Miami Art Museum
Located at 101 W. Flagler Street, the Miami Art Museum (MAM) was established in 1996, replacing the former Center for the Fine Arts. The extensive collections of contemporary and 20th century art include many of the best international and American artists of the past and present. Representing the diversity of Miami’s ethnic groups, the Museum houses artwork by Carlos Alfonzo, Jose Bedia, Marcel DuChamp, Frank Stella, George Segal, and Lorna Simpson. In both its permanent and traveling exhibitions, and solo presentations by artists such as Ana Mendieta and Vik Muniz, the Museum maintains a cosmopolitan approach to art appreciation. The MAM is the largest art education museum in the area, open to teachers and students from kindergarten through 12th grade for learning, exploring, and sharing through lectures, lunch programs, and educational tours. Various programs and social events are sponsored by the Museum throughout the year, encouraging community participation and visitor appreciation of art in Miami.
There are three distinct galleries in the MAM, which include the 10,000 square foot Upper Level for large scale exhibits, the Plaza Level for permanent artworks by Miami artists, and the New Work gallery, which features first-time showings of contemporary artists. Themes of permanent collections at the Museum have included Miami Currents: Linking Community and Collection, Light and Atmosphere, Between Art and Life by Joseph Cornell, and Gabriel Orozco’s, Visual Poetics: Art and the World. Other paintings and sculpture by Christo, Clemente, Anna Gaskell, Gerhard Richter, Carrie Mae Weems, and numerous others can be viewed at the MAM, as well.
The various exhibitions and displays reflect the significance of Miami as a center of cultural exchange between North, South, Central, and Latin America. Each exhibition incorporates a Visitors Gallery, where viewers can learn and interact. Gallery Notes, essays written by the curators of the MAM, are also provided for information and education. Since its opening in 1996, there have been over 70 exhibitions including Ann Hamilton: the body and the object; Andy Warhol: About Face collection; The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, and George Segal’s A Retrospective in paintings, sculpture, and drawings. Other displays at the MAM included Martin Puryear, African American sculptor, Chilean surrealist painter Matta, Iranian Shirin Neshat’s North American debut of six video and sound installations, and Brice Marden’s paintings of the 90’s. Current exhibits include Lorna Simpson, Mark Dion, and the Charles Cowles collection. In addition, the double portrait Replenishing by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, a native of Cuba now living in Miami, focuses on the past and the present linked together through history and tradition from generation to generation.
The $100 million expansion project proposed in November 2004, to be designed by Pritzker award winners Herzog and de Meuron, was approved in September 2006. The new facility is being built as a part of Museum Park, an urban redevelopment plan designed to replace the present-day Bicentennial Park in an effort to revitalize and encourage tourism to the Miami area. The property, facing Biscayne Bay, will consist of 32,000 square feet of gallery space, a new educational complex with an auditorium, classrooms, library, workshop, café, and outdoor sculpture garden.
Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturday & Sunday, 12 Noon to 5:00 p.m., Third Thursday – 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Christmas and New Years Eve, 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Closed Mondays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years Day.
Admission: adults – $5.00, seniors – $2.50; children under 12, students with ID, & members – free. Second Saturdays & every Sunday – free.
Strollers allowed; wheelchairs available. Parking – $5.00 Cultural Center garage adjacent to the MAM, and two handicap parking facilities also available. Museum store on premises.