JOSÉ MANUEL BALLESTER Concealed Spaces
Cover: The Raft of the Medusa (La Balsa de la Medusa), 2010 Print on canvas, 193.3 x 282.2 inches Unique, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa Published for the exhibition JosÊ Manuel Ballester: Concealed Spaces Organized by The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum Florida International University, Miami Curator: Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig Catalog design: D. Gabriella Portela Printer: Color Express Printing Š 2013 The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced in any form without prior written consent. ISBN: 978-0-9859416-1-1
JOSÉ MANUEL BALLESTER Concealed Spaces February 27, 2013 - June 23, 2013
The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum Florida International University, Miami
Essays
THE PAINTER’S DREAM It is the dilemma of the modern painter to decide his future when years of study have introduced a history of art that spans centuries, involves a multitude of concepts, styles, media, techniques and subjects. The history of art marks a progression through time – and it is this very progression and its temporal nature that inform the work of José Manuel Ballester. With academic beginnings that attracted him to Italian Renaissance and Netherlandish painting, a realist path that offered a perspective on verisimilitude and symbolic content, he explored the potential of such exactitude for art today – specifically his art. For the early Italian and Netherlandish masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the ability to capture the heavenly realm in earthly terms manifested itself through a new humanization of art presented in a recognizable pictorial territory. Angels came to earth, golden backgrounds opened up to blue skies and verdant landscapes, and artists embraced ordinary human concerns in concrete terms. In Dutch painting, in particular, it was typical to use apparently realistic subject matter to convey various kinds of messages – from the religious to the secular. In Italy and the Netherlands, extraordinary developments introduced theoretical, scientific and practical constructs that advanced changes that would affect the production of art and the artist’s creative path into the present. Artists are still looking for different, and appropriate, ways to capture their world in imagery that ranges from the most realistic to the most abstract, and everything in between. The same must be said for the continual introduction of new techniques and media, especially in our rapidly changing technological society. Thus, it is not surprising that an artist who began with admiration for early Italian and Netherlandish realism, would look to photography to present his own reflection on their close scrutiny of forms observed in the natural world and how pictorial compositions focused on elements of everyday reality, even to portray the symbolic realm of the divine. They also had to manipulate their imagery for desired effect. Nothing was actually real, despite appearance. It was through lighting, chiaroscuro, perspective and other visual devices that the artists succeeded in tricking the eye. For Ballester, photography, especially digital photography, allowed him to do the same: focus on elements of everyday reality manipulated for a new world of
visual trickery. It was photography that gave Ballester the freedom to further explore the potential of combining the camera and the paintbrush. In the series of works in the exhibition, Espacios Ocultos (Concealed Spaces), Ballester carefully analyzes some of the Prado’s most famous paintings from the perspective of the digital camera, with the ability to transform the image captured by subverting its original intent through the magic of Photoshop and other programs. He could reproduce the original version in paint – he has the facility to do so – then scrape, remove, alter, deconstruct, etc. to achieve new results, but the camera’s capability for exactitude that appears to eliminate the hand of the artist, is different. Now the artist can truly define and re-construct the composition within his own time and space, and the mechanics of the camera and the program replace his hand, while at the same time working in sync with whatever he has in mind. His approach is based on the removal of figures or actions that originally defined the essence of the work and told its story. What is left is both recognizable and confusing, forcing a re-evaluation of the original artist’s intent as the viewer focuses on other elements of the story, often more formal and symbolic, than those of the initial protagonists. What are we to make of this process? Why did Ballester chose to deconstruct these masterpieces through manipulation and elimination? What can we learn about the artist and about the history of art? Such questions give this exhibition its provocative and fascinating character. They may be answered theoretically or aesthetically by the scholars, or they may be appreciated as among the many reasons that the monumental, technically perfect works by Ballester continue to intrigue.
