VISUAL ARTS The Rubells took their art collection to Allapattah. So long, !

BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI

DECEMBER 01, 2019 06:00 AM    

SHARE 

Rubell Museum opens its new Allapattah space with Keith Haring for Art Basel. BY CARL JUSTE 

Long before Wynwood Walls, Mana Wynwood and the late, lamented Wynwood Yard began drawing multitudes to a dicey and decrepit old industrial district in inner-city Miami, there was the Rubell Family Collection.

Don and Mera Rubell, owners of what’s widely regarded as one of the leading collections of contemporary art in America, first came to Wynwood looking for the same thing that had drawn a small legion of artists and galleries to the neighborhood — cheap digs in which to show art.

They famously found it in a fittingly secure fortress, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency evidence warehouse, which they picked up for a now comical $450,000. It was their 1993 conversion of the windowless warren into a showcase for some of the sharpest art of the times that first put Wynwood on the international map.

Now the Rubells are bidding goodbye to the neighborhood they helped create 26 years ago.

Local News at Your Fingertips

Get unlimited digital access for just $3.99 a month to #ReadLocal anytime, on any device.

GET OFFER

They have decamped with their collection to another industrial zone barely a mile to the west, but otherwise worlds away from the Wynwood of today, with its frolicking tourists and Gen Z-ers, its nightlife and shops and fine restaurants and those big new apartment buildings.

On Dec. 4, in one of the most anticipated events of this year’s Art Basel week, the Rubells and their art-collecting son and collaborator, Jason Rubell, will open the doors to their resplendent new exhibition space, housed in — what else? — a converted warehouse complex in the working- class barrio of Allapattah.

The new real estate is in every way an upgrade over the Wynwood original — not only much bigger, but brighter, more open and polished to a near-sheen in a sophisticated, understated retrofit by New York architect Annabelle Selldorf, a prodigious museum and art-gallery designer, and Allapattah-based contractor McKenzie Construction.

The larger space and its 40-odd galleries will allow the Rubells to show much more of their collection, which numbers around 7,200 pieces by 1,000 artists, as well as large-scale works rarely before exhibited, including a stunning painting by Obama portraitist Kehinde Wiley that’s the size of a semi-truck container. Art collector Mera Rubell stands before Kehinde Wiley’s oil on canvas painting “Sleep,” from 2008, as the new Rubell Museum in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood prepares for its opening during Art Basel week. Carl Juste [email protected]

The Wiley piece is only one of multiple showstoppers in a blockbuster inaugural exhibit of 300 pieces that trace the arc of the Rubells’ nearly 60 years of collecting art. Included are works by household names of late 20th Century art, along with some of the couple’s most recent career- making discoveries.

Some popular favorites will be on permanent display, including the room-size beer-can installation by Cady Noland, “This Piece Has No Title Yet,” with generous space allotted to rotating other pieces and temporary exhibits; all are drawn exclusively from the family’s ever- growing collection. Moreover, they will no longer need to close to change out exhibitions, as they did at the old place.

The new home also comes with an upgrade in the name, to Rubell Museum — a nod, Mera Rubell says, to its public and democratic role, something she said was sometimes lost under the old rubric. Having “Family Collection” in the name, with its suggestion of privacy and exclusivity, meant that sometimes people thought they needed a formal invite to visit, she said.

“The word ‘museum’ indicates a public space,” a tired but enthusiastic Mera Rubell said as a small hive of workers put the finishing touches on the complex in November. “We wanted everyone to understand it’s a public space, and people know exactly what a museum is. If you walk like a duck and talk like a duck, maybe you are a duck, right?

“We see this as taking on a bigger role that we’ve been growing into.”

BUSTLING AND GRIMY

The setting, just north of the Jackson Memorial medical complex, is as incongruous as the Wynwood original once seemed. Its neighbors present a frisson of urban contrast: blocks and blocks of mostly bustling, sometimes grimy warehouses and distribution centers for everything from fresh produce to construction materials. The streets are rutted and the railroad crossings bone-rattling.

The new location does have one distinct advantage: It’s a short walk from the Santa Clara Metrorail stop, one of three stations in Allapattah.

The new Rubell Museum occupies a former warehouse complex on a full city block in Miami’s working-class Allapattah neighborhood. Carl Juste [email protected]

Because the working neighborhood offers relatively little in the way of amenities, come January the Rubell Museum will have a Basque restaurant, LEKU, and a garden bar. The idea, Mera Rubell said, is to have the museum serve as a social gathering spot as much as to encourage visitors to prolong their stay.

“At night there is nowhere to go,” she said. “But the place has the flavor of old Miami. This could be the SoHo of Miami, or the Chelsea of Miami.”

