Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

Mark Dion
The South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit:
Mobile Laboratory, 2006
Installation view Pérez Art Museum Miami
Mixed media installation
Dimensions variable
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami,
museum purchase with funds from
the PAMM Collectors Council
Photo credit: Juan Cabrera

MiamiArt & Culture

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Multi-cultural Miami museum gets up and running with some Americana...

Now that the doors of Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) are open after a $200+ million construction project it’s time for the spectacular facility to get down to business. To kick things off, the museum has gathered together what is collectively titled Americana, a series of themed installations which will begin a two-year cycle in the permanent “overview galleries” that form the spine of the exhibition spaces at PAMM.

Looking at 1930 onwards, curator Tobias Ostrander has added works from PAMM’s own growing collection to those of private collections with a commonality based on North and South American production and cultural influence. Americana will be split into two cycles, with the first beginning this month. The six permanent galleries will each host one themed presentation – Desiring Landscape, Sources of the Self, Formalizing Craft, Progressive Forms, Corporal Violence, and Commodity Cultures – with a second cycle beginning in the summer of 2014. Among the highlights of the inaugural event are works by Cuban artist José Bedia, a look back at Chilean Alfredo Jaar‘s Times Square intervention against North American centricity, and Josephine Meckseper’s more recent Thank a Vet. Americana ends in May 2015.

@pamm

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

Alfredo Jaar
A Logo for America, 1987-95
Five cibachrome photographs
mounted on Plexiglas
Edition 3 of 12
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami,
gift of Luis Calzadilla

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

Josephine Meckseper
Thank a Vet, 2008
Walker, mannequin legs, socks, toilet mat,
metal clip stand, stainless steel scouring pad,
underwear packaging, toilet brush, mannequin chest,
T-shirt, motor oil container, and acrylic cube
on mirrored pedestal
72-1/16 x 94-5/16 x 47-1/4 inches
Collection of Pérez Art Museum Miami,
gift of Mimi Floback
Image courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery, NY

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

AMERICANA: Formalizing Craft
Installation view Pérez Art Museum Miami
Photo credit: Daniel Azoulay photography

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

Alfredo Jaar
A Logo for America, 1987-95
Five cibachrome photographs
mounted on Plexiglas
Edition 3 of 12
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami,
gift of Luis Calzadilla

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

BLAH

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

AMERICANA: Desiring Landscape
Installation view Pérez Art Museum Miami
Photo credit: Juan Cabrera

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

José Bedia
Mamá quiere menga, menga de su nkombo
(Mama Wants Blood, Blood of His Bull), 1988
Acrylic on canvas
55 x 78-3/4 inches
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami,
gift of Diane and Robert Moss

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

Oscar Muñoz
Cortinas de baño, 1994
Acrylic on plastic
74 x 28 1/2 inches, each curtain;
5 curtains Installation view Pérez Art Museum Miami
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami,
gift of George M. Safirstein M. D. and Pola Reydburd
Photo credit: Daniel Azoulay photography

Americana — Pérez Art Museum Miami

Alfredo Jaar
A Logo for America, 1987-95
Five cibachrome photographs
mounted on Plexiglas
Edition 3 of 12
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami,
gift of Luis Calzadilla