The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum celebrates first anniversary


In an audio slide show, Carol Damian, director of the Frost Art Museum, reflects on the museum’s first year in its new home.

MIAMI – Amid Art Basel fervor, The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum celebrated the first anniversary of its new building with the opening of The Dahlia Morgan Members Lounge.

Guests to the opening event on Dec. 1 included Patricia Frost, for whom the museum is named; Dahlia Morgan, director emeritus; Carol Damian, current director and chief curator; and other founding members.

“It is difficult to believe that it has only been a year since the museum opened its doors,” said Damian to guests while standing in the newly opened and completed members lounge. “It is incredible the number of people that have come through the new building as well as the great exhibitions we have featured this past year.”

Since opening the new 46,000-square-foot building during Art Basel Miami Beach last year, more than 29,000 people have visited the museum and enjoyed world-class exhibitions. Visitors to the new Frost Art Museum in 2008 were the first to view Modern Masters, one of the inaugural exhibitions and a Smithsonian Institution traveling show that launched its tour at the museum located at Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

The spring brought in an eclectic mix of art with Because I Say So, Selections from The Scholl Collection, where everything from a gold foil CNN chain to posters to a cube of over one million pins are considered art. The spring also brought the annual BFA show, Wake, where FIU art students presented their final projects including a small free standing house on the lake. Art filled the museum both inside and out.

The world-class programming and exhibitions continue at The Frost Art Museum. Its official Art Basel closing event, Breakfast in the Park, draws hundreds of visitors each year, many of whom travel by bus from the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Currently on view is The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, curated by Randy Rosenberg of Art Works for Change. The artists were asked to create works in honor of the Dalai Lama and, as a result, a collection of tapestries, photographs and paintings were created with images, themes and media that mirrors the many roles the Dalai Lama plays around the world. The artists not only pay tribute to the Dalai Lama himself, but also discover and explore other multiple features about the leader and message.

The exhibition includes work by Chuck Close, Laurie Anderson, Bill Viola, Jenny Holzer, Anish Kapoor, Richard Gere, Marina Abramovic, and Michele Oka Doner, among others. The Missing Peace is funded in part by Funding Arts Network and The Charles Wei-Hsun Fu Foundation.

En Vista, a new exhibition by the husband and wife team of photographers Eduardo del Valle & Mirta Gómez takes us on a rare and astonishing journey into the transformation of the human body after death. En Vista offers a strikingly beautiful and memorable selection of 17 chromogenic photographs, printed by the artists from original negatives.

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Continuing the journey into the human condition is celebrated Indian artist Navjot Altaf who uses photography and videos in her installation l a c u n a  i n  t e s t i m o n y in an attempt to listen to the testimonies of those affected in communal riots in India’s Gujarat State in 2002. Her video raises questions about whether one can enumerate and describe often opaque and confounding events and how events in India are relevant to violence and oppression throughout the world.

So what is next for The Frost Art Museum?

“We have now completed three series of installations in our nine beautiful spaces and each time it has been different,” said Damian. “Certainly the present exhibition, The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, has been an opportunity to bring it all together under a theme of peace and compassion, a fitting end to the first year and a challenge for the years to come.”

Media Contact: Jessica Delgado at 305-348-3892.

-FIU-

About The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University:
The Frost Art Museum opened its current 46,000-square-foot state of the art building in November, 2008. Over 29,000 people have visited The Museum in its new building since its opening in November, 2008. Admission to The Museum is always free. The Frost is an AAM accredited museum and Smithsonian affiliate and is located at 10975 SW 17thSt across from the Blue garage and adjacent to the Wertheim Performing Arts Center on the Modesto A. Maidique Campus. Hours of operation are Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sunday noon-5 p.m. Closed on Mondays and most legal holidays. For more information, please visit thefrost.fiu.edu or call 305-348-2890. Find The Frost Art Museum on Twitter (twitter.com/frostartmuseum) and Facebook (facebook.com)

About FIU:
Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, its 17 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. More than 100,000 FIU alumni live and work in South Florida. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University”. In August 2009, FIU welcomed the inaugural class of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu.

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