In an article featured in The Miami Herald earlier this year, reporter Daniel Chang wrote about the public art collection in Miami and all the problems that come along with maintaining such an accessible collection of artwork. Miami-Dade’s Art in Public Places program boasts one of the finest public art collections in all of Florida and the volume of said collection has become a huge problem for the county.
In 1973, 1.5 percent of Miami-Dade’s public construction budget was set aside for art. However, in 1982 the ordinance was rewritten to create the Art in Public Places Trust, which does not demand that money be set aside for the preservation or maintenance of the public art. The rewritten ordinance may be the root of Miami’s public art problem. There are several art pieces involved among the missing, damaged and simply “lost in storage” artwork. The pieces include everything from off beat installations to framed prints and everything in-between but the circumstances are the same.
Since a comprehensive database of all the public artwork in
Miami-Dade has been established, several pieces have been damaged or
come up missing through out the years. It is reported that at least 87
works of art are missing from Miami-Dade’s Art in Public Places
program, estimated at nearly $100,000 of taxpayer money.
It is
estimated that Miami-Dade’s public art collection contains more than
700 pieces. The pieces include framed art work in offices at the county
clerk’s offices, sculptures at public parks and even the neon lights
that run along the metro rail track over the Miami River. It is certain
that the millions of dollars spent on public art are past by, unnoticed
by hundreds every day.
However, it doesn’t certainly doesn’t
mean that the taxpayers of Miami should sit by and ignore an obvious
misappropriation of government funds. For Daniel Chang’s entire article
and more on the recovery of Miami’s lost art go to http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/230916.html
Born in Barranquilla,
Colombia in
1972, Sophia Vergara started her career at Univision where she got one of her
first gigs as model/host of the series “Fuera de Serie” in 1995. She would go
on to perform more traditional acting roles in Spanish and English television.
In 2003 alone, Vergara appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien,
The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn and The Howard Stern Show. Click on the "Read More" button for even more pictures of Sophia Vergara.
One of the most recognizable artists in the realm of Japanimation-style art, Takashi Murakami has been exhibited in museums all over the world. Born in Tokyo, in 1963, Murakami received his PhD from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
His mediums range from canvas and sculpture to watches and T-shirts. Along with being an artist, Takashi Murakami is an entrepreneur and a curator. He has also been responsible for launching the careers of several other Japanese artists as the curator of a major Japanese exhibition, Superflat.
You can check out Murakami’s full biography and more of his work at www.TakashiMurakami.com.
