‘Backbone of the art community’: Miami critic wins prestigious $50,000 Rabkin Award

Writer Elisa Turner, who worked as art critic for the Miami Herald from 1986 to 2007, is one of nine arts journalists in the United States to win the 2020 $50,000 Rabkin Prize.

This year marks the fourth time the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, which is headquartered in Portland, Maine, has awarded the prize (another Miami art writer, Brett Sokol, won the award two years ago). The foundation released funds earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic uncertainty, hoping to get the money into the hands of recipients as quickly as possible.

“In this unprecedented and tragic time, the foundation released funding immediately and chose to forego the celebrations and formalities that made this moment so enjoyable and memorable in recent years,” says a release from the foundation. “We are committed to the support of visual art journalists who, with artists, are the backbone of the art community in every part of the country.”

Dennis Scholl, president and CEO of Oolite Arts, which just created a COVID-19 relief fund for Miami-Dade visual artists, was a Rabkin juror last year.

“The Rabkin Award is the premier arts journalism award in America,” he says. “It’s clear that the jurors are aware of both the quality of arts journalism down here and the vibrancy of the scene. . . . For Elisa to get this prestigious award is an acknowledgment of how long she has toiled on behalf of our arts community and how much quality work she has generated not just locally but in national periodicals, too.”

The irony of an arts writer winning such a major honor during a pandemic, which has closed museums and galleries in South Florida, is not lost on Turner.

“Not only is arts journalism under siege but now everything is closed, and you can’t write about the art without seeing the art,” she says. “It’s so strange! I have to be there and look at art to write about it. I want something that hits me, and I don’t get that from looking at things online. For me it’s a very visceral experience. . . . I work on a laptop, and that’s such a small screen version of art.”

Still, she can do what she loves best about her vocation: talk to artists.

“I find the creative process endlessly fascinating,” she says. “ I love hearing people talk about why they do or make certain things and what their experience has been in making those things. We can still have a wonderful conversation.”

The other Rabkin Award winners are Seph Rodney (Bronx, New York); Mary Abbe (Minneapolis); Steve Litt (Cleveland); Erin Nelson and Jerry Cullum (Atlanta); Neil Fauerso (San Antonio); Amanda Fortini (Las Vegas); and Sam Lefebvre (San Francisco).

This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 1:04 PM.