MAM Presents An Exhibition Of South Florida Artists

New Art South Florida
The 2004 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship
for Visual and Media Artists

September 10 - October 31, 2004

Miami, Florida -- Miami Art Museum presents the works of the 13 artists selected as recipients of the 2004 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists. The Consortium program, an alliance of the arts councils of Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Martin Counties, convenes a national panel of arts professionals each year to award $15,000 and $7,500 grants to resident artists. The $15,000 fellowships are the largest such awards provided by local arts agencies in the United States.

New Art South Florida, featuring the 2004 recipients, is on view at MAM from September 10 to October 31, 2004. In organizing the exhibition, MAM aims to broaden public awareness about the SFCC program while highlighting the impact it has had on the South Florida cultural community. Since its inception in 1988, the Fellowship program has awarded grants to more than 120 artists.

Recipients are selected during a two-panel tier process with the participation of regional and national arts experts. The 2004 regional jurors were: Natalia Benedetti, 2002 Fellowship Recipient (Broward County); Hal Bromm, Board member, Key West Art in Public Places; Carol Coombes, Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival; Madeline Denaro, 2002 Fellowship Recipient (Broward County); Cheryl Hartup, Associate Curator, Miami Art Museum; Michael Rush, Director, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art and Carlos de Villasante, 2002 Fellowship Recipient (Miami-Dade County).

This year’s national jurors who made the final selections were: James Elaine, Curator of Hammer Projects at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; Afua Kafi-Akua, Distribution Director of the Third World Newsreel, New York; Tumelo Mosaka, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; James Rondeau, Frances and Thomas Dittmer Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute in Chicago, and Gilbert Vicario, Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, in Boston.

The 2004 Fellowship recipients are:

Miami-Dade County
Clifton Childree
Martin Oppel
Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova
George Sanchez Calderon
Odalis Valdivieso

Broward County
Felipe Aguirre
Colby Katz
Kimberley Maxwell
W.W. Weaver

Palm Beach County
Kevin Boldenow
Amy Broderick

Monroe County
Michel Delgado
Marlene Koenig

“MAM is proud to be the organizer of this year’s exhibition,” said MAM Director Suzanne Delehanty, ”the Fellowship program’s steady commitment to local artists has been inspiring and impressive and we’re glad to have this opportunity to show support for our own talented community.”

In addition to the works on view, MAM’s exhibition of the current recipients includes a section devoted to the impact and history of the South Florida Cultural Consortium. MAM is presenting this section of the exhibition in collaboration with the Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Vasari Project. The mission of the Vasari Project is to identify, collect and maintain materials relative to the development of the visual arts in Miami-Dade County from 1945 to the present. During the run of the exhibition, area artists are invited to contribute relevant documents about their own careers to The Vasari Project in a temporary archive housed at MAM. At the close of the exhibition, the donated materials will be incorporated into the Library System’s Vasari Project collection, housed at the Main Library.

As part of the exhibition, MAM has also created a unique Artist Access Area that functions as a hands-on resource center where both emerging and established artists can attain information on residencies and fellowship opportunities as well as regional, national and international grants. Artists are encouraged to use an online grants directory that MAM compiled to research grant guidelines, download application forms, and compile and submit completed applications.

In addition to complimentary gallery notes providing an overview of the exhibition, MAM will produce a color publication featuring an introductory text by MAM Curator Lorie Mertes, an essay by Helen L. Kohen on the impact of the Consortium in South Florida, and a collection of 13 individual, color fold-outs on each of the 2004 award-winners.

The exhibition is organized by Miami Art Museum and curated by MAM Assistant Director for Special Projects / Curator Lorie Mertes. It is supported by MAM’s Annual Exhibition Fund and The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Arts.

The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowships for Visual and Media Artists is funded in part with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Arts Council, the Montgomery Family Trust, Montgomery & Larson LLP, the Boards of County Commissioners of Broward, Miami-Dade, Martin and Monroe Counties, and the Palm Beach County Cultural Council.

Below is a schedule of Programs in Conjunction with the exhibition. Following the schedule is background information on the Consortium program, the exhibition and the Vasari Project.

