Marty has been angry at MAM (Miami Museum of Art) for years, don't exactly know how that fued started. Everyone in Miami knows that it exists except all you readers who don't read the paper. Here is my theory about the Margulies Art removal from FIU -- remember this is just a theory not based on any knowledge except reading on line.
I think it is because Museum Trustee Paul Seijas, is also a trustee at Florida International University. If I were Marty, this would be righting a grudge by extension because this FIU post held by Ceijas is a slap in the face of Marty. Here Marty lends the university an incredible array of art worth millions of dollars and who is a trustee, not Marty but Paul Cejas a MAM Trustee (who has taken the lead on Marty's most hated project: Putting MAM in Bicentennial Park). Here is what I am basing my theory on: the information on the MAM website:
"MAM's Campaign Leadership
MAM trustees Ambassador Paul L. Cejas, Jorge M. Pérez, and Craig Robins are co-chairs of MAM's "Art for All People" campaign to raise private donations for the new Miami Art Museum.
The Hon. Mr. Cejas, former U. S. ambassador to Belgium, is chairman of PLC Investments, a real-estate and venture-capital investment firm. A former chairman of the Miami-Dade County School Board and a former member of the Florida Board of Regents, he currently serves as a trustee of Florida International University..." MAM Website Page
Pretty dumb FIU!
10 comments:
Good for Marty. Cejas is one of those "not so nice" people who keeps surfacing on the wrong side of issues. One of those players who trys to twist his image by serving on visable boards. The MAM is more of the same public rip-off in which Miami wallows. There is little left of our public waterfront. It was our central park and warf until it was taken over by pro sports, commercialism (Bayside), art museums and anything else that comes down the pike. Ask a New Yorker if Central Park should be used for various projects. I suspect they value it as open space and would not tolerate it. Not so in Miami.
Your school always looked like crap. Maybe the school big wigs are to blame? when people do these sort of things, give presents, they need recognition at the very least.
Miami Herald Tue, Jun. 19, 2007
Yanked from FIU, art heads to other schools
BY NOAH BIERMAN
Sculptures being removed from Florida International University will go to Cornell University, Miami Dade College, the University of Florida, the University of Miami and lower Manhattan.
''The sculptures have been here at FIU for over a decade and we've decided to disperse the collection to other institutions,'' said Katherine Hinds, curator for The Margulies Collection.
Hinds said Tuesday that a total of 19 sculptures will be removed from FIU, leaving a total of 14 on campus.
''It's been an excellent experience, but change is good. It's time to expand. We're different than we were 12 years ago,'' Hinds said.
Some of the sculptures have or will be donated rather than loaned, including the 24-foot Hammering Man sculpture installed last year at UF. Many South Floridians recognize the monumental Jonathan Borofsky sculpture as the longtime icon of the former Bakery Center mall in South Miami.
UM, FIU, MDC-Kendall Campus and Cornell are each getting gifts from the collection as well.
William Tucker's The Promise will be placed at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in Manhattan on loan.
Hinds said many of the other sculptures being removed from FIU will be used in an exhibition at collector Martin Margulies' Wynwood warehouse scheduled to open in October titled Sculpture: 1940 through the Present.
The sculptures have been an integral part of FIU's West Miami-Dade campus since the loan began.
''I'm disappointed,'' said Juan Antonio Bueno, dean of the college of architecture and the arts at FIU. ``On the other hand, we've been very fortunate. It's a very significant resource that the university students have used.''
I like my theory better.
FIU President Modesto Maidique is to blame. Marty Margulies loaned $30 Mil to $50 Mil in world class art to FIU and Maidique does the bonehead move of naming the FIU Art Center after someone else. Obvious.
Why insult the collector who put the FIU campus on the map? Maidique, now go get $50 Mil from your buddy, Philip Frost.
If Cejas is really the reason, is Margulies' reaction not INCREDIBLY PETTY?
Marty like to spout off all of this socialist rhetoric like he did at the UEL Awards ceremony a few year ago against the MAM in Bayfront park (Let the rich build their own museum for themselves and pay for it...) And he often collects some interesting pieces/perspectives. However, he really proves why public art should belong to the public and not be the property of our great and petty civic elite. Acting as a cry baby when he does not get what he wants, has a personality issue or just gets in a bad mood (so common for Marty) and he decides to take his toys home. Well our leaders at FIU may be really bad but why do the students have to suffer for this? Student have no decision in governing FIU, for that matter neither do the faculty.
Excellent points. FIU should get rid of its hugely overpaid President Modesto Maidique immediately. Why should the students suffer because someone appointed an idiot to be their Presidente?
Marty Margulies is correct. Almost all new museums are built with money from private donors. And spending $150 Mil to $250 Mil in taxpayer money on a museum with no collection and no visitors seems pretty dumb. But typical for Miami.
This conversation was 9 months ago but ended up on a point that is still valid today. The Art programs, museum, faculty have continued to be disregarded and marginalized in this right-wing, anti-culture, anti-education Administration. It has not gotten any better in the last 9 months--only worse! And, yes, the students and faculty are continuing to suffer....
Hammering Man was a rusty and ugly piece of crap when it stood at the entrance of the poorly run Bakery Center Mall. It was a big toy, weird, not a work of art at all, like most of Mr. Margulies' "art".
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