In a poignant parallel to what happened in those two Manhattan neighborhoods, where once- numerous galleries have been driven out by rising rents, the Rubells’ departure from Wynwood marks a milestone in that neighborhood’s accelerating transformation into a place where art is no longer the calling card.

Developer Martin Margulies, whose art collection rivals that of the Rubells’ in quality and prominence, still maintains his own exhibition space at a cavernous Wynwood warehouse he set up in 1999. The massively popular Wynwood Walls, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, carries on its tradition of commissioning fresh graffiti murals by street artists that are painted in the days leading up to Miami Art Week.

But most art galleries have moved out, many to the Little /Little River corridor to the north of Wynwood. New apartments and commercial development arriving on the heels of Wynwood’s expanded dining and nightlife scene are remaking it as a living, working neighborhood.

Other departures include O Cinema, another early cultural player in Wynwood that sat across Northwest 29th Street from the Rubell Collection, and the neighboring Wynwood Yard. They will be replaced by new residential development.

The Rubells plan to sell the Wynwood warehouse and the home they built behind it, likely for redevelopment. The properties, which sprawl over several lots, are assessed by Miami-Dade County in the millions of dollars. The family intends to sink much of the proceeds into maintaining and running the new museum, a hefty tab, Mera Rubell said. They also have to find a new place to live, she said.

“We’re making ourselves homeless!” Rubell said.

Less clear is what the Rubells’ arrival in Allapattah means for that neighborhood, which has been the subject of increasing speculation, financial and otherwise, as Miami’s next potential hot spot. That’s in part because of its physical if not psychological proximity to Wynwood, which sits just on the other side of the formidable barrier that is Interstate 95. Art collector Mera Rubell sits in front of Keith Haring’s “Untitled,” an acrylic on vinyl tarpaulin that she and husband Don acquired in 1982, as their new Rubell Museum in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood prepares for its opening during Art Basel week. Carl Juste [email protected]

A cluster of entrepreneurs have made the leap just over Interstate 95, mostly to the faded commercial corridor of Northwest Seventh Avenue. They include Cesar Rosas, owner of Wynwood’s ever popular Wood Tavern, who opened a neighborhood tavern called Las Rosas on the street, and gallerist Anthony Spinello, who moved his Spinello Projects from to a building steps away from the bar. Allapattah also boasts an abundance of old warehouses in an industrial belt that bisects the neighborhood from Miami International Airport east along the freight train tracks to Wynwood. Unlike Wynwood when it was discovered by artists, though, Allapattah’s warehouses are still the site of thriving industrial and commercial enterprises. Those include a colorful and long- established district of discount clothing wholesalers along Northwest 20th Street, the city’s largest open-air produce market just a block from the Rubell Museum, and old Miami stalwarts like Berkeley Florist Supply.

INVESTOR INTEREST

It’s the industrial district that has drawn big investors. Developer Robert Wennett, best known for the dramatic 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage in South Beach, earlier this year won city approval for a massive plan to redevelop the 8-acre Miami Produce Market, which sits across the elevated Metrorail tracks on Northwest 12th Avenue and a block down from the Rubell Museum.

Wennett’s blueprint, drawn up by Danish star architect Bjarke Ingels and by far the most consequential project destined for Allapattah, envisions thousands of apartments in towers on stilts floating over the market buildings. Those would be converted to retail, though the developer has indicated the project won’t break ground for several years. Wennett, who opened the much lauded Hometown Barbecue at the market earlier this year, paid $16 million for the property.

Across the street, Miami Beach restaurateur Tonino Doino last year sold a 100,000-square-foot warehouse to CenturyLink, a telecommunications company that plans to install a data center in the building, for $18.75 million, a record for Allapattah. Meanwhile, developer Lisette Calderon has announced plans for two mixed-use apartment towers about half a dozen blocks to the west.

So hot is investor interest in Allapattah that the city of Miami is exploring whether to sell an 18.75 acre maintenance and equipment yard it owns immediately north of Jackson.

The Rubells aren’t even the only art collectors opening a private exhibition space in an Allapattah warehouse. Developer Jorge Pérez, chairman of the Related Group and principal private donor for the Pérez Art Museum Miami, inaugurated his El Espacio 23 in November with an exhibition of topical and political contemporary art drawn from his collection.

The neighborhood still has plenty of hardscrabble. It’s gritty and, in spots, downright sketchy. There are crime hot spots, prostitution and gang activity and unlicensed bars. Its historic immigrant Dominican influence, though waning, persists in a smattering of restaurants and merengue clubs and shops along Northwest 17th Avenue.

But far larger than compact Wynwood, Allapattah stretches from I-95 to the airport between the and State Road 112. Its population of around 42,000 mostly low-income people is one of the most ethnically and racially diverse in Miami, and supports a network of bodegas and other neighborhood businesses.

