Off the beaten path: public art in Miami

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This article is part of FT Globetrotter. miami guide

Miami is full of surprises. It certainly lives up to its image of silky beaches and palm-fringed pools set in Spanish modernist patios, flamingos and cocktail umbrellas, but there’s a layered story beneath its shiny skin. A history of rapid expansion and devastating natural and economic disasters. Of enormous influxes of population from all over the Caribbean. Of dramatic historical events: a frustrated presidential assassination attempt (Roosevelt, in 1933); violent riots following a police killing similar to that of George Floyd (by Arthur McDuffie, in 1979); the vast cocaine trade of the 1980s that unleashed a ferocious crime wave.

More recently it has become a city of art. In the commercial sphere, the resplendent Art Basel Miami Beach and its satellite fairs emerge every December. But beyond the hubbub of fair season, there’s plenty of permanent public art, and it’s well worth discovering some of the more unusual ones, as well as savoring the better-known ones.

To start with the obvious: the famous Art Deco buildings of Miami Beach. Think of these ornate, wedding cake-like structures as one large piece of public art, stretching from 6th Street at the south end of Ocean Drive to 13th Street and beyond. Although most of the best Art Deco buildings have received a complete facelift, some delightfully deteriorated remnants still remain. Guided tours are offered, but it is also exciting to walk around and discover examples such as the Essex House hotel with its fantastic elevation and gloriously elaborate lobby.

Looking at these extravagant buildings, with their moldings and ornaments, their turrets, decorations and garish neon, it is surprising to realize that just 40 years earlier, when Miami was incorporated as a city in 1896, it had fewer than 400 inhabitants. However, by the mid-1940s its population had increased to more than 325,000. Situated in a tenuous situation on its stormy coastline, braving floods and hurricanes, the place had multiplied with astonishing speed, and it would be easy to assume that the Art Deco style was a product of opulence. Not precisely. An example is the severe but great Miami Beach Post Officeat Washington Avenue and 13th Street. It was built in 1937 not so much as a display of luxury but as a job creation scheme by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression: an opulent display created in defiance of a catastrophic economic crisis.

Inside the post office, architect Howard Lovewell Cheney’s spectacular circular lobby (domed skylight, central fountain, and more) houses an intriguing triptych of New Deal murals by Charles Russell Hardman depicting scenes from the region’s history : Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León meeting with indigenous tribes. in the territory that had been called “La Florida” in 1513; a later colonialist, Hernando de Soto, in battle with Native Americans in 1539; General Thomas Jesup negotiating with the indigenous people in 1837. Although it may hardly seem acceptable to our eyes today, the work is full of interest.

Another commemoration that might seem contrary to Miami’s image of sun and fun is its notable Holocaust Memorial. In the 1980s, South Florida was home to up to 25,000 Holocaust survivors. A monument was proposed and Miami, after all, does not fall short. The gigantic centerpiece of architect and sculptor Kenneth Treister’s multi-part landscape creation is a 40-foot raised hand that reaches toward the sky as hundreds of emaciated, twisted human figures cling to its forearm. It is one of the most moving and moving public sculptures, but at the same time a quiet and contemplative place to walk and rest.

Many of Miami’s public works of art (apparently there are more than 700 — lean more toward the exuberant and happy side of the city. The best known are those at The Bass museum. Art outside project, which displays exclusive works from its permanent and temporary collections. If you’re looking for less-publicized pieces, one of the most fun is located downtown, outside the Stephen P Clark Government Center: “Fallen bowl with scattered slices and peels” by the team formed by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Imagine a monumental plate of half-eaten fruit, the pieces scattered carelessly as if by a naughty child: it’s a vivid, irreverent work in painted concrete and resin that celebrates the carefree vibe of this diverse city.

Another piece, literally playful, in one of Miami’s open public spaces, this time in Bayfront Park — is the smooth white marble of Isamu Noguchi “Slide Mantra”. Elegant, fresh and sophisticated, like all the work of its renowned Japanese-American creator, the work of art is also a true spiral slide for children of all ages: a perfect combination of form and function, exemplary as a public artifact.

A local installation with a playful touch also celebrates Miami’s relationship with the sea: “Stubborn Lighthouse” in South Pointe Park, at the entrance to the Port of Miami. Created by German artist Tobias Rehberger and installed in 2011, this seemingly unstable set of 19 brightly colored sections, like children’s building bricks, is topped with rotating lights. In contrast to the lighthouse’s traditional function as a warning, its purpose, according to the artist, is to welcome visitors and “refers to the lively spirit of Miami Beach.”

All of these works are in some way specific to their sites, and match some aspect of the spirit of the place. Miami, however, also welcomes people who arrive unexpectedly. In The Wolfsonian museum, a series of stained glass windows by the Irish creator Henry (Harry) Clarke, the “Geneva Window”came with a rich backstory. Commissioned in 1926, it was intended as a gift from the new Irish Free State to the League of Nations in Geneva. Intensely coloured, its busy narrative celebrates 15 of Ireland’s writers, from James Joyce and WB Yeats to a poem by Patrick Pearse written the night before he was executed by the British for his part in the Easter Rising of 1916. It is considered a masterpiece of Celtic Renaissance decorative art, a fascinating symbolic and narrative work full of wit, humanity and allusive details.

Unfortunately, however, the new Irish State had not freed itself from the mentality of the past. Clarke’s inclusion of banned writers like Liam O’Flaherty (not to mention his beautiful companion’s skimpy clothing, as well as some characters’ tight pants that emphasized their “manliness”) fell out of favor with the censors of the time. Sex, nudity, alcohol… even Protestants: one step too far. The vibrant Ventana never made it to Geneva, and was eventually purchased from Clarke’s family in the 1980s by Mitchell Wolfson Jr, who gave it a permanent home in the Miami museum he founded. Somehow it seems fitting that the deep-seated traditions represented (and rejected) by the Geneva Window should end up in the most febrile of American cities.

Jan Dalley is a contributing editor to the FT

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