Florida town turns from crime capital to cultural haven - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

Jennifer Bonner and Christian Stayner's plan to convert abandoned houses into small businesses

Florida town turns from crime capital to cultural haven 

The Art Newspaper

By Julia Halperin

Opa-locka hopes to lure artists and galleries from nearby Miami

A former Florida state senator is teaming up with the Miami-Dade County cultural department to lure artists and galleries to a small town 13 miles north of Miami.

Opa-locka, which in 2004 had the highest rate of violent crime in the United States, has received more than $20m in federal funding to promote affordable housing and cultural development. Two recent grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) are supporting more than ten public art projects there. The artist Walter Hood is creating a landscape design in order to prevent the streets from flooding, while Jennifer Bonner and Christian Stayner are converting abandoned houses into small businesses to be managed by locals.

“Because we are a nonprofit, we’re looking to do this in a sustainable way,” says Willie Logan, the chief executive of the Opa-locka Community Development Corporation. “We aren’t going to kick artists out to build condominiums once the property values go up.”

Logan’s team has been driving artists from Miami to Opa-locka to show them available spaces—and word is travelling fast. Since purchasing studio space in Opa-locka two months ago, the artist Carlos Betancourt, who formerly had a studio in Wynwood, says he has “received several inquiries about studio space from artists as far away as Williamsburg [Brooklyn]”. 

You can find the whole article here

 

 

The Gallerist review of PAMM - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

Not Just for Snowbirds: Forget the Beach—Miami’s Hometown Museum Is Heating Up
BY Andrew Russeth, The Gallerist

From the article;  ...What is particularly heartening about PAMM is that it not only avoids the pratfalls that have plagued many other recent art museums by globetrotting architects—there are no ridiculously angled walls, no awkwardly proportioned spaces, no wasted space, as in Zaha Hadid’s Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati or Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum or Herzog & de Meuron’s own Walker Art Center expansion—but it is also sensitive to the needs of its users.

Galleries vary in size as they flow gracefully one to the other, from enclosed spaces to those with floor-to-ceiling windows, gleaming with natural light. A wide stairwell that connects the first and second floors comfortably doubles as a screening space for videos, with seats set up along part of it. (Offices are on the third floor.) A tall project room, occupied now by a stunning geometric mobile by Monika Sosnowska that resembles scaffolding whipped up in a tornado, will nicely facilitate gargantuan contemporary installations, but its relatively modest size will give smaller works a fighting chance. This is a museum focused on an intimate and inviting experience of art. It recalls Peter Zumthor’s sublimely meditative Kolumba museum in Cologne, a comparison I owe to designer and gallerist Prem Krishnamurthy. (Even the rather weak retrospective of Chinese superstar artist Ai Weiwei looks good there.)

The museum’s holdings are, however, another matter. Since it has only been buying for less than 20 years, there are few major pieces and few blue-chip trophies (not always such a bad thing), but the inaugural hang of its collection, titled “Americana” and organized by Tobias Ostrander, supplemented by loans, is uniformly excellent, intermingling established American and European artists with far-lesser-known Latin Americans...

You can read the whole article here

PAMM website

I have yet to make it to the new museum, I'm hoping to visit sometime next week.  So far the reviews are good to this much anticipated museum.  I have always been impressed with the museums organization, programs and membership outreach and look forward to participating more in their new digs. GL

Video of the Week - Clyde Butcher - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

Clyde Butcher

Florida Trend

In this short video Clyde explains part of his process and the reason he stays with black and white film in the digital age. GL

Florida Trend article found here

Announcing the 2013 winners of the Miami Knight Arts Challenge - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

Winning projects bring art to South Florida neighborhoods from Knight Foundation

Announcing the 2013 winners of the Miami Knight Arts Challenge

Published on November 26, 2013 by Dennis Scholl

Tonight, on the New World Center stage, we’re celebrating 49 local artists, the impact they are having on our cultural community and our city, and their big ideas for the South Florida arts.

Each is a winner of the Miami Knight Arts Challenge, receiving combined $2.72 million. We expect you will be seeing and experiencing their projects soon.
Some are using technology in ways that will reshape how we view art. Others are using art as a lens to celebrate everything that is uniquely South Florida – from our history as a swampland to our historic landmarks like the Miami Marine Stadium and Venetian Pool.

Together, they – and the Knight Arts Challenge winners before them – are helping to create an ecosystem that allows artists to stay here in Miami, to build a career and a name for themselves while creating a sense of community that benefits everybody. As a result, they are pushing the arts beyond Wynwood and Downtown, deeper into our neighborhoods and communities, from South Dade to Opa-locka and Miramar.

Everywhere you go in South Florida, we want you to have an encounter with art. The opening of the Perez Art Museum later this week is testament that Miami is on that path. The challenge winners are fueling the art scene by ensuring art surrounds us all.

We also had one other surprise – the winner of the Knight Arts Challenge People’s Choice Award.