The neighborhood has numerous subsidized housing projects, and extensive, stable areas of single-family homes. Allapattah also includes the sprawling if self-contained Jackson Memorial medical center complex and Miami-Dade’s criminal courthouse and jail.

That’s all to say that Allapattah is not so susceptible to the kind of rapid, sweeping gentrification that blank-slate Wynwood experienced. Instead, redevelopment in Allapattah is more likely to occur in certain spots and at a gradual pace, said Carlos Fausto Miranda, a commercial real estate broker who has long worked in the neighborhood.

The new Rubell Museum occupies a former warehouse complex on a full city block in Miami’s working-class Allapattah neighborhood. Carl Juste [email protected]

The neighborhood is sufficiently robust to absorb new development without risking its identity or dramatic displacement, and that is its particular appeal, Miranda said. “Allapattah is not the next Wynwood,” Miranda, who brokered the sale of the Miami Produce Center and the El Espacio 23 warehouse, said. “Before anybody east of I-95 took a look at Allapattah, it was a thriving, established, functioning neighborhood. Allapattah is a culturally, economically and socially vibrant place.”

But the city has long neglected Allapattah, and its “rough and ready” residents and businesses can certainly use the kind of infusion of investment and attention that Wennett, Pérez, the Rubells and other newcomers can generate, Miranda said.

“The Rubells are visionaries and pioneers. By their own, they are not changing the neighborhood, but they did put the neighborhood on the map for other people in Miami who were not aware of it. There is a lot of space for people to come and influence and participate and such. What they’re bringing in is a new layer. A new cultural and social energy is coming to the neighborhood,” he said.

To be sure, the Rubells, who made their fortune mostly in real estate — they currently own hotels in South Beach, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. — have a keen eye not just for art, but for recognizing real estate potential others overlook. They bought the Allapattah property in 2015 for $4 million, as well as two other warehouses and a vacant lot a couple of blocks west for a total of $8 million, before a wave of investment drove prices up. They also acquired a warehouse across the street from the museum site for $8.35 million the following year.

Mera Rubell only half-jokes that the family could not have afforded the purchases at today’s prices.

“It’s already gone crazy,” she said. “We’ve already priced ourselves out.”

LONGEVITY

To architect and former Miami Art Museum (now PAMM) director Terence Riley, the Rubells’ move into Allapattah signals an intention to stay the course for the long term, just as they did in Wynwood.

“Allapattah is for people who can afford to buy and hold, and don’t need to see a return immediately,” said Riley, formerly architecture curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “The Wennetts and the Rubells are looking far ahead because they can afford to.”

Riley, who recently designed the renovation of a Collegiate Gothic high school building in Sarasota into a museum for the Ringling College of Art & Design, said the Rubells have also earned the right to call their new exhibition space a museum. “If you are trying to define the essence of a museum, there is no precise definition,” he said. “But to the extent that you act in a public manner, treat all members of the public in a similar fashion, respect artists and rarely sell any of the collection, I think you can call yourself a museum if you adhere to that. Longevity matters as well.”

As Mera Rubell tells the story, though, they had no intention of leaving Wynwood when they began scouting for inexpensive storage space nearby for their expanding collection. She and her husband would drive around Allapattah on weekends looking for suitable warehouses, she said. When they spotted a complex of warehouses that occupied a full block owned by the Trujillo and Sons food wholesalers, ideas began germinating.

The Rubells were keenly feeling the limitations of the Wynwood warehouse, and the size and layout of the Allapattah complex was an appealing alternative. For one thing, it was all on one story, running to 600 linear feet, and thus no stairs or elevators for visitors. That made it possible to create a flowing experience for visitors. The complex, six conjoined buildings in total, has 76,000 square feet of space, compared to 45,000 at the Wynwood warehouse.

Then there were the individual interior spaces — ceilings as high as 18 feet, and one vast room measuring 80 feet across with no columns.

Just as attractive was the fact that the warehouses sit two blocks from the Santa Clara Metrorail station, meaning visitors could take the train, Mera Rubell said. The complex was not on the market, but their offer was accepted. (The Trujillos moved their company to new facilities in nearby Brownsville.)

“We thought this could be perfect,” Rubell said. “It felt like the karma was right. In the other space, we couldn’t do what we’re doing here. Part of life is going with the unexpected.”

AMBITIOUS SCHEME

Before they knew it, the Rubells had embarked on a scheme far more ambitious than they ever envisioned. They hired the in-demand Selldorf with a warning that she wouldn’t have the budget an institutional client could provide, but the architect — known for a stripped-down elegance — responded eagerly, focusing on showing off the art, not the buildings, Rubell said.