Carol Damian Director and Chief Curator The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum
CONCEALED SPACES: ODE TO THE VOID TAO TE CHING We join spokes together in a wheel But it is the centre hole That makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, But it is the emptiness inside That holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, But it is the inner space That makes it livable. We work with being, But non-being is what we use. Lao Tzu
In a world dominated by noise, speed and instant communication, José Manuel Ballester’s work presents an oasis in which the absence of any type of action allows us to do something we do not often do: to contemplate. His series Concealed Spaces (Espacios Ocultos) presents a unique approach to art, one that removes all living creatures from mayor masterpieces and rediscovers the beauty and peacefulness of their backgrounds. The works of this series are a tribute to art history’s masters and an ode to the void. Ballester was trained as a painter but found in photography the ideal medium to capture the emptiness that dominates his architectural landscapes. Yet, throughout his career, he felt the need to continue working as a painter. He reached the conclusion that he could work with both and with digital photography he was able to “photograph with the brush and to paint with the camera.”1 His admiration for the old masters and a personal experience led him to further 1
José Manuel Ballester speaks with Diógenes Moura. Madrid: La Fábrica and Fundación Telefónica, 2011, 9.
explore the possibilities of Photoshop. In 2007, Ballester began working on a series of images inspired by well known masterpieces, erasing from them all living beings and eliminating all references to action. By removing these from the original works, he re-discovered and re-created different scenarios where nature and architecture became the main subject. The works in Concealed Spaces are the result of a long process that began with the artist’s interest in art history’s classical repertoire, including several iconic works from the Museo Nacional del Prado’s art collection. As a young artist, he felt powerless when facing the works by the great masters displayed in the museum’s galleries. He often questioned himself: and then, how to fit in? How to establish a relationship with the past from the present’s perspective? The more he looked at the works, the more he felt not only that he had to get closer to his cultural heritage, but he also wanted to benefit from the masters’ teachings, particularly from their visual grammars and painting techniques. Ballester tried many roads until, as he recalls, a painful personal experience led him to the right path.2 When Jocelyne, a loved one, passed away, he looked at her favorite work -Fra Angelico’s The Annunciation and Life of the Virgin (in the predella) (c. 1426)- and tried to imagine how it would look if he erased from it all references to human activity. He visualized the altarpiece without the figures of the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel, featured in the central panel, and the characters depicted below. Without the religious subjects, Fra Angelico’s piece acquired a whole new meaning. Using Photoshop, Ballester “erased” all the figures and “re-painted” the blanks, unveiling the meticulous details of the landscape and the richness of the architectural setting which combines late Gothic and early Renaissance styles. For Ballester, this original exercise opened many doors. The painting’s background became the main subject, just like the architectural settings dominated his photographic work. Beginning with that first experience, an endless repertoire allowed him to select and to manipulate a number of masterpieces that are meaningful to him. His selection features different themes including mythology, religion, society and esoteric views. He jumps from one theme to another and from one period to the next. The original masterpieces belong to different historical periods, genres and themes, yet he feels that, once he transforms them, they are united by a common thread. Ballester creates an axis, a connection that ties them all. 2
Interview with the author, December, 2012.
He believes that Pieter Brueghel’s The Elder (1525-1569) and Caspar David Friedrich’s (1774-1840) romantic visions are connected to Hieronymus Bosch’s (1450-1516) and Salvador Dalí’s (1904-1989) surrealism. Although there is a difference of more than one hundred years between the works of Francisco Goya (1746-1828) and Francis Bacon (1909-1992), he sees commonalities between them. He also sees common aspects between Velázquez’s Meninas (1656) and Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937), and believes Velázquez’s influence was in Picasso’s subconscious. According to Ballester, the connections between the masters become evident when he transforms their original paintings 3 and erases from them all living creatures. The same way he feels free to make these connections, he gives the spectator total freedom to interpret his masterpieces’ modified versions. If the viewer is aware of the paintings that inspired them, he or she will have a particular perception of the works based on his or her individual memories. If he or she does not know the source, the interpretation will be determined by other sorts of influences formed by the viewer’s individual and collective experiences. Ballester is aware of the dynamic aspect of the spectator’s perception and he believes it plays a crucial role in the conceptual aspect of the work. By removing the figures and all types of action from the scenes, he wants us to think over and to see with new eyes the “empty” backgrounds of these well-known masterpieces. An interesting feature of Ballester’s work is the vaciados (emptying spaces) process. Once he photographs the original work, he uses Photoshop to “peel” the figures leaving a series of “blanks.” Filling in each “blank” poses a technical challenge. He carefully studies each artist’s style, technique and palette, and imagines what the background behind each particular character would have looked like if the artist would have painted it. In each case, he carefully considers the technique and the vision of the master, tries to imagine how the scene would have been painted without the characters, re-composes the image, and finally re-paints it digitally. Ballester pays particular attention to the way each master uses light and darkness in the original painting and studies each work’s technical limitations, taking into consideration how each artist conceived chiaroscuro, and how he may have sacrificed certain effects such as shadows to create contrast.4 Each finished work is not only the result of an impeccable technical achievement, but a tribute to the original masters that greatly influenced him.
