Rehousing a Miami Collection
THE annual Art Basel Miami Beach dinner parties hosted by Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, two of the area’s most prominent art collectors, were once the fair’s most coveted ticket. But so many guests would arrive at the couple’s Key Biscayne mansion — one year, over 1,000 party-crashers tried to talk or sneak their way inside — that the bash has since been drastically scaled down. But this week Basel party people will find the de la Cruz home not only quiet but relatively empty.
Over the last month, much of the de la Cruz art collection has been moved into a new three-story, 30,000-square-foot building in Miami’s Design District, set to open to the public on Dec. 3. It’s the latest example of what the critic Tyler Green recently christened the Miami Model: pre-eminent art collectors opening their own de facto museums.
The De La Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space (23 NE 41st Street; 305-576-6112; delacruzcollection.org) not only follows similar endeavors owned by local über-collectors like Mera and Don Rubell, Ella Fontanals Cisneros, and Martin Margulies, its exhibition area exceeds that of both the Miami Art Museum and North Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
Though the de la Cruzes have previously donated art to MOCA, the couple have no reservations about striking out on their own. “Our museums are young,” Mrs. de la Cruz said on a recent afternoon inside the Art Space, straining to be heard above the crew of workmen sawing and hammering away in an attempt to finish by the scheduled opening. “They don’t have the room to show a collection of this size.”
The first floor features a staircase running up the back wall, affording an overhead view of several huge Cosima von Bonin sculptures riffing on icons of war. If all that gunplay becomes a bit heavy-handed, the second floor has several rooms devoted to female artists exploring issues of self-identity, pairing well-established international stars like Tracey Emin and Rachel Harrison with the local artists Consuelo Castañeda, Naomi Fisher and Cristina Lei Rodriguez.
“You can tell people ‘Meet me by the bird,’ ” Mrs. de la Cruz quipped, referring to an untitled 42-foot-by-24-foot billboard created by the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Earmarked for the Art Space’s exterior, this 1995 piece features a grainy black-and-white photo of a lone bird silhouetted against an empty Miami sky. The haunting image was intended as a memorial to Mr. Gonzalez-Torres’s companion, Ross Laycock, who died from AIDS in 1991.
“There’s a discreet beauty to a lot of Felix’s work,” Mrs. de la Cruz said. “You can’t put it next to an artist who’s screaming at you.”
Accordingly, much of the Art Space’s third floor is given over entirely to Mr. Gonzalez-Torres’s conceptual installations, including his signature candy spills and paper stacks — the former in a pile that adds up to his and Mr. Laycock’s combined weight, the latter printed with ephemeral pastoral images.
“Every collector needs to realize you can’t take it with you,” Mrs. de la Cruz said. “The works will either go to an institution, which might not be able to show them; to your kids, who might not want them; or to an auction house.” She flashed a wry grin. “So why wait? I want to organize it all and show it now.”
THE annual Art Basel Miami Beach dinner parties hosted by Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, two of the area’s most prominent art collectors, were once the fair’s most coveted ticket. But so many guests would arrive at the couple’s Key Biscayne mansion — one year, over 1,000 party-crashers tried to talk or sneak their way inside — that the bash has since been drastically scaled down. But this week Basel party people will find the de la Cruz home not only quiet but relatively empty.
Over the last month, much of the de la Cruz art collection has been moved into a new three-story, 30,000-square-foot building in Miami’s Design District, set to open to the public on Dec. 3. It’s the latest example of what the critic Tyler Green recently christened the Miami Model: pre-eminent art collectors opening their own de facto museums.
The De La Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space (23 NE 41st Street; 305-576-6112; delacruzcollection.org) not only follows similar endeavors owned by local über-collectors like Mera and Don Rubell, Ella Fontanals Cisneros, and Martin Margulies, its exhibition area exceeds that of both the Miami Art Museum and North Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
Though the de la Cruzes have previously donated art to MOCA, the couple have no reservations about striking out on their own. “Our museums are young,” Mrs. de la Cruz said on a recent afternoon inside the Art Space, straining to be heard above the crew of workmen sawing and hammering away in an attempt to finish by the scheduled opening. “They don’t have the room to show a collection of this size.”
The first floor features a staircase running up the back wall, affording an overhead view of several huge Cosima von Bonin sculptures riffing on icons of war. If all that gunplay becomes a bit heavy-handed, the second floor has several rooms devoted to female artists exploring issues of self-identity, pairing well-established international stars like Tracey Emin and Rachel Harrison with the local artists Consuelo Castañeda, Naomi Fisher and Cristina Lei Rodriguez.
“You can tell people ‘Meet me by the bird,’ ” Mrs. de la Cruz quipped, referring to an untitled 42-foot-by-24-foot billboard created by the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Earmarked for the Art Space’s exterior, this 1995 piece features a grainy black-and-white photo of a lone bird silhouetted against an empty Miami sky. The haunting image was intended as a memorial to Mr. Gonzalez-Torres’s companion, Ross Laycock, who died from AIDS in 1991.
“There’s a discreet beauty to a lot of Felix’s work,” Mrs. de la Cruz said. “You can’t put it next to an artist who’s screaming at you.”
Accordingly, much of the Art Space’s third floor is given over entirely to Mr. Gonzalez-Torres’s conceptual installations, including his signature candy spills and paper stacks — the former in a pile that adds up to his and Mr. Laycock’s combined weight, the latter printed with ephemeral pastoral images.
“Every collector needs to realize you can’t take it with you,” Mrs. de la Cruz said. “The works will either go to an institution, which might not be able to show them; to your kids, who might not want them; or to an auction house.” She flashed a wry grin. “So why wait? I want to organize it all and show it now.”
Source: New York Times
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