Thursday, September 2
Grant Workshop at MAM
5:30 – 7:30pm
How to apply for the SFCC Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists
Rem Cabrera of Miami-Dade County’s Department of Cultural Affairs will run a workshop on how to apply for the SFCC fellowship program.
Free

Tuesday, September 7
Lunch, Look and Listen
11:45 – 1:45pm
MAM Members - Friends Level ($1,000 and above)

MAM Assistant Director for Special Projects / Curator Lorie Mertes, Helen L. Kohen of the Vasari Project and past recipients of the SFCC award discuss the impact of the program on the South Florida cultural community

Thursday, September 9, 2004
Members Preview
6 to 9pm
Celebrate the opening of New Art South Florida featuring the 2004 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship Award Winners. Special guests include a number of past recipients of the award.

September 16
JAM at MAM
5 – 8:30pm
7pm - New Art South Florida Slide JAM. Artists featured in the exhibition present an overview of their work: Amy Broderick, Michel Delgado, Colby Katz, Martin Oppel, Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova
MAM members free; non-members $5

October 21
JAM at MAM
5 -- 8:30pm
7pm - New Art South Florida Slide JAM. Artists featured in the exhibition present an overview of their work: Kevin Boldenow, Clifton Childree, Kim Maxwell; George Sanchez-Calderon
MAM members free; non-members $5

Artist Access Area
September 10 – October 31
Open during regular museum hours
Free admission to artists who mention Artist Access

Publication
Exhibition publication available in the MAM Store. Free Gallery Notes available in the gallery.

Background Information:
The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship For Visual and Media Arts program is the largest regional, government-sponsored grant in the country, awarding $15,000 and $7,500 grants to resident visual and media artists from the counties of Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe.

Since it was established in 1988, The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists has awarded fellowships to more than 120 artists.

Every year, more than 350 artists throughout the region submit their applications for consideration to the South Florida Cultural Consortium’s Fellowship Program for Visual and Media Artists. The Consortium is a partnership of the local arts agencies of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin and Monroe Counties. Applicants submit up to ten slides of recent work in the case of visual artists, with media artists submitting no more than ten minutes of film or video. A regional panel of visual and media art experts from South Florida is convened to provide an initial review of the submissions during an anonymous review process. The regional panel forwards its recommendations to the national panel. The national panel of experts is chosen from major academic and visual arts institutions around the country and given the responsibility of determining the final recipients. During a two-day process, the submissions are viewed in a series of rounds that reduce the selections to those that will subsequently be featured in an exhibition at a visual arts institution in one of the five counties. Available funding to support each county’s awards determines the number of awards presented per county. Merit is determined based on individual accomplishments as evidenced by the work submitted for review, with the highest premium placed on coherent bodies of work.

The Vasari Project
Miami Art Museum has teamed up with the Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Vasari Project to create a special section of the exhibition devoted to an overview of the history and impact of the South Florida Cultural Consortium program.

MAM is collaborating with Helen L. Kohen, former Miami Herald art critic, who heads the Vasari Project for the Library, and Barbara Young, the MDPLS Arts Services Supervisor, to assemble a selection of materials that looks back on the impact of the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship program since its inception in 1988. Among the items featured, are past Consortium catalogues, a timeline of Fellowship Award winners from 1988 to 2004 and documentation that charts the accomplishments of several past recipients since receiving the award.

During the run of the exhibition, area artists are invited to contribute to the Vasari Project items that are relevant to their careers such as show invitations,.posters, personal and business letters, catalogues, books and so forth. These items will be collected in a working archive housed at MAM during the exhibition. At the close of New Art South Florida, the donated materials will be incorporated into the Library’s Vasari Project collection.

Sponsored by the Library System and the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Vasari Project is an outgrowth of the Library System’s artists’ files and permanent collection. The Project’s mission is to identify, collect and maintain materials relative to the development of the visual arts in Miami-Dade County from 1945 to the present. The archive, an ongoing project, is a resource for scholarship, research, and innovation.

Artist Access Area
During the run of the exhibition, Artist Access provides both emerging and established artists with information on regional, national, and international grants, fellowships and residencies. Designed as a working resource center, artists are encouraged to use an internet grants directory compiled by MAM to research grant guidelines, download applications and compile and submit their applications on-line. Basic how-to information and samples of applications and additional resources are available.

General Visitor Information
101 West Flagler St.
Miami, FL 33130
305-375-3000

Secure parking is available adjacent to the museum at 50 NW 2nd Ave. between Flagler Street and NW 1st Street.
$3 with MAM validation.

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