3 4
Ibid. José Manuel Ballester speaks with Diógenes Moura. Madrid: La Fábrica and Fundación Telefónica, 2011, 16.
This exercise allows him to connect the present to the past. According to Ballester, time plays a very important role in this series. His intention is not to follow a specific historical order, but rather to establish a dialogue between the spectator and the master’s original painting, and between the viewer and his version of it. In Fra Angelico’s piece, for example, the scenario projects a divine aura. In the collective memory, the altarpiece depicts a specific moment: the Annunciation. Without the Archangel and the Virgin Mary, the temporality of the scene becomes ambiguous. It is not possible to know if the new version represents the moment before or after the action occurred. Ballester enjoys playing with that kind of ambiguity. Only on rare occasions, as in 3 of May (2008) and The Cross (2009), for example, specific details such as the presence of blood may indicate that the scene is painted after a specific fact. In most pieces, time becomes a variable of the artist’s conceptual approach. The exhibition Concealed Spaces includes twenty-four of the twenty-six works Ballester has produced as part of this series. The two that are not displayed are the Guernica, inspired by Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece, and a photograph inspired by a sixteenth-century Chinese engraving. It is important to note that although works are inspired by Western art, Ballester’s views of the world are strongly influenced by non-Western philosophies. Taoism, in particular, has a clear relation with this series that conceptually transmits the concept of wu-wei (action through non-action). Nature, simplicity and spontaneity are qualities he transmits through his landscapes and architectural settings. In the end, it is the ideal of living in harmony, the spirituality of the magnificent landscapes and the majesty of Ballester’s monumental pieces that make them unique and inspiring. Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig, Ph.D. Curator
Catalog
Place for an Annunciation: Homage to Jocelyne, 2007, photograph printed on canvas, 92.72 x 74.8 inches
Winter Landscape, 2007, photograph on Fuji Cristal Archive Preferred Paper, 15.51 x 22.72 inches
Winter Landscape 2, 2010, photograph on Endura Kodak Paper, 34.25 x 59.57 inches
Hunting Site, 2008, photograph on Endura Kodak Paper, 45.67 x 64.17 inches
The Italian Forest 1, 2008, photograph on Fuji Cristal Archive Preferred Paper, 32.68 x 54.33 inches
The Italian Forest 2, 2008, photograph on Fuji Cristal Archive Preferred Paper, 32.68 x 54.33 inches
The Italian Forest 3, 2008, photograph on Fuji Cristal Archive Preferred Paper, 32.68 x 54.33 inches
Site to Rest, 2008, photograph on Fuji Cristal Archive Preferred Paper, 47.36 x 69.24 inches
The Uninhabited Garden, 2008, triptych, photograph printed on canvas, 80.31 x 151.26 inches
Site for a Birth, 2012, photograph printed on canvas, 106.3 x 90.55 inches
Port in Ostia, 2008, photograph on Endura Kodak Paper, 83.07 x 56.5 inches
The Raft of The Medusa, 2010, photograph printed on canvas, 78.35 x 48.03 inches, unique, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
Artist’s Studio, 2008, photograph on Fuji Cristal Archive Preferred Paper, 47.36 x 69.25 inches
Royal Palace, 2009, photograph printed on canvas, 122.05 x 108.66 inches
3 of May, 2008, photograph printed on canvas, 105.51 x 138.19 inches
The Cross, 2009, photograph printed on canvas, 98.03 x 66.94 inches
Rocks’ Landscape, 2010, photograph printed on canvas, 78.35 x 48.03 inches
Last Supper, 2010, photograph printed on canvas, 186.61 x 337.79 inches
Carthusian Refectory, 2008, photograph printed on canvas, 103.15 x 120.67 inches
