Pérez Art Museum Miami Announces New Acquisitions by Thirteen Artists for Permanent Collection

(MIAMI, FL — August 17, 2021) — Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is pleased to announce significant acquisitions of works by diverse artists for the museum’s permanent collection, including artists of Cuban and Brazilian origin as well as eleven women artists. Several of the artists are entering the museum’s collection for the first time, including Karon Davis, Kenturah Davis, Bisa Butler, Christine Sun Kim. Among the new acquisitions are Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica’s Penetrável Macaléia (Malaceia Penetrable) from 1978—purchased with funds from Jorge M. Pérez—a walk-in installation inspired by the favela communities of Rio de Janeiro; Coco Fusco’s The Undiscovered Amerindians Tour, a series of photographs purchased by PAMM’s International Women’s Committee Endowment; and Karon Davis’ Bobby Seale and The People’s Free Food Program, a major installation purchased with funds from PAMM’s Collectors Council and various patrons that features a life-size sculpture of Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. “The collection is not only a reflection of who we are but who we aspire to be. In addition to the Oiticica, which is truly a masterwork of experiential and conceptual art, we added two more Brazilian artists, in Leda Catunda and Sonia Gomes, whose work is currently on view in Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection,” said PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans. “Tania Bruguera, like Oiticica, is vitally important to our collection’s focal points, and this particular piece is one of the artist-activist’s most documented and well known examples of her sculptural and performative artworks. We are fortunate to have resources and patrons who are engaged with the growth of the collection in a way that furthers our view of art as a catalyst for meaningful conversations in society.” The new acquisitions underscore PAMM’s longstanding commitment to highlighting underrepresented artists from the U.S. Latinx experience, the African diaspora, Latin America and the Caribbean. These thirteen works also exemplify the museum’s dedication to displaying a collection in constant dialogue with the most pressing issues of the present. Works purchased by PAMM’s Collector Council:

• Bisa Butler’s Black is King, a newly created portrait from a series inspired by contemporary individuals shaping the discourse of race around the world.
• Karon Davis’ Bobby Seale and The People’s Free Food Program, a major installation of plaster sculptures from Davis’ recent exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch in New York City that examined the life of Bobby Seale. The figure of Seale is surrounded by sculpted grocery bags of food, representing the Black Panther Party’s initiatives to combat food insecurity in the 1970s.

Works purchased by PAMM’s International Women’s Committee Endowment:

• Coco Fusco’s The Undiscovered Amerindians Tour, a series of photographs documenting a satirical performance by Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena from 1992-94 commenting on the quincentennial anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ “discovery.”
• Kenturah Davis’ Black As the Most Exquisite Color, a large portrait of a young woman consisting of the repeated phrase “black as the most exquisite color” rendered in rubber stamped lettering.

Gifts and museum purchases:

• Liset Castillo’s large-scale photographic print Pain Is Universal but So Is Hope, which depicts a fictional city made up of diverse cultural, historical, and geographic symbols.
• Sonia Gomes’ Untitled from the series Torções (Twists), a textile work made by knotting and twisting pieces of fabric that deals with decolonizing the past and reclaiming the present.
• Leda Catunda’s Dedinhos (Little Fingers), a multilayered composition of finger-like shapes with nails painted in gold acrylic.
• Tania Bruguera’s 1994 installation Tabla de salvación (Table of Salvation), which commemorates the untold numbers of people who lost their lives in the Florida Straits during the Cuban raft exodus of the mid 1990s.
• Hélio Oiticica’s Penetrável Macaléia (Malaceia Penetrable), a walk-in installation that immerses the viewer/participant in color while evoking and celebrating the favela communities of Rio de Janeiro.
• Christine Sun Kim’s Close Readings, a satirical video work in which the artist invited deaf collaborators to create new captions for five different films.
• Thania Petersen’s Of Birds and Trees and Flowers and Bees, a tapestry that takes the form of a Muslim prayer mat, which comprises the most intimate space of the Islamic faith.
• Montserrat-born Veronica Ryan’s Bundle 1, a handcrafted sculpture made of paper and crochet that engages the artist’s Afro-Caribbean heritage.
• Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s The Worry, a striking collage portrait using a combination of materials including charcoal, gouache, pastel, oil stick, and oil paint on paper.

ABOUT PAMM Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), led by Director Franklin Sirmans, promotes artistic expression and the exchange of ideas, advancing public knowledge and appreciation of art, architecture, and design, and reflecting the diverse community of its pivotal geographic location at the crossroads of the Americas. The 37-year-old South Florida institution, formerly known as Miami Art Museum (MAM), opened a new building, designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, on December 4, 2013 in Downtown Miami’s Maurice A. Ferré Park. The facility is a state-of-the-art model for sustainable museum design and progressive programming and features 200,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor program space with flexible galleries; shaded outdoor verandas; a waterfront restaurant and bar; a museum shop; and an education center with a library, media lab, and classroom spaces.

Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. Support is provided by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners. Additional support is provided by the City of Miami and the Miami OMNI Community Redevelopment Agency (OMNI CRA). Pérez Art Museum Miami is an accessible facility. All contents ©Pérez Art Museum Miami. All rights reserved.