The successor to the Center for the Fine Arts, the Miami Art Museum was founded in 1996 as a contemporary art museum with a permanent collection.

MAM is dedicated to engaging a broad public with art from the twentieth century through the present. MAM’s collection, which Art in America magazine called “the quintessential Miami collection” in 1999, looks at international art from the perspective of the Americas and reflects the cosmopolitan makeup of Miami, forging connections among diverse groups and ideas. Among the artists represented in the collection are Carlos Alfonzo, José Bedia, Fernando Botero, Chuck Close, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Teresita Fernández, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Ann Hamilton, Guillermo Kuitca, Morris Louis, Ana Mendieta, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Rubén Torres-Llorca, George Segal, Lorna Simpson, and Frank Stella, among many others.

Like its collection, MAM’s ambitious exhibition program, comprising both original presentations and traveling exhibitions from other museums, reflects the Museum’s broad vision. Exhibitions have ranged from major solo presentations of work by such artists as Ana Mendieta and Vik Muniz, to group shows such as Miami in Transition, a presentation of responses by Miami-based artists to urban development in the city. The Museum’s education program, with offerings for teachers and students from kindergarten through twelfth grade, is the largest art-museum education program in Miami-Dade County.

In November 2004, Miami-Dade County voters overwhelmingly approved a bond that includes $100 million for the construction of a new home for MAM. MAM has selected Pritzker Prize and Royal Gold Medal-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron as designers of the Museum’s new and expanded facility.

The facility to be designed by Herzog & de Meuron will be on the north side of Museum Park, overlooking Biscayne Bay. It will include 32,000 square feet of galleries for the display of the permanent collection and special exhibitions; an educational complex with a library, auditorium, classrooms, and workshop space; and such amenities as a cafe and store. Plans also include an outdoor sculpture garden, which will be free and open to the public, within Museum Park and contiguous with the new Museum.

The Museum will remain in full operation in its current location on Flagler Street until the new building is complete.

Governance and Accreditation
Miami Art Museum (MAM) is a 501(c) 3 non-profit educational institution with a civic Board of Trustees. MAM was accredited by the American Association of Museums and reaccredited in 2001 with a glowing report: “We found the Miami Art Museum to be a handsome, lively, and thoroughly professional institution, well governed, well-run, and poised for significant growth.”

Private and Public Support
Miami Art Museum receives both private and public funding. More than 50 percent of its annual support comes from corporations, individuals, foundations and MAM members. MAM is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts; with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Mayor and the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners.