Art Basel-Miami Beach: fine fadeout with the de la Cruz Collection

This is a fine place to see art, as well as a place full of generosity, one of the higher virtues. Think of all the greed we’re subjected to in South Florida and call it Minus 100. For the Plus 100 of generosity, go to the de la Cruz art space in the Design District. Thank you, Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz. You used to show your art in your home on Key Biscayne, and now you built this three-story museum on 41st Street just off Miami Avenue to show it. The collection opened to the public during this year’s Art Basel-Miami Beach, as well as by appointment. That’s generous.


And some of the contemporary art is generous, too. In my crude video you can see people taking parts of the conceptual works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres – pieces of candy from one, sheets of fine printed paper from another.



Did you see the string of lights on the floor? The Miami Herald reported spectators stepped on them twice in the early going after the building had its general opening on Thursday, and now pleasant attendants stand nearby to warn people away from the lights. They are more art by the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

The Herald had a story warmly accepting this new art treasure building for Miami, and also helped me understand that Jim Hodges was the artist who created the wonderful flower curtain that was my star of the days of Art Basel.

For more background direct from Rosa de la Cruz, kindly turn to this link to a video by the New York Times in 2007.

FORGOT TO INCLUDE: This link to the Web site http://delacruzcollection.org/ with photos of the new building.

Your blogger appears briefly in this next video of the Shepard Fairey exhibit. Fairey created the famous Hope poster image of Barack Obama and is a practitioner of public art and graffiti, of which there was a lot showing during Art Basel – deliberately promoted for the art fair. Fairey and my former employer, Associated Press, are still embroiled in a dispute over the Obama photo that was his inspiration, so I’m not gonna go there. But I did go to see the wall of Shepard Fairey poster art at 2700 NE 2nd Avenue.