The Pérez Art Museum Miami this month announced receiving a gift totaling $5 million from the Green Family Foundation to support its Caribbean Cultural Institute, a program that advances the study of Caribbean art connecting the region to the U.S. The institute is being renamed The Green Family Foundation Caribbean Cultural Institute.
Kimberly Green and Iberia Peréz Gonzaléz, members of the Green Family Foundation and the Caribbean Cultural Institute, respectively, told WLRN that preservation is something deeply important for people in the arts and they hope to keep the importance of Caribbean artists alive.
While the donation benefits the PAMM, it also helps with younger artists at Florida International University, allowing them access to the extensive Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center.
“CCI is just really one of a kind,” said Gonzaléz, CCI’s curatorial associate at the PAMM. “There's no other institute dedicated to Caribbean art within a museum institution, at least that I know of, in the US or even in the Caribbean for that matter.”
“It's a very special project that we've committed to continue working together towards its growth and further development,” Gonzaléz added.
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The CCI’s mission is to curate artworks from artists across the diaspora, but also to help fund emerging artists as well.
The Other Side of Now: Foresight in Contemporary Caribbean Art was CCI’s first exhibition with the PAMM, in 2019. Since then, the museum has held three other exhibitions. Their goal is not just to find artists creating now, but to preserve the lives and stories of all artists that came before. “ If you have the opportunity and the wherewithal to be able to invest both large and small, which is what we are fortunate enough to be able to do, this is how we like to approach it,” says Green, president of the Green Family Foundation.
“ We have so many organizations in Miami that are doing wonderful work,” Green told WLRN. “You have large institutions, and you have a myriad of small institutions around Miami that are doing brilliant work that don't want or have an enormous budget. It's important to support all of those as well.”
“People are attracted to Miami because of its vibrant art scene,” Green said. “And so for a foundation such as mine — a family foundation — which was established because of the opportunities that the city and the county of Miami has, we believe that it is important to support the arts because this is who we are.”
The foundation is responsible for Green Space Miami, a place for local South Florida artists to hold exhibitions. Together with CCI, they hope to hold public events, gatherings, and become a space for all creative types.
With new funding from the Green Family Foundation, CCI plans to collaborate with FIU’s Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center. With their work together, they plan to allow students access to extensive archives, and to expand the study and preservation of art to the younger generation.
