“Being in the space and realizing the impact it’s going to have on the Design District-and Miami-was mind-blowing.”Ĭhris Ofili, Forgive Them, 2015, oil and charcoal on linen. “Going to the gala, honoring Irma and Norman, it was just amazing,” Robins said after the night was over. For the past three years, the ICA has operated out of temporary lodgings in the nearby Moore Building, which Robins owns. Real estate developer Craig Robins was on hand to witness the latest addition to the neighborhood he helped envision and build from scratch. Collectors Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz were in London for the Frieze art fair, but they bought a table anyway, which Salpeter filled with local artists. One night in October, local collectors including Jorge Pérez, Martin Margulies, and Debra Scholl strolled through an accompanying sculpture garden and into the new building’s main atrium to attend a Cartier-sponsored gala in honor of the Bramans and Gober. Elsewhere, the museum is showing commissioned large-scale paintings by Chris Ofili and an exhibition, “The Everywhere Studio,” that examines the societal implications of the act of art making.īefore the public could see the completed ICA in December, Miami engaged in one of its favorite pastimes: throwing parties in museums. It was a gift from ICA board chair Irma Braman and her husband, Norman, who have also loaned a series of pictures by Robert Gober as well as one of his iconic drain works from 1993–94-all of which have rarely been exhibited. The ICA’s inaugural offerings greet a visitor on the ground floor with Edward and Nancy Kienholz’s installation The Soup Course at the She-She Café (1982), a large work that evokes a cracked restaurant scene, re-created to scale, with a doll’s head floating ominously above. In the case of the ICA, the stroke of luck allowed for the debut of a momentous addition to the city’s ascendant art scene. Like most of Miami’s more established arts institutions, the new glass-paneled citadel in the Design District proved fortunate in the face of a historic storm. “We were very blessed,” said Ellen Salpeter, the institute’s director. But the not-yet-opened Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami-the Magic City’s newest contemporary art hub and the first one ever built in the city proper-was spared. 1…I am married to a feminist scholar, this complaint is not part of my intellectual development, I have strong feminist politics.” The city chief of staff Natasha Colebrook-Williams will lead the museum on an interim basis while Sorey and the city council begin an official search for a new director.This past September, Hurricane Irma thrashed Miami with 100-mile-per-hour winds, biblical floods, and an accumulation of otherworldly force that leveled buildings far and wide. In his interview with investigators, M’Bow denied the allegations against him made by Madera and other members of the staff, saying “it is clear that the allegations are false they are the reaction of an employee who thought I was going to fire her on Jan. Madera noted in her complaint against him that the director had commented on her sex life, discussed the size of his genitalia, and instructed employees they needed to “get laid.” Her complaint cited several incidents, including a museum staff meeting on December 8 where M’Bow allegedly told the museum’s assistant director, Alan Waufle, to take a female vendor out and “show her a good time.” Waufle called the woman a “skanky bitch,” which Madera objected to, and asserts that M’Bow then interrupted her and told her to stop using “feminist rhetoric.”Īccording to the city’s investigative report, Waufle also described multiple instances of the director using inappropriately sexual language. Several employees apparently testified that M’Bow often used graphic and sexual language and innuendo to and around staff members, particularly women. The decision was made on December 31 following an investigation into a complaint made by Tiffany Madera, the museum's outreach and programming manager. According to a termination letter sent to M’Bow by interim city director Arthur Sorey, the allegations of sexual harassment as well as a lack of appropriate supervision over employees are cited as cause for dismissal. MoCA North Miami Executive Director FiredĪfter being placed on administrative leave for several weeks following a sexual harassment complaint, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Babacar M’Bow, has been fired from his post.
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