No Vacancy 2023 Prize Winners Press Release MB
City of Miami Beach, 1700 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139, www.miamibeachfl.gov
OFFICE OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS, Tel: 305.673.7575 Press Release
Melissa Berthier, Email: melissaberthier@miamibeachfl.gov
Matt Kenny, Email: mattkenny@miamibeachfl.gov
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Dec. 15, 2023
Christina Pettersson Wins $25,000 Juried Prize for
2023 No Vacancy, Miami Beach
Carlos Betancourt Wins $10,000 GMCVB’s People’s Choice Award
The Garden of Evil, Christina Pettersson. Installed in the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club. Image credit: Zaire
Aranguren.
Miami Beach, FL — The City of Miami Beach, in collaboration with the Miami Beach Visitor and
Convention Authority (MBVCA), is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 edition of No
Vacancy. The $25,000 Juried Prize has been awarded to Christina Pettersson, who presented
The Garden of Evil at the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club. The $10,000 People’s Choice Award,
sponsored by the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB), has been awarded
to Carlos Betancourt for his work entitled The Future Eternal at the Betsy Hotel. Both works
debuted for Miami Beach Art Week on November 16 and concluded on December 14.
Jurors Nate Freeman (Culture Correspondent, Vanity Fair) and D.J. Hellerman (Chief Curator
and Director of Curatorial Affairs, The Fabric Workshop and Museum) awarded the Juried Prize
to Stockholm-born Miami-based artist Christina Pettersson. Her work, The Garden of Evil, is a
large-scale allegorical drawing on wood panels installed in the lobby of the Cadillac Hotel &
Beach Club. It imagines a futuristic Miami Beach overwhelmed by invasive animals, a lushly
tropical yet ultimately apocalyptic world where only the most opportunistic creatures remain. The
work serves as a reminder to the viewer that an environment absent of native flora and fauna
will soon find itself absent of humans.
The People’s Choice Award is determined by the public via an online vote. Their selection, The
Future Eternal by the San Juan-born, Miami-based artist Carlos Betancourt, is an animated
video projected onto the iconic “Betsy Orb,” a skybridge placed in between the two buildings of
the Betsy Hotel. The colorful, kaleidoscopic installation reflects the Christmas decorations and
tree toppers of Betancourt’s childhood, which he and his mother left behind when they moved
from Puerto Rico to Miami. This memory led him to collect discarded decorative lights from
secondhand stores, which he has layered to explore themes of memory, beauty, and the
passage of time in The Future Eternal.
No Vacancy is a juried art competition that supports and celebrates mainly local artists,
provokes critical discourse, and encourages the public to experience Miami Beach’s famed
hotels as temporary art destinations in their own right. No Vacancy 2023 included 12
participating artists drawn from a call for submissions and selected by representatives from the
City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places Committee, Cultural Arts Council (CAC) and MBVCA.
Each artist created a site-specific work for display at one of 12 different hotels throughout Miami
Beach. For the fourth edition of this competition, $35,000 in prizes were awarded, including the
$10,000 Public Prize by the GMCVB and the $25,000 Juried Prize awarded by a panel of art
world professionals.
For additional information please visit: www.mbartsandculture.org/no-vacancy.
Funding for this project is provided by the City of Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council, Miami
Beach Visitor and Convention Authority, and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.
For additional information, please visit mbartsandculture.org.
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About Christina Pettersson
Christina Pettersson explores resurrection and savage demise on a grand scale once reserved
for history painting. Her drawings, sculptures, and most recently performances, reference
classic mythology and literature, revealing a deep allegiance to the wilderness of a bygone era,
the sorcery of the night, and the experience of a world in decline. It is a stage materialized from
the often brutal but beautiful Everglades of her hometown, which she has spent a lifetime
exploring.
About Carlos Betancourt
Carlos Betancourt (b. 1966 in San Juan, Puerto Rico; lives and works in Miami, FL) is a
multidisciplinary artist exploring issues of memory, dwelling in issues of nature, the environment
and matters of beauty, identity, and communication. Through re-examination, he recycles and
reinterprets the past by delivering it in a fresh and new relevant context.
About the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places Program
Art in Public Places is a city board responsible for the commission and purchase of artwork by
contemporary artists in all media. The program allocates funds totaling 2% of hard costs for City
projects and joint private/public projects. Funds from construction projects may be aggregated
into the Art in Public Places Fund and allocated for artwork at public sites and for collection
maintenance. The fund is administered by a City Commission-appointed citizen’s board of
seven members, the Art in Public Places Committee.
About the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council
The Cultural Arts Council (CAC) is an eleven-member council created in 1997 for the purpose of
developing, coordinating and promoting the performing and visual arts in the City of Miami
Beach. The CAC serves as arts advocates before governmental bodies, coordinates collective
marketing initiatives for the local arts community and funds not-for-profit arts organizations.
Since the program’s inception, the CAC has awarded approximately $18 million in cultural arts
grants, supporting thousands of performances, exhibits, and other cultural activities in Miami
Beach.
About the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority
The MBVCA is a seven-member authority, appointed by the City of Miami Beach Commission,
with the goal of encouraging, developing and promoting the image of Miami Beach locally,
nationally and internationally as an outstanding tourist destination. To this end, the MBVCA
strategically focuses its funding investments in a balanced manner, fostering outstanding
existing programs, stimulating new activities, and encouraging partnerships. The MBVCA is
committed to a careful, long-term plan for allocation of resources to help Miami Beach thrive as
a destination with something for everyone.
Media Contact:
Katrina Stewart or Andy Cushman
E: katrina@bluemedium.com or acushman@bluemedium.com
T: 212.675.1800