MIAMI, FLA.- Pérez Art Museum Miami announced significant acquisitions of works by diverse artists for the museums permanent collection, including artists of Cuban and Brazilian origin as well as eleven women artists. Several of the artists are entering the museums collection for the first time, including Karon Davis, Kenturah Davis, Bisa Butler, and Christine Sun Kim.
Among the new acquisitions are Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticicas Penetrável Macaléia (Malaceia Penetrable) from 1978purchased with funds from Jorge M. Péreza walk-in installation inspired by the favela communities of Rio de Janeiro; Coco Fuscos The Undiscovered Amerindians Tour, a series of photographs purchased by PAMMs International Womens Committee Endowment; and Karon Davis Bobby Seale and The Peoples Free Food Program, a major installation purchased with funds from PAMMs 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 collections focal points, and this particular piece is one of the artist-activists 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 PAMMs 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 museums dedication to displaying a collection in constant dialogue with the most pressing issues of the present.
Works purchased by PAMMs Collector Council:
Bisa Butlers 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 Peoples 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 Partys initiatives to combat food insecurity in the 1970s.
Works purchased by PAMMs International Womens Committee Endowment:
Coco Fuscos 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 Castillos 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 Catundas Dedinhos (Little Fingers), a multilayered composition of finger-like shapes with nails painted in gold acrylic.
Tania Brugueras 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 Oiticicas 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 Kims Close Readings, a satirical video work in which the artist invited deaf collaborators to create new captions for five different films.
Thania Petersens 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 Ryans Bundle 1, a handcrafted sculpture made of paper and crochet that engages the artists Afro-Caribbean heritage.
Nathaniel Mary Quinns The Worry, a striking collage portrait using a combination of materials including charcoal, gouache, pastel, oil stick, and oil paint on paper.