Visual Art

Culture Shock Miami: Experience performances, museum tours and art exhibits online

Written By Mike Hamersly
March 27, 2020 at 5:27 PM

Viewers can check out a new exhibition, “Allan McCollum: Works since 1969,” through Miami Culture Shock. Pictured is “If Love Had Wings: A Perpetual Canon.” (Photo courtesy of ICA Miami)

You’ve self-quarantined, or at least are dutifully practicing our new buzzword, “social distancing.” You’ve binge-watched everything from “Game of Thrones” to “Family Feud” reruns. And you’re going crazy with hardly any true artistic stimulation.

Here’s a bit of good news amid the boredom, anxiety and cabin fever: While you can’t visit an art museum or enjoy a concert in person, you can watch live performances, take virtual museum tours, and view dozens of exhibits online.

Culture Shock Miami – the audience development program that focuses on promoting the arts to teens and young adults age 13-22 by offering $5 tickets to events – is opening its online doors to the entire community. Anyone, regardless of age, is welcome to visit its website, CultureShockMiami.com, where you’ll find the section “Online Experiences” under “Events.”

There, visitors can choose from a curated list of online happenings offered by Miami-Dade County’s thriving arts scene, as well as links to activities from arts organizations in other parts of the country, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Broadway World, National Public Radio’s (NPR) Tiny Desk series and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Local organizations include Coral Gables Art Cinema (watch up to three free films per day), Miami Symphony Orchestra, Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, The Bass Museum of Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Miami.

ICA Miami has inadvertently been preparing since its inception by consistently posting and updating content on its online “Channel,” with monthly exhibition stories, interviews, public lectures and more. 

Installation view: Allan McCollum’s “The Shapes Project,” Petzel Gallery, New York, 2006. McCollum’s exhibit at ICA Miami was originally scheduled to run from March 26 through July 19. (Photo courtesy of ICA Miami)

“Our investment in digital really dates back to the opening of our first temporary space five years ago,” says Alex Gartenfeld, artistic director of ICA Miami. “It’s a way of our telling experimental stories in new ways, and follows the development of our programs, exhibitions and education.

“We’ve also partnered with the Knight Foundation, which has an extraordinary mandate to focus on digital with the foresight to think about times like these. And in partnership with the Knight Foundation, especially over the last year, we have expanded and bolstered our digital offerings, making sure that there’s a robust presentation of all the footage that we’ve created to date.”

Featured artists on the Channel make up a diverse list: You can watch and learn about Frank Stella, Trisha Brown, Donald Judd, George Segal, Hernan Bas, Charles Gaines, Richard Tuttle and dozens more.

A new exhibition, “Allan McCollum: Works since 1969,” was scheduled to run from March 26 through July 19, spotlighting the renowned Los Angeles artist’s interest in methods of mass production, as seen in 2005’s “The Shapes Project” and other works. Instead of seeing it firsthand, however, viewers now can experience it on the Channel.

“Being as we have temporarily postponed the opening of Allan McCollum, one of our key initiatives is to communicate that show, which is almost entirely installed, to a broad public who might not be able to see it at this time,” says Gartenfeld. “So that entails everything from interviews of our audio guide to catalog materials to video presentation and installation. It’s our challenge to think about how to translate the gallery in a new experience to a broad audience.”

Other video highlights to come, according to Gartenfeld: “One is about the life and work of Eric-Paul Riege, a Diné artist to whom we gave our first solo museum presentation. That is a really beautiful narrative piece that follows his life at home in Gallup, New Mexico, and follows his journey to working with our community and specifically with our educational programs. 

“We also have a video forthcoming with Guadalupe Maravilla, whose project focuses on public issues of identity, specifically his experience of immigrating to the United States, which is an ever-timely issue, of course.”

No one knows for sure when the global shutdown will end. But while it continues, Gartenfeld and ICA Miami are hearing feedback from many art lovers who are thankful for all the efforts to keep contemporary art accessible in an alternate way.

“I think a lot of people are appreciative of the fact that the nature of public space has changed,” he says. “And so people who may not have access to exhibitions, which is everybody at this particular juncture, have definitely relayed their appreciation of some of the storytelling that we and other museums are doing.”

What: Culture Shock Miami’s “Online Experiences”

Cost: Free

More information: CultureShockMiami.com

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