Back in 1996, Mark Handforth was a twentysomething artist with a couple of small gallery shows to his name and a big opportunity.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, which had just opened in its current building in North Miami, invited him to have his first museum show there. Even after he told curator Bonnie Clearwater he wanted to use scaffolding and equipment left over from the construction.

“The piece I’d proposed was kind of crazy,” he said. “She said ‘Yeah, knock yourself out.’ I was kind of changing it around during the show. She was completely fine with that. That’s the great quality of Bonnie, the great quality of MOCA.”

Since the museum opened in its current space between North Miami’s city hall and police department, MOCA has earned a reputation as a promoter of undiscovered talent and put the region on the contemporary art world’s map — years before Art Basel came to Miami Beach. During the annual art event that brings thousands of collectors, gallerists and other art lovers to the area, MOCA stakes its claim on the spotlight, hosting the celebrity-studded Vanity Fair International Party.

“The history is unfolding before our eyes,” said Kira Flanzraich, vice-chairman of the museum’s board of trustees. “It’s very interesting how Miami became such a center of contemporary art, and I think MOCA is a big part of that.”

Supporters give much credit to Clearwater, whose has forged close relationships with prominent collectors over a career that includes time as the director of the Mark Rothko Foundation in New York and the Lannan Foundation in Los Angeles.

“I don’t know if it was being here at the right place and right time,” said Clearwater, who was named MOCA’s executive director in 1997. “I immediately spotted all these amazing artists who were living and working here.”

Many of those artists whose careers were launched at MOCA will return for anniversary celebrations later this month, including a sold-out $1,500-a-pop party on Saturday, a nearly sold-out after party and a series of conversations on February 26. The talks will take place over several hours and feature some 20 artists, including Handforth, Richard Artschwager, Daniel Arsham, Naomi Fisher, Dara Friedman and Ragnar Kjartansson.

The museum, partially funded by the city of North Miami, grew out of the Center of Contemporary Art, which opened in a single gallery space in 1981 with a focus on South Florida art. Since moving to its current building, MOCA has become known for its public outreach, including jazz concerts, evening programs every Wednesday and art classes for children, teens and adults. About 75,000 people visited last year; residents of North Miami have free access.

In 2008, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation gave the museum a major boost when it created a $5 million endowment to fund three exhibitions or multimedia projects a year.

“The thing that struck us...is that here we had an institution in town and a curator who could actually find the most interesting things going on in the art world today and bring them to Miami,” said Alberto Ibargüen, the foundation’s president and CEO. “We looked for places where you can find the opportunity for people to get together, bridge differences and invent the new Miami.”