Site for an Annunciation 2, 2012, digital print on canvas, 38.19 x 83.66 inches
Ana’s Dwelling, 2012, photograph printed on canvas, 78.74 x 72.83 inches
Site for the Tribute, 2012, photograph printed on canvas, 106.3 x 90.55 inches
The City, 2012, photograph printed on canvas, 106.3 x 90.55 inches
Biography
José Manuel Ballester Born in 1960 in Madrid, Spain Bachelor of Fine Arts, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1984 Lives and works in Madrid Solo Exhibitions 2013 José Manuel Ballester: Concealed Spaces, The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami. 2012 Spazi Nascosti il lavoro del renascismento italiano, Spain’s Royal Academy in Rome. Abstraction in Reality, Showroom DA2, Salamanca. 2011 Arquitecturas e Simulacros, Museo Lasar Segall, Sao Paulo. Reflejos, Museo Arqueológico de Madrid. Abstraction in Reality, Showroom Alcalá 31, Regional Government of Madrid. 2010 Hidden Spaces, Pascal Vanhoecke Gallery, Paris. The Devotion of the Metropolis, Pinacoteca of the State of Sao Paulo. The Big City in Modern China, Amos Salvador Hall, Logroño. 2009 The Big City in Modern China, New Monastery of San Juan de la Peña, Jaca, Huesca. Trespass the Emptiness, Almudi Palace, Murcia. China International Gallery Exposition 2009 (CIGE 2009), Estiarte Gallery, Beijing. 2008 Photo Miami, Pascal Vanhoecke Gallery, Miami. Spaces for de Music, Pascal Vanhoecke Gallery, Paris. Hidden Spaces, District 4 Gallery, Madrid. Madrid-Berlin, Palacio de Comunicaciones de Madrid. 2007 Recent works about China, Central Academy of Fine Arts. China. Hyper-architecture and Hyper-design: New Urban Models in China in the XXI century, Casa Asia, Barcelona, and Foundation Astroc, Madrid. José Manuel Ballester, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto. José Manuel Ballester, Charles Cowles Gallery, New York. Interiors, Galeria la Nave, Valencia. 2006 José Manuel Ballester, Pascal Vanhoecke Gallery. Paris. Following the Line, Vanguardia Gallery, Bilbao. 2005 Habitación 523, Palacio Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Museums, Valencian Institute of Modern Art, Valencia. 2004 Galleries of Light, Savings Bank of Burgos Art Center (CAB), Burgos. Setting out, Charles Cowles Gallery, New York.
2003 Passing by-Locations, Hall La Gallera, Generalitat Valenciana, Council for Culture and Education, Valencia. 2001 Helium engravings. José Manuel Ballester, Estiarte Gallery, Madrid. 2000 Traits of Architecture, DRAC Exhibition Hall, Clermont-Ferrand, France. 1999 Espacio Mínimo Gallery, Murcia. Rivadavia Hall, Delegation of Cadiz and Cruz Herrera Museum, Line of the Conception. Graphic work, Estiarte Gallery, Madrid. Architectures 1994-1999, Antonio de Barnola Gallery, Barcelona. 1998 José Manuel Ballester. Still lifes, Camón Aznar Museum, Ibercaja, Zaragoza. 1997 ARCO, Antonio de Barnola Gallery, Madrid. International Arts Festival, Palacio de Exposiciones, Medellín. Architecture and Landscapes, Amós Salvador Hall, Cultural Rioja, Logroño. 1996 The Essential View, Palacio de Almudi Digital Spaces, Espacio Mínimo Gallery, Murcia. 1995 Fragments, graphic work, COAM Foundation, Madrid. 1994 Tórculo Gallery, Madrid. Antonio de Barnola Gallery, Barcelona. 1993 Clave Gallery, Murcia Caja Burgos Space. 1992 Levy Gallery, Hamburg. 1991 Levy Gallery. Madrid. 1988 Time in Freedom, Albéniz Theater, Comunidad de Madrid, Council of Culture. Hall of Image. Caja San Fernando. Sevilla. 1990 Fundación Colegio del Rey, Capilla del Oidor, Alcalá de Henares. Madrid.
Selected Group Exhibitions 2012 ArtBasel Miami Beach, Dan Gallery, Miami Beach. Estampa, Matadero Madrid, Galería Pilar Serra, Madrid. 11 Años de Galería, Galería Fernando Pradilla, Madrid.
