“MyAmi was a city of marble: of sea and of mall (pronounced mol in English), because people only came to the beach and to buy, but we have managed to make it a global city and much of it is due to the commitment we have made to art. “
The one who expresses himself in this way is the mayor of the city, Tomás Regalado, who recognizes that the Miami Art Basel art fair was the big trigger This change brings together every year at the beginning of December thousands of collectors from around the world who come to visit the more than 250 galleries (more than 1,000 inscriptions are presented) from 30 countries and that, in total, exhibit the works of around 2,000 artists in the Convention Center of Miami Beach, which has invested $600 million in its renovation in the face of Art Basel’s threat to move to another city.
The mayor, as it could not be otherwise, draws a very optimistic picture in this regard in which the transformation of the neighborhood of Wynwood of a depressed area of abandoned warehouses in a trendy neighborhood full of artists’ studios, galleries, designer shops and trendy restaurants. “Something similar to what happened in New York with Soho,” says the mayor from his modest office from which you can see the port, which hosts the largest number of cruise ships in the United States every year.
This idyllic vision is partly dismantled by the gallerist Gary Nader, one of the most veteran of the city, who runs a gallery in the neighborhood of Wynwood and who has launched the ambitious project of the NAMLA museum (Nader Art Museum Latin America). Nader states that “Miami has grown like no city in history. After New York and Los Angeles it has become the third skyline of the United States but the cultural offer is very poor. There is only one museum and no collection.”
Still far from Madrid
The gallerist refers to the Perez Art Museum, financed in part by Jorge Pérez, with whom he maintains a dispute in reference to the land on which Nader intends to build the NAMLA. “Miami is not a city, it’s a great resort. I have always said that for a city to be attractive to visitors it has to have three components: security, where I stay and what I will eat, and the third is culture. And the people of Miami still do not understand that cultural tourism is the tourism that spends the most,” concludes the gallerist from an office where you can see works by Picasso, Botero and Wilfredo Lam hanging on the walls.
Collector Ella Fontanals Cisneros abounds in that idea outlined by Nader. “The collectors who have settled in Miami have been very supportive of this change but we are still very far from cities like Madrid, which they mobilize a lot of people interested in art,” says this collector from her home in Coral Gables where she has works by artists as important as Anish Kapoor.
A makeover
Everyone agrees on the importance of Miami Art Basel as a catalyst for changing the image of the city of Miami. The culprits in part of Basel’s landing in Miami are the Rubell family, who have been collecting art for 50 years and who have just opened a new headquarters for their collection in the Allapattah neighborhood. As the director of this collection, Juan Roselione-Valadez, explains, “they were the first to propose Miami to the Art Basel team as one of their venues. So it was a crazy idea.”
The artist Manolo Valdés usually resides in New York but has a huge house in Coral Gables, where he has installed his characteristic monumental sculptures, because he believes that “Miami is a great window not only for the United States but for Latin America” and where he goes on many occasions “fleeing the cold of New York”.
Fountain: https://www.cambio16.com/