MIAMI, FL.- As it prepares to begin construction of its new home on Biscayne Bay, Miami Art Museum, will highlight its growing collection of international contemporary art with Recent Acquisitions, a new exhibition on view from March 13 to October 11 of this year. These new additions, many of which are on view in Miami for the first time, bring an infusion of excitement and innovation to MAM’s collection.

Highlights from the Recent Acquisitions exhibition will include:
Gene Davis, Pepper Pot, (1966): Critic Clement Greenberg identified the work of Gene Davis with the Washington Color School. Considered a maverick in his early career, Davis is best known for the vibrant striped works he created in the late 1950s and 1960s. The monumental Pepper Pot bears similarities to Blue Freak-Out, one of the foundational works of the Museum’s collection and, at less then half an inch square, by far the smallest. Pepper Pot is the gift of Lang Baumgarten in honor of Charles Cowles, Mary Frank, and Suzy and Jim Dockerty.

María Martínez-Cañas, Años Continuos (1994): María Martínez-Cañas created Años Continuos as a template for her large-scale commission for Miami International Airport. Describing this installation, noted curator and museum director Olga Viso observed that it was “the culmination of her map series – a tremendously important body of work in her oeuvre … visitors are at once awed and transported to a variety of mythical, historical, real and imagined locales.” Martínez-Cañas began combining photographs with map fragments in this series as a means of conveying her sense of displacement from her native Cuba. Among the notable works in this series is Ciudad Jungla (Serie Negra) also represented in MAM’s permanent collection.

Susan Rothenberg, Untitled, (1982): Susan Rothenberg’s early work—large figurative acrylic paintings—came to prominence in the 1970s New York art world, a time and place almost completely dominated and defined by Minimalist aesthetics and theories. This untitled drawing from 1982 is the earliest work by the artist in MAM’s collection. The first drawing by Rothenberg to be acquired by MAM, Untitled evokes an archaic fertility figure, a typical handling of the human figure for Rothenberg at that time. A gift of Evelyn Amis, Untitled joins two large-scale Rothenberg paintings in the Museum’s collection, Folded Buddha and Pin-Wheel (donated by Bud and Mimi Floback), as well as a lithograph, Black Water (donated by Rose Ellen Meyerhoff-Greene and Gerald Greene).

Catherine Sullivan, Triangle of Need (2007): Catherine Sullivan’s works provide completely immersive visual and aural experiences. Triangle of Need, her most ambitious work to date, revolves around disparities of wealth and poverty. The surreal narrative unfolds in two main locations: Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami, and an ordinary apartment in a generic American city. An abridged version of Triangle of Need opened at Vizcaya during Art Basel Miami Beach 2007; MAM will present the work in its entirety -- four video projections, three channels on monitors and a 16mm film. A gift to the museum from Ella Fontanals-Cisneros (who supported the commissioning of the work along with Vizcaya, Walker Art Center and the A Foundation), Triangle of Need joins another epic video work based partially in Miami, Doug Aitken’s sleepwalkers (Miami), in the Museum’s collection – along with videos by such artists as Cory Arcangel, Wangechi Mutu, Raymond Pettibon and Miguel Angel Rios.

Richard Tuttle, Loose Leaf Notebook Drawings (1980-82): Among the many treasures included in the Herbert and Dorothy Vogel landmark gift to Miami Art Museum are eight portfolios of the artist’s Loose Leaf Notebook Drawings. These ethereal and poetic watercolors on lined notebook paper embody the experimental lyricism that characterizes the work of an artist whose significant influence has been felt from the 1960s to the present day. In 2008, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel collaborated with the National Gallery of Art to designate one museum in each of the 50 states to receive 50 works from their celebrated personal collection; Miami Art Museum was their choice for Florida. Additional selections from the Vogel gift will also be on view in Recent Acquisitions, and a future exhibition of the entire Vogel gift is planned.

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Plaster Table), 1995-96: London-born Rachel Whiteread’s work is based on casts of everyday, domestic objects, which capture not the objects themselves, but the space around and within them. The first woman to win Britain’s prestigious Tate Prize, she received the recognition in 1993 for her “resonant sculptures.” As its title suggests, Untitled (Plaster Table) captures the space beneath an otherwise nondescript dining-room table. The Whiteread sculpture is a promised gift of MAM Trustee Lin Lougheed.

Among the other artists represented in Recent Acquisitions are Alexandre Arrechea, Will Barnet, Anna Maria Maiolino, Marc Swanson and Krzysztof Wodiczko, as well as Miami-based artists Michael Loveland and Cristina Lei Rodríguez. Additional acquisitions will be incorporated into the exhibition at a later date.