From KAC to MoCAA
by R10
The Kendall Art Center (KAC) opened its doors to the public on the evening of July 15, 2016, with an exhibition of works from Leonardo Rodriguez's collection. From the outset, the center made every effort to share top-level artistic experiences with the community through a carefully conceived exhibition program aimed at promoting aesthetic awareness and the preservation of visual arts within the art scene in South Florida.
Since then, KAC has showcased the work of both established and emerging artists who did not regularly have exhibition spaces to develop their respective careers. Consistency, curatorial seriousness, careful selection of works, and coherence in its exhibition programs immediately made it an inspiring artistic hub, an active participant in the art community, and one of the best cultural offerings in South Florida, with a fantastic track record of 76 exhibitions produced and presented to the public.
But we already know that Miami is a diverse city with a multilingual, multicultural population, where more than half of Miami-Dade County residents were born outside the United States. At the end of 2021, KAC raised a much-needed topic: How do we create bridges of inclusion and exchange between mainstream America, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Latin culture? To better understand the impact of globalization on the development of art and relations between Europe, the United States, Latin America, its diasporas, and its multicultural interactions.
It was necessary to take a qualitative leap and focus cultural management more efficiently to provide artists with an ideal space where their creativity could flourish without conditions, where they could share their vision of contemporary society, expand their intellectual and emotional creativity by challenging traditional approaches and educate their communities about contemporary art.
After six years of intense activity, the Kendall Art Center assumes new perspectives and a superior methodological approach and becomes the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas, in order to include and reflect a diverse society marked by a broad Latin American diaspora in South Florida. From this novel vision, there is intense work to generate new cultural strategies and address multicultural global imaginaries, capable of giving diverse communities new ways to interact with art, oriented towards multiple artistic perspectives rather than a homogenized view of art.
The Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas has already been recognized and is a member of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Florida Association of Museums (FAM), and the International Council of Museum US. It has renewed its image, integrated its platforms into a common goal, which with a much broader sense inherits the cultural, spiritual, and ethical principles of its predecessor, the Kendall Art Center.
The Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas has been working on developing a new identity based on its specific experiences interacting with the community and the artists it has worked with in recent years. While the museum continues to study and explore, it has adopted a temporary logo created by artist and designer Henry Ballate in mid-2021.
After numerous consultations among artists and colleagues, the institution's leadership and advisory council approve the adoption of an image that, while not intended to be final, better reflects its ideological, cultural, and aesthetic position: a friendly, kind, and inclusive gestalt that in some way invites closeness and cordial exchange of ideas among the diverse cultural communities of South Florida, between artists and their audience, and between the institution and its visitors.
The first project undertaken was the creation of a new website, utilizing cutting-edge technologies and a more narrative and explicit interface. The new website provides easy access to information for all interested parties, with a simple and enjoyable navigation design. Its pages collect the latest updates on our exhibitions, collaborations with galleries and similar institutions, news generated by the institution itself, media coverage of our activities, a proposed programming schedule, and, in general, the echoes of our efforts to establish the Museum at the symbolic center of a community that has not been favored with a diverse cultural offering. The Museum proudly considers itself a pioneer in cultural dissemination in Kendall and aspires to be a reference center for the state and the United States of America.
