It’s the first Miami-Dade art museum to reopen amid COVID-19. Visitors get an hour
As a surge of new coronavirus infections in Miami-Dade eases, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, has announced it’s ready to receive visitors again.
On Sept. 2, the ICA will become the first art museum to reopen since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of all cultural venues across the county in March. That Wednesday reopening will be for ICA members only, but the museum in Miami’s Design District will be open to the general public the next day — with free admission, as always, but also restrictions on attendance and a one-hour limit on viewing.
The ICA’s artistic director, Alex Gartenfeld, said museum administrators felt the strict protocols they developed were ready and the timing right to re-emerge publicly with mostly new exhibitions.
“With cases plateauing, and even modestly diminishing, we thought it was appropriate to put our plans in place,” he said. “We have beautiful shows that I’m really proud of. I’m hopeful that opening, and opening relatively early, will be a reprieve for people enduring a long quarantine and a long summer.”
That the ICA is in a position to open is due partly to its unusual financial footing. It’s funded in full through private contributions, with no use of public money for its operation, and doesn’t depend on ticket sales for revenue (a sponsorship by City National Bank of Miami enables the free-admission policy). So it has been able to maintain its staff of about 30 and install new shows, Gartenfeld said, even as other museums have been forced to furlough or lay off employees and delay exhibitions.
The ICA announcement comes as Miami-Dade’s cultural exhibition spaces, dormant for nearly six months, begin to cautiously reopen to visitors amid a pandemic whose course remains unpredictable.
Wednesday’s return of the ICA also coincides with the reopening next door of the private De la Cruz Collection, which exhibits artworks belonging to collectors Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz. The De la Cruz will limit visitors to 30 people at one time and also require advance reservations. The mutual opening plans were coordinated, Gartenfeld said.
Other museums in town not focused principally on art have already reopened, including the Frost Museum of Science, the Coral Gables Museum and the publicly owned Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, which is seeking donations to help make up for lost ticket sales and event rentals.
But most institutional art museums, including the Pérez Art Museum Miami, North Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Bass and Wolfsonian-Florida International University museums in Miami Beach, have yet to announce opening dates. The Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami opened this week to students and faculty visiting for academic purposes only.
PAMM director Franklin Sirmans said the museum nixed a planned Sept. 1 opening after coronavirus infections surged over the summer, but he still hopes to return to full public operation by the end of the month.
”Had the story been different in July and August we would be opening this coming week,” Sirmans said.
One other private collection showcase, the Rubell Museum, has reopened its new Allapattah space under strict safety protocols. The Margulies Collection will reopen Sept. 30, according to its website. El Espacio 23, developer and collector Jorge Pérez’s private Allapattah space, remains shuttered and its website doesn’t say when it will reopen. Some smaller art spaces have also reopened their doors but with numerous restrictions, like Locust Projects, also in the Design District, which requires visitors to make appointments.
For its reopening, the ICA will debut the first U.S. museum retrospective for American artist Allan McCollum, originally set to open in March and now extended into early 2021. Other exhibits include the first solo museum show for Cuban-born Miami painter Tomás Esson, spanning his 30-year career, and a large-scale embroidery by Brazil’s Vivian Caccuri.
To limit occupancy all visitors, including members, must reserve a timed ticket at www.icamiami.org/welcome-back. Visits will be limited to an hour, and face masks are required. That means no more than 120 people will be in the ICA building and garden at one time, a 90 percent reduction from normal capacity, and visitors will be asked to follow a prescribed path to ensure sufficient physical separation. The one-hour limit, which hews to guidelines from health experts, will be on the honor system, Gartenfeld said.
The museum is also reducing hours of operation to 11 a.m.-6 p.m. every Wednesday through Sunday. The first 11:00 a.m.-noon time slot is reserved for seniors and other at-risk visitors.
This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 7:00 AM.