The Center’s first permanent art collection is made possible with generous support by Knight Foundation and Private Donors
MIAMI, FL – October 2012 – Merging the visual and performing arts, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County announces the launch of the Knight Masterworks Print Collection, a program that will commission limited-edition prints to create a permanent art collection at the Center. The artists commissioned will seek inspiration from the Arsht Center’s diverse programming and Miami’s thriving cultural arts landscape. All pieces will be displayed publicly at the Arsht Center.
This project is made possible by a three-year Knight Foundation challenge grant totaling $90,000 that will be matched by individual and corporate investments from the community to total $180,000.
“The Knight Masterworks Print Collection is a remarkable visual enhancement to the world-class Arsht Center experience,” said John Richard, President and CEO of the Adrienne Arsht Center. “The collection complements the growing body of new works developed by the Center, whether on our stages or permanently on our walls.”
“We hope these prints help make the visual arts as much of a reason to visit the Arsht Center as music, ballet or theater,” said Dennis Scholl, vice president/arts for Knight Foundation.
Leading American contemporary artist Donald Sultan is the first to create a unique print for the Knight Masterworks Print Collection. The Collection’s inaugural work, Red Poppies, will be displayed at the Arsht Center halls beginning October 26, 2012. Sultan is a painter, printmaker and sculptor known for large-scale, multi-media compositions of fruit, flowers, dominoes, playing cards and other simple forms that are both representational and abstract. His first linoleum paintings of the 1970s were inspired by the unconventional “found objects” used in the Arte Povera modern art movement in Europe and by installation artists in New York. Solo exhibits of his work have appeared in museums and galleries from The Whitney, the Guggenheim and The Met in New York to Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Sultan’s textured works appear frequently with other renowned pop contemporaries, such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine and Keith Haring
Hernan Bas, a Miami native who graduated from the New World School of the Arts in 1996, will be the second artist to create a print for the Collection. Bas exploded onto the art scene a decade ago with paintings that teem with romance and melancholy, embracing both the decadence and nastiness of pleasure. Most recently, he collaborated with luxury handbag retailer Louis Vuitton on “A Traveler,” a sculpture and video installation featuring the iconic bags as bindles – a fabric sack strung along a tree branch.
Art works commissioned for this collection will seek inspiration from three sources: the power of the performing arts to nourish and challenge the human spirit; the Adrienne Arsht Center’s mission to enlighten, educate and entertain our community through transformational arts experiences; and Miami as the diverse, international crossroads where the creative forces of visual and performing arts passionately connect.
Works from the Knight Masterworks Print Collection will be displayed side-by-side with selections from Lincoln Center’s List Art Collection, which are on loan as part of a collaboration between the Arsht Center and Lincoln Center. The public will have an opportunity to view the art up close prior to performances and during free behind-the-scenes tours offered each Monday and Saturday at noon. The tours are sponsored by American Airlines.
In addition, the Arsht Center will be making contemporary art of the highest quality available to the public by selling limited-edition prints of the commissioned works. The Benefit Print Project, based in New York City, has been hired as consultants to oversee these sales. Thomas W. Lollar, co-director of The Benefit Print Project, is Director Emeritus of Visual Arts at Lincoln Center and an expert in commissioning limited-edition print projects to raise money for nonprofit arts organizations. Paul Limperopulos, also co-director, is former curator in the Vera and Albert List Print Program at Lincoln Center and Assistant Director of the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Limperopulos organized special projects for Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary series with Marilyn Minter, Sharon Core, and Karen Kilimnik in 2009-10. For more information about purchasing prints, contact Thomas W. Lollar and Paul Limperopulos: tom@benefitprintproject.com or paul@benefitprintproject.com.
The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County is made possible by the public support of the Miami-Dade County Mayor and the Board of County Commissioners, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Tourist Development Council and the City of Miami Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, as well as the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. The Adrienne Arsht Center also receives generous support from local, state and national foundations, as well as private contributions to the Adrienne Arsht Center Foundation through corporate and individual giving, Visionary Society membership and the Encore Circle major gifts programs.
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