Ahead of Art Basel Miami Beach and the City’s Art Week, ICA Miami Announces a Major Expansion

Since its launch in 2014, ICA Miami has served as a cornerstone in the Miami art landscape, establishing itself as one of the most active museums in the United States for new acquisitions. Known for being an early supporter of young, emerging artists, the museum fosters a multicultural dialogue through a high-quality program that often reaches its peak during Miami Art Week. Now, as ICA Miami approaches its 10th anniversary, it has announced a major expansion through its acquisition of the former home of the de la Cruz Collection museum, a notable anchor of Miami’s cultural scene. This will provide the museum with an additional 30,000 square feet, effectively doubling its space for exhibitions, displays of artwork from its permanent collection and public programming.

Since securing its permanent home in the Miami Design District, ICA Miami has hosted more than 100 exhibitions. These have included U.S. debuts for both established and emerging artists, with a focus on in-depth research and on elevating overlooked figures in global art history. Critical to this expansion was the support of ICA’s dedicated board, whose efforts led to a successful $25 million capital campaign to help the institution maintain its central role in Miami’s art ecosystem. Located at 23 NE 41st Street, also in the Miami Design District, the new building will let ICA Miami create dedicated galleries for its permanent collection for the first time. In the coming months, ICA will host educational programs at the site before the building undergoes a major renovation to become a fully functional exhibition space suited for the museum’s growing collection.

On the occasion of this announcement, Observer spoke with Alex Gartenfeld, ICA Miami’s Irma and Norman Braman Artistic Director, to discuss the museum’s forward-looking vision for programming in light of this strategically significant expansion.

Given that the expansion was enabled by the acquisition of the de la Cruz Collection museum, will there be any link to or acknowledgment of that collection’s importance in the Miami landscape? 

Since ICA Miami’s inception, the de la Cruz family has been among our supporters, donating close to fifty works to ICA Miami, including by artists like Hernan Bas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Ana Mendieta. Recently, Carlos gifted a group of a dozen pieces, including sculptures by Jorge Pardo and an installation by Manfred Pernice that is currently on view at ICA Miami. Generations of students and the public have experienced the transformational power of art and received extensive arts education in the Design District, and we are proud that ICA Miami can affirm the crucial importance of free access to important collections in our expanded space.

ICA Miami’s expansion and building acquisition represents the strength and depth of commitment from the museum’s board and donor community, which includes many of the premier contemporary collectors in Miami throughout the U.S. and beyond. The new building provides the museum for the first time with dedicated exhibition space for our permanent collection, so the public will continue to enjoy access to important artworks from a plurality of influential collections.

This expansion will finally allow the ICA to display pieces from its permanent collection. How will the selection and rotation of the collection work? And will there be thematic sections?

ICA Miami’s collection articulates cornerstone moments in contemporary art from 1957 to the present. Over the last decade, we have been among the world’s most actively growing institutions for contemporary art. Our collecting approach is global and interdisciplinary and includes various perspectives and narratives. Whenever we present works from the collection, we approach these presentations as scholarly curated exhibitions that highlight topical themes and histories and often bring new voices to the fore. In our new spaces, we will regularly rotate the permanent collection installations to open new perspectives and contexts for the artists and artworks and provide new ways of understanding them. Through the rich stories told by ICA Miami’s collection, we provide a framework through which to understand the broader history of contemporary art, our community, and our special exhibitions.

The expansion will also allow the creation of dedicated space for a new media gallery. How are you looking to improve and foster experimentation with the latest opportunities offered by new technologies and media, and how will this contribute to the exhibition program? 

Core to our mission at ICA Miami is to support experimentation. Technology influences our lives enormously, so we cannot accurately reflect the present moment without considering digital regimes and the ways artists are influenced by and engaging with them. Further, we consider today’s digital tools closely related to the decades of avant-garde new media traditions in our collection. We look to bolster our understanding of these histories and practices while providing a platform and resources to artists who are innovating and expanding our worldview through these emerging tools and technologies. Beyond representing these practices in our galleries, our new facility will include digital labs and recording studios that facilitate creating and supporting new media.

This acquisition coincides with the institution’s 10th anniversary. What goals and strategies are at the forefront of the ICA agenda in the following years? 

The building acquisition plays an enormous role in advancing our mission and expanding the reach and impact of our programs. Following the success of our first decade, we can now further meet the enormous community demand for our exhibitions and programs. For example, we offer daily educational programs for youth, teens and adults, from workshops to classes to lectures—often led by world-renowned artists and thinkers—and now we have dedicated space to mount these at a world-class level. In our galleries, we look forward to reflecting an even wider range of global voices in our expanded spaces and showcasing our permanent collection in dedicated galleries for the first time. Our collection is a critical public resource, and we can make it available to the public, artists, students, and scholars on an ongoing basis, which is important to our mission. ICA Miami is deeply engaged with new media practices, and the digital tools make the innovation possible. A facility allows us to exhibit and fuel the creation of new media works and continue exploring their role in contemporary art’s trajectory.