This fall we asked South Florida to vote via text for their favorite of five small or emerging projects – for a chance at an additional $20,000. Each of the nominees hustled, and rallied their communities for votes. I’m excited to share that the winner is Teo Castellanos, a playwright and author who is working to put another Miami story on the stage.

Continue to the Full List of Winners

Art Around the Web - Time Laspe Graffiti - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

Sofles - Limitless

Really well directed and choreographed time laspe video of four graffiti artists having their way with an empty warehouse.  Enjoy!  GL

Fine art helps sell real estate in South Florida - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

Developer and art lover Diego Ojeda, vice president of Rilea Group, talks about Rilea's project, 

"The Bond" in the Brickell area on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2013. CARL JUSTE / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Fine art helps sell real estate in South Florida 

By Ina Paiva Cordle  

icordle@MiamiHerald.com

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/24/3777085/fine-art-helps-sell-condos.html#storylink=cpy

Nine iconic, life-size photographs of celebrities by renowned British photographer Terry O’Neill fill the sales office for The Bond on Brickell, a condominium planned for Miami.

Down the street, shoppers eyeing the Related Group’s Paraiso Bay and SLS Brickell projects are greeted by a huge, Philippe Starck-designed outdoor duck sculpture. And inside the sales center, they are treated to colorful artistic eye candy, including a hand-stitched animal-skin wall rug by Argentine-born artist Agustina Woodgate.

Across town in Doral, huge public art installations are in the works to define Codina Partners’ new multi-use development, whose highlights include the city’s first high-rise condos. 

That art — and scores of other paintings, sculptures and installations — aren’t just on temporary display. Once the dust settles on the towering condo projects, they will remain — or reappear, filling lobbies, pool decks and other common areas of pricey properties.

Across South Florida, real estate developers are increasingly attaching extraordinary — and valuable — art to their designs, creating liveable, virtual museums as a way to market high-end condos to wealthy buyers. 

Brokers are catching on, too.

Aligning with star architects, choosing uniquely designed furniture, inviting curators in for talks, have all become part of the gentrification — or art-ification — of South Florida, propelled by the success of Art Basel Miami Beach, which returns for its 12th year Dec. 5-8. 

“Great cities have great art,” said Carlos Rosso, president of the condo division of the Related Group, which has eight condo projects underway in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, all adorned with art, murals, video installations and sculptures. “We think art gives another dimension to life.”

While developers for years have paired exceptional art with luxury real estate in South Florida, the combination lately has been elevated to a whole new level.

And customers are demanding it.

Ultra-wealthy condo buyers want to be ensconced amid art from the moment they drive up, all the way to their front doors, said Mark Zilbert, president and chief executive of Zilbert International Realty, a Miami Beach-based firm that specializes in high-end properties.

“The idea is that the second you arrive at your building, this is the theme: that art is important,” Zilbert said.

Continue reading the Miami Herald Article

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/24/3777085/fine-art-helps-sell-condos.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/24/3777085/fine-art-helps-sell-condos.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/24/3777085/fine-art-helps-sell-condos.html#storylink=cpy

Gov. Scott: Another Record for Florida Tourism - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

 

  

Gov. Scott: Another Record for Florida Tourism  

On November 15, 2013, in News Releases, by Staff 

 

Florida has already welcomed more than 72 million visitors in 2013

Governor Rick Scott today announced that according to preliminary estimates* released by VISIT FLORIDA – the state’s official tourism marketing corporation – 22.9 million visitors came to Florida in the third quarter of 2013 (July-September), an increase of 1.7 percent over the same period in 2012.  These numbers represent the largest third quarter for visitation in the state’s history.

Governor Scott said, “Today’s announcement of another record quarter for visitation clearly shows ‘It’s Working’ in Florida.  Because every 85 visitors to our state supports one Florida job; a growing tourism industry equates to more jobs for Florida families and a stronger economy.  As we move toward our third consecutive year of record tourism growth, it is clear why the Sunshine State remains the top travel destination across the world. ”
Through the first three quarters of 2013, Florida welcomed 72.6 million visitors – an increase of 3.4 percent over the same period last year.  Visitor spending in Florida for January-August 2013 (last reported month) was $51.8 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 5.8 percent from the same period in 2012.  Direct travel-related employment in Florida for January-August (last reported month) rose 2.8 percent, adding 29,700 jobs since this same time one year ago.  Each of these figures marks a record, making the first three quarters of 2013 the largest nine-month period in the history of Florida’s tourism industry.
“So far this year, we’re up nearly 2.5 million visitors who increased their spending by almost $3 billion, led by a double-digit increase in international visitors,” said Tammy Gustafson, Chair of the VISIT FLORIDA Board of Directors. “This continued momentum is a testament to the strength of VISIT FLORIDA’s marketing efforts, the power of the Sunshine State brand and the dedication of the nearly 1.1 million Floridians who work in the state’s tourism industry.”
An estimated 19.5 million domestic visitors came to Florida during the third quarter of 2013, representing a 0.5 percent increase from the same period in 2012. Florida welcomed 2.9 million overseas visitors in Q3 2013, representing a 10.1 percent increase over Q3 2012, and 516,000 Canadian visitors during the same period, representing a 2.9 percent increase from the previous year.
“Record visitor numbers equate to record visitor spending,” said Will Seccombe, President and CEO of VISIT FLORIDA. “With taxable sales up, occupancy rates up, rental car collections up, bed taxes up and average daily room rates up, Florida’s tourism industry has never been stronger.”
Carol Dover, President and CEO of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association said, “These newly released tourism numbers are encouraging to our more than 10,000 members of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association in our effort to attract over 100 million visitors to the Sunshine State. As Florida’s largest employer, our tourism and hospitality industry is on the front lines each and every day in providing a world class experience to visitors coming to our state for business meetings, conventions, vacations and milestone celebrations. We thank Florida Governor Rick Scott and members of the Florida Legislature for providing a pro-business and pro-family environment which not only attracts national and international tourists, but supports job creation and growth here at home.”
Additional Preliminary Data:

