The Americas Collection is consolidating its two Coral Gables locations into the gallery's Andalusia Avenue space. But before bidding goodbye to the Ponce de Leon address, the gallery is exhibiting from 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday the complete collection of 29 lithographs from the suite titled Imaginary Portraits by Pablo Picasso.

The works, part of the Ortiz-Gurdian Family Collection, will be on view until July 25 and then will embark on a two-year exhibition tour through Central and South America.

Thursday's event at 2440 Ponce de Leon includes an 8 p.m. lecture by Carol Damian, director and chief curator of the Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, and by art critic Carlos M. Luis.

Collectors Ramiro and Patricia Ortiz are founders and owners of The Americas Collection and The Ortiz-Gurdian Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Nicaragua created in 1996 to promote the visual arts in Central America. Most recently, the foundation established the Breast Cancer Program to assist low-income women in Nicaragua with health care.

The 18-year-old Americas Collection, directed by Velia Larcinese, will continue to operate at 214 Andalusia Ave. Currently showing is Body of Works: Capturing the Human Figure, featuring works by Carlos Domenech, Osvaldo Viteri, Jean Jacques Ribi, Andres Tremols, Ricardo Gonzalez and Armando Lara.

-- FABIOLA SANTIAGO

Miami Art Museum, which plans to build and operate a $220 million facility in Bicentennial Park in 2012, never employed the chief curator and deputy director of programs that museum administrators announced hiring in 2008.

Roger M. Buergel, an independent curator of museum exhibitions and a past professor of art history at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, was to begin his new job in October developing MAM's educational programs and building the museum's permanent collection of works.

But Buergel never started because he failed to provide the requisite information for MAM to sponsor an immigration work visa, said Aaron Podhurst, chairman of MAM's board of trustees.

''He has to fill out the technical information. There are personal things involved,'' he said.

Podhurst added that Buergel never signed an employment contract, and that trustees will meet later this year to determine the next step.

''Right now we have no contract and no chief curator and frankly we'll have to make a decision,'' he said.

-- DANIEL CHANG

Art Miami changed ownership this week after the annual art fair's owners, Summit Business Media, sold the event to Art Miami LLC, a group of private investors.

The sale, scheduled to close early this month, does not change the fair's scheduling or artistic direction, which continues to be led by Nick Korniloff, who is also a partner in the new ownership structure.

Terms of the fair's sale were not disclosed. Art Miami is scheduled for Dec. 2-6 in Midtown Miami, where more than 100 contemporary art galleries from around the world will exhibit works.

Art Miami launched in 1990 and is the longest-running contemporary art fair in Miami. The fair, which originally took place each January, was eclipsed after the 2002 debut of the larger Art Basel Miami Beach and the slew of satellite art fairs that emerged around it.

In 2007, Art Miami found renewed success by rescheduling itself to run concurrent with Art Basel Miami Beach. Art Miami exhibited works from more than 115 contemporary art galleries inside a 100,000-square-foot pavilion in 2008.

-- DANIEL CHANG

For his first show as the Caldwell Theatre Company's new artistic director, Clive Cholerton has chosen a world premiere piece unlike anything the theater has ever done. Vices: A Love Story is about relationships among people in their 20s and 30s. Told through music and dance, the work is by Ilene Reid, Michael Heitzman, Everett Bradley and Susan Draus, with choreography by Tony Award-nominated A.C. Ciulla.

The stars -- Natalie Venetia Belcon, Carlos L. Encinias, Lara Janine, Leajato Amara Robinson, Holly Shunkey and Marcus Bellamy -- have a collection of Broadway, Off-Broadway and touring credits. The show begins Wednesday and runs through Aug. 2 at the Caldwell, 7901 N. Federal Hwy., Boca Raton. Tickets are $38-$47.50, with performances at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday-Sunday. Call 1-877-245-7432 or visit www.caldwelltheatre.com.

-- CHRISTINE DOLEN

International artist Ilana Lilienthal has opened a studio at 96 NW 29th St. in Wynwood to showcase the large-scale works in her Space Styling collection.

Lilienthal's sculpture installations are featured in public and private spaces around the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Deutschen Museum, Newark Museum in New Jersey, Transart Gallery in Munich, the Brodt Institute for Jewish Culture in Tel-Aviv, Fordham University, the Las Vegas Fashion Outlet Mall and Towson Place in Baltimore.

See her striking work at www.ilanalilienthal.com.

-- FABIOLA SANTIAGO

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