LTC 633-2019 Legacy Purchase Program Winner - Ebony G. PattersonMIAMI BEACH
OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
NO. LTC# 633-2019 LETTER TO COMMISSION
TO: Mayor Dan Gelber and Members
FROM: Jimmy L. Morales, City Manage
DATE: December 6, 2019
SUBJECT: Legacy Purchase Program Winne -Ebony G . Patterson
The purpose of this Letter to the Commission ("LTC") is to inform the Mayor and
Commission of the outcome of our Legacy Purchase program as part of Art Basel Miami
Beach 2019.
As announced on November 4 , 2019, the City of Miami Beach launched the Legacy
Purchase Program, a collaboration with Art Basel Miami Beach, and under the direction
of the City's Art in Public Places ("AiPP") committee whereby the City would set out to
purchase a work of art, of up to $100,000 in value from contingency funds from the AiPP
collection within the Miami Beach Convention Center campus . The goal of the program
is to strengthen the connection between the City of Miami Beach, the residents and Art
Basel Miami Beach by allowing the residents to be a part of the curatorial process of our
public art collection, while broadening our dedication to acquiring meaningful public art
and expanding our relationship with Art Basel by enhancing our community engagement
in the annual event.
Via communications directly from Art Basel, galleries taking part in the Novus and
Positions sectors of Art Basel Miami Beach were invited to submit up to two (2) artworks
to the AiPP Committee, provided the works were being shown within the fair in 2019. Out
of twenty-seven (27) applications received, the committee short-listed six (6) works to view
in person. The AiPP Committee viewed the selections on Wednesday, December 4 and
thereafter short-listed their selections to three (3) during a publicly noticed AiPP meeting.
The three (3) selections were:
Ebony G. Patterson -" ... as the garden secretes a swarm of monarchs feast. .. a john
crow awaits a carcass' fall while scavengers gather to feast below, as we dig between
the cuts ... below the leaves ... beneath the soil"
Amoako Boafo -Cobalt Blue Earring
Didier William-Broken Skies: Tea mi
These three (3) selections were posted online for twenty-four (24) hours for public voting .
The public voting was announced viae-blast through the City of Miami Beach , our Cultural
Arts Council and Art in Public Places Committees. Our Cultural Anchors and short-listed
galleries were also sent this information, who sent out e-blasts to their subscription list.
The City of Miami Beach supported this initiative through paid gee-fenced social media
ads for a period of twenty-four (24) hours.
At 8pm on Thursday December 51h, the polls closed, and the following votes were received:
Ebony G. Patterson-140 votes
Amoako Boafo -137 votes
Didier William -76 votes
With only three (3) votes between the winner and the runner up, the administration spoke
to both galleries and found out that they are neighbor galleries, who share a physical wall
in their Chicago location. They are collaborative and their artists generally share gallery
openings and events.
Given the media coverage surrounding both pieces, including a feature in the Wall Street
Journal for Amoako Boafo this week, and a waiting list of over 100 people, including some
of the nation's leading cultural institutions and art collectors waiting for the pieces to go to
public sale later today, the administration decided to purchase both the winning work
(Ebony G. Patterson) and the runner up (Amoako Boafo) work for the City of Miami
Beach's public art collection .
WINNER
Ebony G. Patterson -" ... as the garden secretes a swarm of monarchs feast...a john
crow awaits a carcass' fall while scavengers gather to feast below, as we dig between
the cuts ... below the leaves ... beneath the soil"
Ebony G. Patterson is a Jamaican visual artist and is represented by the Monique Meloche
Gallery in Chicago. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Sam Fox College of Design and
Visual Arts. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Jamaica,
the United States, and abroad including the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Baltimore
Museum of Art, Nuit Blanche Toronto, and the Hales Gallery in New York City to name a
few.
Known for her drawings, tapestries, videos, sculptures and installations that involve
surfaces layered with flowers, glitter, lace and beads, Ms. Patterson's works investigate
forms of embellishment as they relate to youth culture within disenfranchised communities.
Her neo-baroque works address violence, masculinity, "bling," visibility and invisibility
within the post-colonial context of her native Jamaica and within black youth culture
globally. The references to Carnival in Patterson's use of beads, plastic ornaments, and
reflective materials reflect her interest in mining international aesthetics in a practice that
is a race against time, as Patterson captures, mourns, and glorifies the passing of too
many lives.
RUNNER UP
Amoako Boafo -Cobalt Blue Earring
Amoako Boafo is a painter, born in Accra, Ghana, based in Vienna, Austria. Boafo 's
portrait paintings are enticing in their lucidity , accentuating the figures in each work , who
are regularly isolated on single color backgrounds , their gaze the focal point of each
work. The brushstrokes are thick and gestural, the contours of the body's almost soften
into abstraction. The most well-known of his series , the Black Diaspora portraits serve as
a means of celebration of his identity and blackness .
Boafo emphasizes , "The primary idea of my practice is representation, documenting,
celebrating and showing new ways to approach blackness." Much of his work is inspired
by his upbringing , commenting on how males are raised to be aggressive and masculine ,
which he challenges in his works. Although the artists underlying messages are quite
intense , there is a certain softness to the works, the poses are serene and the skin
luminous .
Boafo studies at the Academy of Fine Arts , Vienna . In 2017 was awarded with the jury
prize , Walter Koschatzky Art Prize . Widely collected by private and public collectors and
institutions, most recently by CCS Bard College Hessel Museum of Art and The Albertina
Museum Vienna , and has been named as the first artists in residence at the Rubell
Museum .
The Legacy Purchase Program is funded from the city's AiPP fund which is a fund
dedicated solely to the purchase of public art. Maintenance and conservation of the piece
will fall under Art in Public Places Fund 147 and the city's AiPP guidelines.
The artwork will be displayed in a dedicated, publicly accessible area of the Miami Beach
Convention Center, to begin an artistic timeline of Art Basel Miami Beach within the MBCC
via the City's Public Art collection.
For more information, please contact Matt Kenny at mattkenny@miamibeachfl.gov or
x6597.
cc: Marcia Monserrat, Chief of Staff, City Manager
Matt Kenny, Director, Tourism and Culture Department