[MSN] The mystery of Miami's missing art remains unsolved, but help is on the way for the rest of the collection. Dade shares new vision for troubled art program

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Dade shares new vision for troubled art program
BY DANIEL CHANG
The mystery of Miami's missing art remains unsolved, but help is on the way for the rest of the collection.

Beset by missing works and poor maintenance, Miami-Dade County's Art in Public Places program will be reorganized this year to better care for the art and to step up enforcement of public-funding requirements, according to a county progress report.

Among the changes that county leaders have proposed are setting aside as much as 15 percent of the program's annual budget to care for existing works and creating new safeguards and policies for tracking and maintaining the more than 700 pieces in the collection, which cost $34 million to amass.

''We have to rethink the way in which we're administering the entire public-art program,'' said Michael Spring, the county's cultural affairs director and author of the progress report.

While the program has a strong record of commissioning significant works of public art over the past three decades, such as Claes Oldenburg's sculpture Dropped Bowl with Scattered Slices and Peels outside County Hall, Spring said the county must become a better steward of those works.

''We have to treat this almost as a communitywide museum with a collection that needs to be accounted for, cared for and publicized,'' he said.

Spring's report follows a September investigation by The Miami Herald that revealed that the county's 34-year-old Art in Public Places program had lost track of dozens of artworks, allowed others to deteriorate in storage, and relied on an inconsistent and incomplete inventory in tracking the collection.

Since its inception in 1973, the program has built one of the largest and richest art collections in Florida. Funded by a levy of 1.5 percent of public-construction budgets, it commissions or purchases works of art to adorn courthouses, libraries, transit stations, the airport and the seaport.

But the collection, praised by many as among the finest in the field, is in disarray:

• Dozens of artworks have been lost or stolen.

• Signature works by seminal artists have deteriorated, with no money and no plans to restore them, while others sit in storage, belying the notion of art in public places.

• At least 20 works that together cost more than $800,000 have been dropped from the collection inventory because they are either damaged or missing.

• Program administrators still rely on an inconsistent, incomplete inventory in monitoring the collection.

Spring credited The Miami Herald's investigation of Art in Public Places with helping to bring about change.

''It helped refocus county government on the fact the program needs to be reoriented,'' he said. ``It needs to begin to treat its collection as a core responsibility.''

NEW LEADERSHIP

Spring took over the program in October, after Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez's budget cut three of the program's six staff members, including past director Ivan Rodriguez.

Since then, Spring said, he has set about studying ''best practices'' among public-art programs, developing written policies for the removal of artworks from the collection, and analyzing the program's funding.

Cindi Nash, chair of the independent Public Art Trust, which approves artwork and expenditures, said the proposed changes would make it ``easier for everybody to see what's there. And we'll have better control over everything.''

But Nash believes that the program cannot succeed without better funding. ''The problem has always been the money,'' she said.

Spring said he will not ask the county for more money until after the public-art collection has been appraised and its needs assessed.

Among the first orders of business for improving the program, Spring said, will be buying new computer software to keep a reliable inventory and hiring a consultant to appraise the collection.

Spring said he will wait for a county audit of the program to be completed before investigating missing works, although he has already directed the staff to inquire about missing art with county department directors.

Depending on results of the much-delayed audit, now promised by next month, the county may hire a private investigation firm to look for missing art, Spring said. Commissioner Sally Heyman has already recommended a firm that would work pro bono to recover works.

Heyman, who requested an audit of the county's public-art program last April, said she is encouraged by the proposed changes, although she is growing impatient for the finished audit.

''Under the old regime, I was frustrated,'' she said, ``and I am still waiting for the promised-in-September, guaranteed-in-October, weonly-need-a-signature-fromthe-manager-in-November, and here it is January and I have not seen the audit.''

Heyman said her request for an audit of the program was motivated by a lack of accountability under the past director, Ivan Rodriguez.

''To have resistance on accountability, auditing, questions asked . . . that not only sent a red flag up to me, my colleagues supported it and two different committees did, too,'' she said.

Rodriguez could not be reached for comment. Vivian Donnell-Rodriguez, his wife and predecessor as public-art director, did not return a call for comment.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Spring will have to accomplish his planned changes with half the staff and a potentially smaller budget. Because Art in Public Places is funded by public building projects, its budget changes each year, depending on new construction.

The program received $5 million in 2006 and was projected to receive $1.5 million in 2007. Spring said he is still calculating the budget for the coming year, but he plans to set aside 15 percent for maintenance.

An unknown number of past public building projects still owe money to the art program. Spring said his staff is still reconciling project budgets and has not yet identified precisely how much money is owed to the public-art program and by whom.

''By and large, the vast majority of county capital projects complied with the ordinance, but there were a small percentage that did not,'' he said. ``I think that's because there wasn't a systematic way for departments to be notified of the requirement.''

However, Spring said, he has devised a system to ensure that all building projects eligible for the public-art requirement pay into the program. More than being an enforcer of public-art funding, though, he said he wants to change the way other county departments view the ordinance, by telling them:

``This isn't just a requirement. This is an opportunity to make your buildings great with public art.''

http://www.miamiherald.com