrosino Gallery participated in the "Up and Coming" section of the ARCO fair in Madrid, exhibiting the work of Gavin Perry, Beatriz Monteavaro and William Cordova; returning to Madrid in '04, the gallery will present Monteavaro, Cordova and Vickie Pierre.)

Ambrosino also represents Pepe Mar, a young, New World artist whose work appeared in the gallery's project room in November 2002. In addition to producing collages of considerable charm using images cut from magazines, Mar creates witty paintings and assemblages employing stuffed animals both as referents and painting tools. Gavin Perry, a more established artist who showed at the gallery this September, produces highly stylized abstract paintings and sculptures that feature unexpected amalgams of materials and surfaces. William Cordova has been showing internationally since 1999 and both exhibits his own work and curates exhibitions at Ambrosino. "No More Lonely Nights," a show consisting of a site-specific installation and drawings by Cordova which thematically fuse urban culture and ancient Andean spirituality, opened in the projects pavilion at MOCA in late November. On view across the street at Ambrosino is a solo show devoted to the work of Monteavaro.

Although a few other galleries have opened in close proximity to both Ambrosino and MOCA, the emergence of a North Miami Arts District "scene" has not quite materialized, except when the galleries stay open in conjunction with evening openings or jazz concerts at MOCA. Of the other galleries in the area, Ingalls & Associates (formerly Javogue and Ingalls Fine Art), next door to Ambrosino, can be counted on for strong exhibitions. The gallery is owned and operated by Chris Ingalls, who had been Ambrosino's longtime assistant at his previous gallery, in the past few months the gallery has shown two midcareer New York artists, David Baskin and Peter Barrett. In December, Ingalls & Associates features a show of British painter Torie Begg. In the Design District during ABMB 2003, Craig Robins has provided Ingalls and Brian Muller, the publisher of the British art magazine contemporary, space in which to present the exhibition "212121painting," which features "21 artists at the beginning of the 21st century with 21 positions on painting." In mid-September, Ingalls & Associates began to share part of its space with Jane Hart's enterprise, lemon sky: projects and editions, which operated in L.A. for six years but recently relocated to North Miami. Lemon sky produces and sells moderately priced, limited-edition prints and multiples.

A block away from Ingalls & Associates on 125th Street is the Leonard Tachmes Gallery. A longtime collector, Tachmes opened the gallery to promote Miami-based artists; its second anniversary was celebrated this fall. A current group show of gallery regulars includes Rebecca Guarda, Norman Liebman, Tall Rickards, Matt Rush, Carlos de Villasante and others. A few miles east on the same street is Kane Concourse on Bay Harbor Island, for about 45 years the location of the Dorothy Blau Gallery, which sold blue-chip contemporary art (Frankenthaler, Noland, Warhol, Lichtenstein and others) to three generations of Miamians. The gallery was recently closed, symbolically laying to rest the first incarnation of Miami's contemporary art scene.

Conclusion

What is most remarkable today about Miami's art community is its spirit of cooperation and mutual support. A synergy exists between artists, collectors, curators, dealers and other art professionals. Collectors play active and highly visible roles in supporting the local scene. Dealers tend not to be possessive about their artists, but share them with other galleries, glad for the artists' further exposure. Artists frequently come together in groups to exhibit. Independent curators and writers focus attention on the current scene.

While Miami's seven major art institutions ensure that the city is well provided with exhibitions, programming and events, in the future, yet another institution may be needed. The city now has some of the most extensive collections of contemporary art and photography to be found anywhere, and these collections, one expects, will continue to flourish and grow. The question inevitably arises: where are these collections to go? Many Miami collectors are, of course, opening private museums, but is that really the answer? MAM's move to a larger facility is not likely to solve the problem, as few major Miami collectors seem willing to throw their total support behind this institution as it exists today. (Although most of the city's collectors assist MAM in various ways, the general consensus seems to be that the museum stands at a remove from the cutting edge.) MOCA may seem a likely candidate, but the fact that it is situated in North Miami, a wholly separate city, does not work in its favor. A possible scenario is that at some point in the future, Miami collectors will come together to form a new institution. For the moment, the problem posed by an abundance of riches is a fine problem to have.

Also uncertain is whether Art Basel will continue in Miami; a five-year tryout period was originally projected. Could the Miami art scene sustain its current momentum independent of Art Basel? While it is difficult to imagine that the local art market would be able to support all the galleries that have opened recently, the best of these will probably continue to flourish, as the work they show is strong, the numbers of local collectors ever-increasing and art tourism, with or without ABMB, growing. If Art Basel has helped propel Miami's contemporary art scene onto the world stage, the city's own considerable merits suggest that it will remain there, well into the future.

With special thanks to James Rondeau and Dominic Molon for having shared their impressions of the Miami scene with me.

Author: Roni Feinstein is an art writer and historian who lives in Boca Raton.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group