Each year, 50,000 people visit The Bass Museum of Art. “The Bass’s audience is diverse,” says Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiñá. “When our curators plan exhibitions, we make sure the art offers multiple cultural and intellectual touchpoints that are engaging to this wide audience.”
Since opening in 1964 to house the private collection of John and Johanna Bass, the museum has become a tentpole of the city’s creative ecosystem—bolstered by seasonal influxes of visitors around events and fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach. In 2022, the institution was awarded $20 million as part of Miami Beach’s General Obligation Bonds, a $159 million sum that supported 16 city-owned cultural institutions. In addition to ringing in its 60th anniversary, the museum is now in the throes of its next period of expansion.
“We are looking to build a new, state-of-the-art gallery for temporary exhibitions as well as social spaces for public programs,” explains Karman Cubiñá. “Simply put, a new flexible gathering space where art and people meet.” This includes building enhancements, part of which will house new media works; public works, like the planned takeover of a rotunda in Collins Park; and support for the museum’s educational programming.
In the meantime, the exhibitions currently on view at the museum embody its enduring mission, six decades on. “‘Rachel Feinstein: The Miami Years’ demonstrates the ongoing commitment to commissions with the presentation of [the artist’s] 30-foot painting of enamel on mirror,” says Chief Curator James Voorhies. “‘Performing Perspectives: A Collection in Dialogue’ looks both forward and back with a selection of historical works installed in relation to the contemporary collection.”
What might the next 60 years hold for the institution? Ultimately, says Karman Cubiñá, “With new communities of full- and part-time residents moving to the area, plus a generation of young adults raised alongside Art Basel Miami Beach, The Bass has become a place for people to get together and connect while seeing art.” The changes underway at the institution are a sign of commitment to that burgeoning, ever-shifting audience—as the city evolves, so too will The Bass.
