The collectors explain the attraction of Miami's edgiest neighborhood

Onwards to Allapattah: the Rubells and Jorge Pérez on their ambitious new ventures

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The Rubell Collection
	For nearly three decades, Mera and Don Rubell&nbsp;–&nbsp;major players in first attracting Art Basel to Miami Beach 18 years ago&nbsp;–&nbsp;have mounted Hammer- and Whitney-caliber exhibitions of narrative complexity in their original Wynwood location. This is no small feat, especially for a family whose founding principle is to show only what they own. Art, their son Jason will tell you, is in the family DNA; daughter&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/13412/Jennifer-Rubell" target="_blank">Jennifer Rubell</a> is a prodigious sculptor and performance artist in her own right. And even among the most dedicated collectors, one would be hard-pressed to find a more thorough representation of medium, nationality, age and name recognition. On their walls, emerging talent receives equal billing with icons like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8291/Cindy-Sherman" target="_blank">Cindy Sherman</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8196/Keith-Haring" target="_blank">Keith Haring</a>, acquisitions from the couple’s downtown New York days. Early on, Mera, a public school teacher, and Don, an NYU medical student, frequented Chelsea and Soho, where a tight budget trained their eye and indoctrinated a habit for copious research. Now, the family’s imprint extends well beyond Southern Florida. After Miami, it’s not uncommon for Rubell Family Collection (RFC) exhibits to travel the world. Currently, ‘30 Americans,’ which debuted in Wynwood in 2008, makes its 17th stop at the Barnes Foundation, presenting many of the generation’s most significant African American voices (<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/28331/Nina-Chanel-Abney" target="_blank">Nina Chanel Abney</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7139/Rashid-Johnson" target="_blank">Rashid Johnson</a>,&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8445/Wangechi-Mutu" target="_blank">Wangechi Mutu</a>, to name just a few). The Rubells are legendary for championing young talent and helping put those artists on the map.&nbsp;‘Their trust in my artistic vision imbued me with the confidence to make the boldest and largest-scale work I have ever done,’&nbsp;says rapidly rising painter Allison Zuckerman of Mera and Don during her 2017 artist residency and subsequent solo show in Wynwood.

	But with over 7,200 pieces from around the globe, Rubell director and confidant Juan Roselione-Valadez recognized the need for a new repository to house the ever-growing inventory of contemporary masterpieces, 95% of which generally lie in storage at any given time. Initially we had no intention of this expansion,’&nbsp;explains Mera Rubell of the hotly anticipated 100,000-square-foot Allapattah location, debuting just in time for the fair. With 40 galleries, the new home expands their exhibition capacity threefold, featuring event and performance venues, a gift shop, LEKU restaurant&mdash;serving cuisine from Spain’s northern Basque region&mdash;and a research library boasting 40,000 titles.&nbsp;‘When we first visited, we saw the open-column spacing and the ceiling height, and said to each other, “We’d be dead to consider relocating after over 25 years,’ she recalls.&nbsp;‘But if you listen to architecture, it will tell you what feels right. There were loading bays for semitrucks to pull up in the rain, and we instantly saw a covered veranda for a restaurant overlooking a garden courtyard.’

‘I went to Miami and my jaw dropped at both the size and the potential of it,’&nbsp;says architect Annabelle&nbsp;Selldorf, whose building projects for the artworld are impressive: Institutions include the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The High Museum of Art and the Neue Galerie New York, and the commercial gallery list is the bluest of blue&nbsp;–&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1103/David-Zwirner" target="_blank">David&nbsp;Zwirner</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1441/Skarstedt" target="_blank">Skarstedt</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1141/Gladstone-Gallery" target="_blank">Gladstone Gallery</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1135/Galerie-Thaddaeus-Ropac" target="_blank">Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac</a>,&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1153/Hauser-Wirth" target="_blank">Hauser &amp; Wirth</a>, among others. Pacing proved central to her design process.&nbsp;‘Our collective focus was to create well-proportioned spaces in a sequence that supports and underscores the pleasure of seeing art,’&nbsp;she adds.&nbsp;‘The Rubell collection is demanding and very present and prominent. Having the right rhythm and cadence allows for an art experience without any interference, but also takes into consideration what is too much and where you need a break.’