KIAF (11th Korea International Art Fair), Galería el Museo, Seoul. PINTA, the Modern and Contemporary Latin American Show, Galería Fernando Pradilla. MADRIDFOTO, Pilar Serra and Distrito 4 Galleries, Madrid. Air-port-photo, Botanical Garden, Fundación Arena, Madrid. Arte como vida, Sala Kubo de San Sebastian, Colección Pilar Citoler, San Sebastian. 2011 ArtBasel Miami Beach, Dan Gallery, Miami Beach. Exposition de Printemps, Pascal Vanhoecke Gallery, Paris. ARTESANTANDER, Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Galería Pilar Serra, Madrid. Fictions and Realities, Spanish Art from the 2000 in the Collection of Contemporary Art, Museo Patio Herreriano, Modern Art Museum, Moscow. Vienna Fair, Galería Distrito 4, Vienna. MADRIDFOTO, Pilar Serra Gallery, Madrid. ART BRUSSELS, Galería Distrito 4, Brussels. ESPACIO ATLANTICO, Pilar Serra Gallery, Vigo. Zoom, Marlborough Gallery, Madrid. ARCO, Dan, District 4, Pilar Serra and Vanguardia Galleries, Madrid. 2010 Spanish Muse: A Contemporary Response, Meadows Museum, Dallas. MADRIDFOTO, District 4 Gallery, Estiarte Gallery and Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Madrid. FOROSUR, District 4 Gallery, Cáceres Art Dubai, District 4 Gallery, Dubai. ARCO, Dan, District 4, and Estiarte Galleries, Stand of the Community of Madrid, Madrid. 2009 MADRIDFOTO, Estiarte and Nicholas Metivier Galleries, Madrid. FOROSUR, District 4 Gallery, Cáceres. Art Dubai, District 4 Gallery, Dubai. Poetics of the 20th Century, Regional Museum of Modern Art of Cartagena, Murcia. Far away.....so close, National Museum of Soares dos Reis, Oporto. Vienna Fair, District 4 Gallery, Vienna. ARCO, Dan, District 4, and Estiarte Galleries, Madrid. 2008 Photo Miami, Estiarte Gallery, Miami. New Histories, a New View of Spanish Photography and Video. Kulturhuset, Stockholm. The Stenersen Museum, Oslo. Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art, Vaasa. National Museum of Photography, Royal Library, Copenhagen. Enface / Surface, Grita Insam Gallery, Vienna. Abstractions, Charles Cowles Gallery, New York. SPAIN 1957-2007, Palazzo Sant’Elia, Palermo.
Selected Awards 2010 National Photography Award, Ministry of Culture, Spain. 2008 Photography Award, Comunidad de Madrid. 2006 Francisco de Goya Painting Award, Villa de Madrid. 2001 VIII Fine Arts Biennial of the City of Pamplona. 1999 Engraving National Award, National Copper Engraving Association, Royal Academy of Arts of San Fernando.
Selected Collections Diputación Provincial de Guadalajara Facultad de Bellas Artes de Madrid Fundación Colegio del Rey. Alcalá de Henares Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporáneo de Madrid Junta de Castilla y León, Zamora Consejería de Cultura de la Comunidad de Murcia IFEMA, Madrid Saldañuela, Caja Municipal de Ahorros de Burgos Gabinete de Estampas, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid Marugame Hirai Museum of Spanish Contemporary Art, Japan Colección “Testimoni,” Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona Fundación COAM, Madrid Colección Estampa de la Fundación Actilibre Madrid Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid Fomento Construcciones y Contratas, Madrid Autopistas de España, Barcelona Iberia, Madrid Banco Santander, Madrid Audiencia Nacional, Madrid Calcografía Nacional, Madrid Philips Morris. Madrid Colección AENA, Madrid ITP, Bilbao y Madrid Fundación Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo, Marbella Banco Val, Madrid Consejo Superior de Deportes, Madrid Colección de Arte Contemporáneo, Ciudad de PamplonaCaja Madrid Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Alcorcón Itaú Unibanco S.A., Sao Paulo Centro Contemporáneo de la Ciudad de Barcelona, Barcelona. Fundación Telefónica, Madrid Museo Artium, Vitoria Spanish Embassy, Berlin Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM), Valencia Endesa. Madrid Caja de Burgos Museo Patio Herreriano, Asociación Arte Contemporáneo Congreso de los Diputados Puerto de Barcelona Banco Espirito Santo, Lisboa. Fundación Astroc, Palma de Mallorca. Comunidad de Madrid Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, Valencia Instituto Cervantes, Beijing Miami Art Museum, Miami Bancaja, Valencia Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami Shoes or no Shoes Museum Museo de Bellas Artes de Murcia Museo Würth, La Rioja Catedral de Burgos 21c Museum Hotels, Internacional Contemporary Art Foundation, Louisville, Kentucky Coca Cola Foundation “Géneros y Tendencias,” Colección Alcobendas Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Fundación AENA, Madrid Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao Pinacoteca del Estado de Sao Paulo SESC, Sao Paulo
Acknowledgements
Board of Trustees
The curator thanks Dr. Carol Damian, Director of The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University for her support of the exhibition José Manuel Ballester: Concealed Spaces and the catalog that accompanies it. She also thanks Klaudio Rodríguez, Assistant Curator; D. Gabriella Portela, Communications Assistant; Debbye Kirshtel-Taylor, Curator of Collections and Registrar and the staff of the Frost Art Museum. Special thanks to Luis Fernando Pradilla and Galería Fernando Pradilla (Madrid)/Galería El Museo (Bogotá).
