Written by Kerren Dieuveille
Hello again, Culture Shockers! We have concluded our Summer Road Trip experience with a final visit to an exciting contemporary art museum. For this last stop, I’m taking you closer to home with a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, aka MOCA NoMi.
Stop #4: Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (MOCA NoMi)
Situated in Downtown North Miami near the City of North Miami’s government office lies the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. Upon entering the space, we were greeted by Lauren Bacchus, the Director of Education and Community Engagement, who was gracious enough to provide us with a tour of the space during our visit. MOCA NoMi is a one floor museum that evolves with each exhibition, as the walls can be moved around the space depending on the exhibitions that are on display. The museum is also very in tune with, and responsive to, local artists, as many of the pieces on display are by artists who either reside in, or have a connection to, Miami. Near the entrance is a decorated wall celebrating MOCA’s longstanding collaborative relationship with AfriCOBRA, a “Chicago-based artist collective that shaped the visual language of the Black Arts Movement through work centered on Black identity, access and community.”
The museum currently has its Anchors of Light exhibition on display, consisting of artworks from its permanent collection meant to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the museum by “honoring three decades of artistic risk, community-rooted vision, and institutional firsts that helped define contemporary art in Miami.” Some notable pieces on display include Edouard Duval-Carrié’s Vision in Green, George Gilpin’s Untitled, 1993, and Robert Chambers’ Capes. The museum also highlights display information for the artworks in English, Haitian Creole, and Spanish, showing just how in tune it is with the community in which it resides and its demographics.
MOCA NoMi is also currently hosting this year’s South Florida Cultural Consortium, which is a regional initiative with a goal to “foster cooperation across the South Florida region to help develop and promote the work of cultural organizations and artists and the audiences that they serve.” This alliance spans a five-county area including Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties. MOCA NoMi is also the Southernmost host of the SFCC. This year, the SFCC exhibition is presenting “fourteen artists and one artist collaborative working across textile, painting, ceramic, photographic, sculptural, and time-based media.” This exhibition was both a visual and aural experience because of the inclusion of an audio track created by Mark Delmont. Delmont is a South Florida Culture Consortium grantee who has the piece Muck and Mire, a mixed media piece showcasing a “diptych of twin figures safeguarding the swamp.”
The museum is also home to the Teen Art Force, which is a “one-of-a-kind, free, multidisciplinary art program that provides teens ages 13–17 with a foundation in the arts.” This program helps local teens gain experience in a wide variety of art techniques and provides high school students with an opportunity to develop their art portfolios for college admissions and have the chance to have their art exhibited in a museum. The art created by the teens throughout the year is then put up to a vote for which artworks will be included in a themed exhibition. The Teen Art Force exhibition currently on display is called Antithesis and will remain up until there is a new exhibition to take its place next year.
Come check out this impactful space in the heart of downtown North Miami!
To visit the Museum of Contemporary Art,North Miami (MOCA NoMi) for only $5, secure your Culture Shock tickets here: https://cultureshockmiami.com/events/museum-contemporary-art-north-miami-moca.