	Sui generis even by the Rubells’ exacting standards, the inaugural show spans work from the burgeoning years of headliners such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8633/Kerry-James-Marshall" target="_blank">Kerry James Marshall</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8390/Elizabeth-Peyton" target="_blank">Elizabeth Peyton</a>,&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6944/Jeff-Koons" target="_blank">Jeff Koons</a>; a selection of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11371/Ai-Weiwei" target="_blank">Ai Weiwei</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9017/Qiu-Zhijie" target="_blank">Qiu Zhijie</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9619/Zhu-Jinshi" target="_blank">Zhu Jinshi</a> from the family’s extensive studio visits to China; a grouping of artists featured in ‘30 Americans,’ including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11609/Kehinde-Wiley" target="_blank">Kehinde Wiley</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7793/Mickalene-Thomas" target="_blank">Mickalene Thomas</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11466/Henry-Taylor" target="_blank">Henry Taylor</a>;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7763/Yayoi-Kusama" target="_blank">Yayoi Kusama</a>’s INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM-LET’S SURVIVE FOREVER (2017) and Narcissus Garden (1966-present); as well as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7658/Sterling-Ruby" target="_blank">Sterling Ruby</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9905/Oscar-Murillo" target="_blank">Oscar Murillo</a>, and Allison Zuckerman commissions from the family’s artist-in-residence program.&nbsp;

	It’s not easy to compete with an opening gambit like that, but museumgoers should be sure to soak in the public courtyard, too, much more than simply a welcoming entry. Assembling rare flora, once abundant throughout the Everglades and the Keys, the Rubells have staged nothing short of a lush, small-scale habitat restoration in Allapattah, complete with botanical labels&mdash;a kind of live plant library.&nbsp;‘The art is about a cultural consciousness that we wanted to share with people and raise,’&nbsp;explains Roselione-Valadez, who designed the courtyard in collaboration with La Casona Garden, a South Florida-based mother/daughter landscape atelier.&nbsp;‘With the garden, we hope to raise ecological consciousness and make people aware of the great diversity of plants that historically existed here. Many of them are no longer present or are threatened or endangered,’&nbsp;Roselione-Valadez adds. Leave it to the Rubells to harness a museum’s full transformative power, tackling biodiversity alongside great art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

El Espacio 23&nbsp;
	‘We wanted to have an alternative space so our collection is seen more often by the public,’&nbsp;says real estate developer and art philanthropist Jorge M. Pérez of El Espacio 23, the 28,000-square-foot arts center&nbsp;–&nbsp;another soon-to-be Allapattah landmark&nbsp;–&nbsp;whose doors officially open on December 2. He adds,&nbsp;‘But we also wanted a place where artists could live and work.’&nbsp;Named for its address, Northwest 23rd Street, the repurposed warehouse will offer exhibitions drawn chiefly from the Pérez compendium, known for strong Latin American representation, with a generous dose of contemporary luminaries like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7525/William-Kentridge" target="_blank">William Kentridge</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8327/Kara-Walker" target="_blank">Kara Walker</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/49351/Yinka-Shonibare-CBE" target="_blank">Yinka Shonibare</a> (until, that is, the collection’s planned donation to the Pérez Art Museum Miami upon Pérez’s death). On-site are three apartments, as well as expansive, shared studios, for six- to eight-week-long artist and curatorial residencies throughout the year.

	The opening exhibition delves straight into deeply conceptual waters. Organized by Colombia-based José Roca, formerly a Latin America curator at Tate, London, and currently the artistic director of FLORA ars+natura, ‘Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection’ orients around a set of intellectual themes&mdash;including Entangled Histories, State Terror and Spatial Politics&mdash;culled exclusively from the Pérez catalog (later exhibitions will include pieces on loan).&nbsp;‘For the first exhibit, we wanted to talk about artists being the mirror of society,’&nbsp;explains Pérez.&nbsp;‘This show concentrates on sexism, racism, poverty and immigration, portrayed by artists from all corners of the world.’&nbsp;Yet El Espacio 23 also investigates its immediate surroundings, hosting a collaboration of socially engaged works by Allapattah artists with local schools and nonprofits such as Goodwill and the YMCA. Artists Alberto Baraya, Raimond Chaves, Gilda Mantilla and Susana Pilar Delahante launch the community activation series.

	Architecture enthusiasts, take note: Not far away, the Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is currently designing a vast mixed-use complex with real estate developer Robert Wennett on the Miami Produce site. Comprising eight buildings supported by tall, slender columns ranging in height from 50 to 130 feet, the project reportedly includes residences, retail, offices, urban gardens and possibly a hotel. The project is sure to attract veteran Ingels fans to Allapattah&mdash;BIG’s addition to the Kistefos Museum outside Oslo, The Twist, achieved instant cult status.

This article was originally published in Art Basel Miami Beach Magazine, available in select locations in the US as well as onsite at the Miami Beach Convention Center.Top image: Don and Mera Rubell inside the new Rubell Museum. Photo by Seth Browarnik/WorldRedEye.com.

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