Miami’s arts community is booming. It’s also in danger | Opinion

Art Basel’s recent 20th birthday marked a quarter century of concerted investments in building our arts community. The riches can be seen year-round, at weekend art openings in your neighborhood and at major exhibitions around the world. Yet, we are in danger of losing this gem of a cultural community just as we’ve solidified it, because of the rising cost of housing.

We don’t need headlines to tell us we are experiencing an acute affordability crisis that affects all sectors. Artists aren’t immune to it. In fact, they are among the most affected. Most artists live in precarious economic positions, earning moderate incomes, often in the gig economy without healthcare benefits or salaries. When COVID shut down the world, artists’ well-being bottomed out. Fairs like Art Basel bring much-needed income, yet that isn’t enough to bridge the cost-of-living gap.

The artists who make this community an art center of excellence are increasingly being priced out. It used to be that artists could afford a place to live and a studio and have one job. Today, the artists we work with don’t want to move elsewhere but concede staying here long-term isn’t viable, either.

For work space, our community has been lucky to have support from the Bakehouse Art Complex, the Pérez Family Foundation, the Fountainhead Residency, programs from Craig Robins and the Rubell family, who have provided artists with studio space over the years.

Housing, however, is another thing. That’s why, starting in January, Oolite Arts will offer the Knight Artist Housing Stipend to its resident artists, providing $12,000 a year to help artists bridge the affordability gap. Applications can be submitted July 12-Aug. 16 for this program that offers free studio space, and exhibition and funding opportunities, in addition to the new stipend and, soon after, digital training, equipment and access for those who wish it.

The price is too high to sit back and let Miami-grown artists leave. The arts now contribute $1.43 billion annually to our economy and 40,944 full-time jobs. They bring international acclaim and visitors. Getting to this point took a huge investment from the private and public sectors, including $1 billion invested by Miami-Dade County in cultural facilities and in the arts organizations of our community, and $217 million by Knight Foundation in spurring new arts ideas and in tech innovation in the arts.

But that’s not the whole story. Quality art — art that inspires and explains, that ennobles or challenges the way we think or see or feel — is art that connects us to Miami, and to each other. Simply put, the arts are the soul of our community.

We want art to be accessible, opportunities for artists to be plentiful and our citizens to be deeply, powerfully engaged. That only happens if artists can afford to make their homes here.

The Knight Artist Housing Stipend is an initial gesture on a large-scale issue, one that will require significant additional funding from the government at all levels to solve.

We hope cultural arts leaders, donors and board members will be thinking about what they can do to ensure artists of all genres have an opportunity to stay in Miami, to create, to take risks and to elevate our community.

If not, who will tell our stories?

Dennis Scholl is president and CEO of Oolite Arts. Alberto Ibargüen is president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.