Albert Maury, Chairperson Michael M. Adler, Vice Chairperson Sukrit Agrawal Cesar L. Alvarez Jose J. Armas Jorge L. Arrizurieta Robert T. Barlick, Jr. Marcelo Claure Laura Farinas, Student Trustee Gerald C. Grant, Jr. C. Delano Gray Mayi de la Vega Claudia Puig University Administration
The artist wants to recognize the invaluable support provided by Miguel Zugaza, Francisco Calvo Serraller, Manuela Mena, Juan Ignacio Vidarte (Director General, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa), Petra Joos (Deputy Director for Museum Activities, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa), Luca Ponzio, Giacomo Maria Prati, Jocelyne Laffite, José Manuel López Peláez, Juan Antonio Ballester, Tito Ferreira, José Ramón Valenzuela, Natalia Guimón Ybarra, Luis Fernando Pradilla and Distrito 4, and expresses his gratitude to the following institutions: Museo del Prado, Madrid; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Galleria degli Uffizzi, Firenze; Capella degli Scrovegni, Padova; Refettorio del Convento di Santa María delle Grazie, Milano; and Basilica Superiore di San Francesco, Assisi; as well as the photo labs, ARIZA, Madrid; CLOROFILA DIGITAL, Madrid; DINASA, Madrid; and Haltadefinizione Image Bank, Novara.
Mark B. Rosenberg, President Douglas Wartzok, Provost , Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Irma Becerra-Fernandez, Vice President for Engagement Pete Garcia, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Andres G. Gil ‘86, Vice President, Sponsored Research Sandra B. Gonzalez-Levy, Senior Vice President, External Relations Robert Grillo, Vice President, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Jaffus Hardrick, Vice President, Human Resources Kenneth A. Jessell, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President, Administration Howard R. Lipman, Senior Vice President, University Advancement; President & CEO, FIU Foundation Inc. Larry Lunsford, Vice President of Student Affairs Javier I. Marqués ’92, ‘96, Chief of Staff, Office of the President M. Kristina Raattama, General Counsel John A. Rock, MD, Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs Stephen A. Sauls, Vice President, Governmental Relations Terry Witherell, Vice President of External Relations Frost Art Museum
The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum Florida International University 10975 SW 17th St., Miami, FL 33199 t: 305.348.2890 f: 305.348.2762 e: artinfo@fiu.edu w: thefrost.fiu.edu Museum hours: Tues-Sat: 10am - 5pm | Sun: 12pm to 5pm | Mon: Closed The Frost Art Museum received ongoing support from the Steven and Dorothea Green Endowment; the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Mayor and the MiamiDade Board of County Commissioners; The Miami Herald; Target; and the Members & Friends of The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum.
Carol Damian, Director and Chief Curator Alexis Altamirano, Visitor Services Assistant Julio Alvarez, Security Manager Alison Burrus, MDCPC Museum Educator Annette B. Fromm, Museum Studies Coordinator Ximena Gallegos, Membership Coordinator Alex Garcia, Digital Archivist Elisabeth Gonzalez, Administrative Assistant Alberto Hernandez, Exhibitions and Sculpture Park Manager Julia P. Herzberg, Adjunct Curator Michael Hughes, Director of Development Greg Jackson, Grants Specialist Debbye Kirschtel-Taylor, Curator of Collections/Registrar Jessica Lettsome, Visitor Services and Events Assistant Miriam Machado, Curator of Education Mary Alice Manella, Budget & Finance Manager Juan Menendez, IT Specialist Amy Pollack, Special Projects D. Gabriella Portela, Communications Assistant Klaudio Rodriguez, Assistant Curator Jessica Ruiz de Castilla, Visitor Services Assistant Luis Tabares, Security Guard Oliver Tameze-Rivas, Finance Assistant Ragan Williams, Security Guard Emmett Young, Marketing & Communications Assistant Director Sherry Zambrano, Assistant Registrar