Will Miami Finally Embrace Latin America?

As a dynamic city at the tip of Florida’s warm peninsula, will Miami at last acknowledge its special cultural and geographical position?

For too long, the cultural momentum embracing Latin America has stalled. “Yes, we have missed opportunities,” admits Miami gallerist Francisco Arevalo. Museums here have been criticized for lacking vision and leadership. They now experience unprecedented changes. Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) (formerly Miami Art Museum) opens in December with its new name and location; longtime North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Director Bonnie Clearwater now leads NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale; longtime Lowe Art Museum Director Brian Dursum steps down in 2014.

Surely the city’s ready to override the status quo.  Bass Museum curator José Diaz, who returned this year after leaving in 2008, notices important developments: “Miami now offers a variety of artist residencies. These residencies allow artists to experience Miami in their own way and for us to meet emerging talent.”

Nevertheless, major international museum exhibits of Latin American artists bypass Miami. This fall, significant exhibits of Antonio Berni, Mira Schendel, and Waltercio Caldas aren’t traveling here.

Why does this keep happening? Independent curator Elizabeth Cerejido offers her opinion: “There are no public institutions in Miami that have committed to the study and exhibition of the artistic production in Latin America, both from a historical perspective and from the context of contemporary art.  I think it’s ironic that Miami is perceived as ‘the gateway to Latin America’ with regard to the arts because few public institutions, if any, actively cultivate working relationships or exchange initiatives with the myriad of cultural institutions in the region. There is reciprocity on a much more ‘grassroots’ level—artists come and go between Latin America and Miami, collectors, etc., but at the institutional level there is still a huge gap and missed opportunity to create a systematic program that articulates a long-term vision for the study and collection of Latin American art within their broader institutional mission.”

Nathan Timpano, University of Miami art history professor who curated “Pan American Modernism” for the Lowe, thinks that gap can be closed. He notes that often such traveling exhibitions “are arranged through intricate networks and connections within the museum world, so it is likely that Miami will begin to attract major exhibitions devoted to art from Latin America in the next few years as PAMM, MOCA, and other museums become globally recognized as institutions devoted to Latin American art.”

Timpano, who teaches theory and criticism in art history courses at UM, adds: “The increased attention on Latin American art in academia is focused on training future art historians, critics, curators and museum professionals in this arena.” He counsels patience while waiting “for the next generation to enact change in Miami’s cultural offerings.”

Roc Laseca, independent researcher with PhD in art theory and cultural prospective from University of La Laguna, has since 2007 divided his time between Miami and Canary Islands. He’s seen growing interest in cultural issues here but wants more. Thus he’s involved with seminar “Latin Off Latin: Collecting Latin American Art Outside Latin America” at Ideobox Artspace.  “Miami is in a key situation,” he says.

María Del Valle, director of ArtCenter/South Florida, thinks that in terms of museums showing major exhibitions of Latin American artists, Miami is “far behind” Houston or Los Angeles. While Miami is indeed “gateway to Latin America” for business, she says this moniker doesn’t fit for culture. Del Valle seeks stronger Latin American connections: “I’m very interested in Central America. Small countries with a tumultuous history of war, genocide, extreme poverty have given us an impressive number of good, young artists. This is something we are going to explore at the ArtCenter.”

PAMM curator Tobias Ostrander says that although Miami cultural institutions have exhibited Latin American art and continue to do so, such efforts “have often felt inconsistent.” PAMM also promises substantive change. “The current program that we are developing at Pérez Art Museum Miami,” Ostrander adds, “seeks to integrate research about South American, Central American and Caribbean art into all aspects of our exhibitions, commissioned projects, time-based arts and education initiatives. The presentation of our permanent collection for the next two years is organized under the title AMERICANA and mixes works from North America, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean within thematic galleries that seek to both highlight and propose conceptual and formal links between artists working in these contexts.”

Will Miami finally embrace its cultural ties to Latin America in addition to the Caribbean? Time will tell, but signs look excellent.