A wealthy American couple donated nearly 300 emerging and experimental works to the Miami Art Museum for inclusion in its permanent collection of modern and contemporary art when it reopens later this year in an ambitious new venue.
“It is our way of giving back to Miami all the good that it has given us and, thus, contribute to enriching the artistic and cultural heritage of this community that has given us so much,” Dennis Scholl told Efe today.
This 57-year-old art collector is responsible, together with his wife Debra, for “much of the collection that we have been gathering in the last 35 years” and that “we have raised and pampered” as if it were “our children”.
Among them are works by Simon Starling, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Walead Beshty, Ólafur Elíasson, Liam Gillick, Catherine Opie and Raymond Pettibon, among many others.
For museum director Thom Collins, the couple’s interest in experimental works and emerging artists “fits perfectly with our own sensibility.”
In the same opinion is the curator, Tobias Ostrander, who told Efe that this contribution reinforces the more experimental side of the permanent collection: “Ours is more modern, but not so contemporary” and among the donations there is “a lot of video and a lot of experimentation.”
These works will be incorporated into the collection once the museum closes its current and modest headquarters and reopens next December as the Perez Museum of Art Miami (PAMM), in a new headquarters designed by the award-winning Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, with much more exhibition space.
The museum decided to add the last name Pérez to its name when businessman Jorge M. Pérez, one of the great architects of the real estate revolution that Miami has experienced in recent years, donated 40 million dollars in works and cash.
“We were really inspired by Perez and wondered what we could do. It turns out we had a great art collection, so it seemed like the best idea,” said Scholl, who has lived in Miami for nearly 50 years.
He says he does not feel sorry because “we will be able to enjoy them whenever we want. They are like our children: they have grown up and are leaving home, but we can see them whenever we want.”
The couple hopes to inspire other collectors to help Miami take off as a cultural reference city and cited other predecessors such as Adrieene Arsht, who donated 30 million dollars in 2008 to the Miami performing arts center that now bears her name, or Phillip and Patricia Frost, who in 2011 donated 35 million dollars for the construction of the future Miami Science Museum. which will also bear his name.
“Miami is experiencing an unprecedented cultural explosion. This is a very important moment in the history of our community,” said Scholl, who cited the emerging Wynwood neighborhood as “the perfect example of how art and culture can make a community vibrate.”
The vice president of the Knight Foundation has “special sensitivity” for emerging art because “the more time you spend collecting, the more you learn to value the beauty of ideas.”
A review of the donated works reflects the couple’s predilection for large installations, video as a format and local art, capable of showing the cultural diversity of Miami.
Among the works highlights the first video animation made by the American Raymond Pettibon from his classic comic style drawings, a huge video installation by the Dutch Aernout Mik or two architectural pieces by the British Liam Gillick, made from colored plexiglass and metal structures.
“Our collection is very personal. We have always acquired works that represent a new dimension of how art is made,” says Debra Scholl.
She heads Locust Projects, an arts institution that provides spaces in Miami for artists to experiment with their art without worrying about gallery pressures. Its headquarters are in Wynwood, current reference of alternative art in Florida.
“Your Perfect Lovers”, an intimate sculptural installation by Danish Ólafur Elíasson, will also join the PAMM collection, as well as a selection of twenty photographs by the American Zoe Strauss.
Ostrander explained that the valuation of the works has not yet been completed, although it is expected to be around “a few million dollars.”
In this regard, Scholl explained that being such a new art its prices vary very quickly and “what a few years ago was not worth much, today can be very expensive”, and on the contrary: “The value is in the millions of dollars, but we still do not know how many”.
Fountain: el-nacional.com