• The  Average Daily Room Rate rose 3.6  percent to $102.69 and the occupancy rate for Florida  hotels increased 1.9 percentage points to 62.7 percent in Q3 2013 compared to Q3 2012.
• Tourism-related employment has lead the state in growth for 41 straight months
• Nearly 13.6 million Florida residents are estimated to have taken a pleasure trip during Q3 2013.
• The share of in-state pleasure trips by residents was 42.3 percent, resulting  in more than 5.7 million pleasure trips in-state – a 6.2 percent increase from the same time last year.
• Traffic  at the state’s five Official Florida Welcome Centers managed by VISIT FLORIDA was up 4.0% in Q3 2013.

To view additional Florida visitor data, go the Research page on VISIT FLORIDA’s media website.

Francie Bishop Good: Not on Allen Street - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

 

 Francie Bishop Good, Grant, before Halloween, October 2010 

Bethlehem, PA, 2010, Pigment print, Courtesy David Castillo Gallery, Miami

Francie Bishop Good: Not on Allen Street

Art and Cultural Center of Hollywood

Nov. 8, 2013 – Jan. 12, 2014

The Center’s main gallery will present a survey of recent photographs by Francie Bishop Good. The artist was born in Bethlehem, PA, and currently lives and works in New York City and South Florida. Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S., Europe and Latin America. It is included in many public and private collections in the United States and abroad and in numerous publications, including Art in America, ART News, and the Miami Herald. Ms Bishop Good is twice recipient of the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, and the State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship. 

Limited edition book available of Francie Bishop Good photographs, designed by Augusto Mendoza; includes an essay by George Slade, and poem by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez.

Art and Cultural Center of Hollywood website
Francie Bishop Good website

Francie is an excellent artist and a huge arts supporter.  She works to support the arts in Broward County through FAB an organization she founded which funds local arts organizations with grants and she continues to donate her talents, time and funds to keep the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art moving forward.  GL 

 

LA Times: George Lucas' planned art museum at the Presidio faces hurdles - posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

George Lucas, shown recently at the AMPAS Governors Awards, has hit a bump in his 

quest to build an art museum at the Presidio in San Francisco. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

By David Ng

November 22, 2013, 11:40 a.m.

George Lucas wants to build his new art museum featuring works from his personal collection at the Presidio in San Francisco. But officials at the famous site are pushing back, having asked the "Star Wars" creator and other competing projects to rethink their designs before a decision is made.

On Thursday, the board of directors of the Presidio Trust met to decide on proposals for developing an eight-acre site across from Crissy Field. Among the proposals vying for physical space is Lucas' art museum as well as  a proposed science-themed center and a mixed-use complex from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. 

"In the interest of having the best project possible for the Presidio, we want to provide one more opportunity for teams to adjust their proposals before we make a selection," said the board in an announcement released on Thursday. It said revised proposals are due Jan. 3.

The board didn't specifically mention Lucas' proposed art museum, which would be called the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum. But the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Presidio board Chairwoman Nancy Bechtle recently met with the newspaper's editorial board during which she expressed reservations about the museum's design.

Bechtle described the design for the museum as "too big" and having an "inappropriate configuration," according to the Chronicle. The design has a faux Beaux Arts style and carries an estimated $700-million price tag.

Lucas made waves in September when he told the New York Times that the Presidio Trust board has been antagonistic to his planned museum and that he would take the museum to Chicago if it were to be rejected in San Francisco.

The director has been an avid collector of art by Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish. The official website for the planned museum features design renderings of the building. 

Last year Lucas sold his company, Lucasfilm, to Disney for a little more than $4 billion. Disney is planning a series of "Star Wars" sequels, with the first in the series expected to be released in 2015.

Full Article found here 
You can check out teh Renderings and read about Lucas' vision for the Museum here; Lucas Cultural Arts Museum website

I know the Presidio and the renderings do show a rather imposing museum.  Right now Crissy field is this beautiful undeveloped space used by everyone.  Lucas has been trying for the Presidio land for years now. I guess I expected a project more integrated with the surroundings and more sensitive to those who already enjoy the great views.  GL