“It wasn’t about the monument for her,” she recalled. “It was all about art, art, art.” Art collector Mera Rubell looks up at Keith Haring’s “Untitled,” an acrylic on vinyl tarpaulin that she and husband Don acquired in 1982, as their new Rubell Museum in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood prepares for its opening during Art Basel week. In the foreground is a 1979 installation by Carl Andre entitled “Llano Estacado.” Carl Juste [email protected]

The six warehouse buildings were in bad shape, and had to be gutted and rebuilt. The loading docks in front were removed, making way for a compact but dense garden, designed by Homestead’s La Casona Garden with an assist from the museum’s director, Juan Roselione- Valadez, who has a side expertise in native flora. Rainwater is captured on the roof and carried through trenches dug under the buildings to the garden.

Tall roof overhangs provide welcoming shade, protection from rain and a sense of enclosure, creating a veranda and framing a view of the garden from the museum’s lobby.

Selldorf has kept most interior walls, and joined the separate buildings with a long, straight “spine,” with galleries branching off to either side. Holes were punched in walls for windows to let in light and views of passing cars on the street, filtered through fine shades. The logistics proved so challenging that the Rubells put off their planned opening in Allapattah by a year.

Like the original warehouse, the museum has a library open to scholars and curators, but twice as large as the old, with room for 50,000 volumes.

The opening exhibit makes maximum use of the new space’s possibilities and its seemingly endless series of interconnected galleries, ranging from the close and intimate to the monumental. It includes not just one but two immersive installations by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, including one of her immensely popular Infinity Mirror Rooms, and a self-contained environmental sculpture that requires the viewer to enter a mirrored cube, “Where the Lights in My Heart Go.”

There is a Jeff Koons room and a gallery filled largely with Richard Prince pieces. One room is dedicated to conceptual art, and another to African-American artists, including Henry Taylor, Carrie Mae Weems and Kerry James Marshall, whose work is included in 30 Americans, a traveling exhibition drawn entirely from the Rubells’ collection that is now showing at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The late artist Purvis Young gets a mini solo exhibition.

Some of the art on display was acquired by the Rubells during extended, sometimes repeated trips abroad during which they did their own version of residencies — getting to know artists, their work and their environment.

Spaces include a gallery showing pieces purchased during more than 100 trips to China from 2001 to 2012, including work by Ai Weiwei.

There are rooms dedicated to Eastern European art, to work from the 1980s and ‘90s by Los Angeles artists like Mike Kelly and Barbara Kruger, and to downtown New York art of the ‘70s and early ‘80s. Keith Haring gets a room dedicated entirely to his graffiti-inspired art, which the Rubells were among the very first to buy. They also bought his last piece before his untimely death from AIDS.

The floor of a mammoth, 70-foot gallery is occupied by an installation of cedar wood blocks in lines by minimalist sculptor Carl Andre from 1979, “Llano Estacado, Dallas, Texas.” The walls have large colorful textile hangings by Sterling Ruby, one of several artists whom the Rubells have hosted “in residence” in Miami — often in their own Wynwood house.

And there is also space for some of the Rubells’ newest discoveries. The Rubells are well known for identifying young, unknown talent and helping establish careers by buying numerous works early on. The inaugural show has a new painting by hot young artist and recent Yale Grad Vaughn Spann, entitled “Big Black Rainbow.” Amoako Boafo, another rising young star and the current artist-in-residence, will exhibit new work in his own gallery.

The centerpiece of the restaurant, meanwhile, is a 60-foot mural that depicts famous male artists as women by Allison Zuckerman, another former artist-in-residence at the Rubell Collection, on permanent display. The Rubells helped Zuckerman’s meteoric rise by buying numerous pieces from her studio and exhibiting her work in Wynwood.

“There is a lot of inspiration here,” Mera Rubell said. “It’s special. It’s so special. It’s really a retrospective of our lives as collectors. Very personal. It’s a family collection at the core. Our lives are so enmeshed in it.”

FOLLOW MORE OF OUR REPORTING ON RESOURCE MIAMI

SPONSORED REAL ESTATE NEWS Speaking Volumes: Behind the Doors of 3 Warehouses are sprouting in some Unique Miami Homes unexpected neighborhoods. Convenience is the key.

FEBRUARY 14, 2020 4:10 PM FEBRUARY 14, 2020 7:00 AM

SEE ALL 10 STORIES → 1 of of 55

The new Rubell Museum occupies a former warehouse complex on a full city block in Miami’s working-class Allapattah neighborhood. CARL JUSTE [email protected]

ANDRES VIGLUCCI

Andres Viglucci covers urban affairs for the Miami Herald. He joined the Herald in 1983.

FROM OUR ADVERTISING PARTNERS

The Outrage Over Shia LaBeouf At The Oscars Is Willow Smith's Transformation is Turning Heads Getting Serious