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Philadelphia's artistic cache is indeed very impressive and world class. The art museum is one of my favorites, and it can hold its own with most of the best in the world imho. I covet such an institution here. Miami's a very young city, only 100 years old, and its growing art collection cannot hold a candle to Philadelphia's, and I doubt it ever will. The rankings simply count the number of internationally significant art, music, and artistic cultural events cities host. It's an admittedly simplistic and flawed yardstick, but it does obtusely measure a city's global artistic connectivity in a basic way.
10 or so years ago Miami Beach was chosen to host an offshoot of Art Basel, the biggest annual art fair in the world. Since then it's eclipsed its parental event in size and evolved into a cultural juggernaut of art, design, and idea exchange that drives Miami's explosive emergence as an important hemispheric (notably Latin American) artistic gateway. Art Basel Miami Beach is the biggest event that anchors numerous other events that have tagged along. International events promoting photography, sculpture, interior design, Asian Art, etc. have attached themselves to Art Basel's coattails. For a precious few days in early December the art world (artists, collectors, cognoscenti,and hungry unknown artists looking for exposure) converge in Miami to briefly make it the epicenter of the art world in information exchange, business, and social events. The art exposure and intensity is overwhelming, and its impossible to describe the visual, aural, and mental overload that is Art Basel Miami Beach. While many of the events are reserved for the elite collectors and the invited, much of the experience is available to all. Imagine the Olympics (but with art) and it happens every year. A parallel can be drawn with Austin's developmental relationship due to SXSW festival.
The annual experience of Art Basel is instrumental in Miami's cultural renaissance, fueling Miami's artistic evolution the rest of the year. It's cultivated an increasingly art savvy populace and promoted a network of events that introduce the public to art. Design District and The Wynwood Arts District, home of close to 100 art galleries, contains the largest concentration of building murals in the world, and hosts a hugely popular monthly gallery walk attended by thousands is a direct result. The Wynwood murals which continue to multiply rapidly, particularly during Art Basel, and if they already haven't then soon will overtake Philadelphia, at least in volume.
Miami isn't New York, LA, Chicago, or even Philadelphia when it comes to its artistic collection. But it's not the backwater that that many here think it is. Miami is host to more international events in art, music, fashion, design, and pop culture on a larger scale than many other cities in my experience. If you doubt that hypothesis then just consider the Latin American element alone. It's just nice to see Miami recognized objectively, even if it is a bit dubious and was bound to draw out a wtf reaction.
Excellent post! Many people have the impression that Miami is just merely a beach party town & was once considered a "cultural backwater" not even a quarter of a century ago. Since then Miami has made great strides in the world of the Arts. It completed a half billion dollar Performing Arts center downtown that houses the symphony, opera & ballet companies.
The Miami City ballet is a world renowned ballet troupe that had the arts critics in Paris swooning as their tour in that city was completely sold out.
Miami is currently building a brand new Arts Museum & a new Science Museum just a few blocks from the Perfoming Arts center.
On a pop cultural level there is the Ultra Music Festival held every year where nearly 100,000 people attend the 3 day event drawing fans from around the world. In addition the Art Basel festival from Switzerland choosing Miami was a big catalyst for the city.
Something tells me Chicago boosters won't be copy/pasting this GaWC list any time soon, lol.
or DC, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia.
Overall I agree with the list but don't think Miami should be there, it would be interesting to see how it would look if music was taken off as a factor.
nyc/la/sf are definitely the top 3 though.
Miami is up there because of points 1 and 2 having "international" ... Miami is extremely international, more so than those 4 cities I just mentioned.
^ Well remember this list is based on the criteria established by GAWC not which other cities have a better art collection or better museums.
Yeah because GAWC is a prominent institution in the art world.
It's all based on numbers, not aesthetics, artists in residence, art institutions, art schools, art scenes, art buyers, art movements, art history, just the fact they have a number of events and 50% of them happen to be international.
I bet if you took the 4 largest U.S. metros over 5 million, and ranked them by international/foreign born, that the top 4 for that is NYC/LA/SF and Miami.
Yeah because GAWC is a prominent institution in the art world.
It's all based on numbers, not aesthetics, artists in residence, art institutions, art schools, art scenes, art buyers, art movements, art history, just the fact they have a number of events and 50% of them happen to be international.
I bet if you took the 4 largest U.S. metros over 5 million, and ranked them by international/foreign born, that the top 4 for that is NYC/LA/SF and Miami.
I'm not so sure about Chicago not being part of the top 4. There's a lot of stuff going on there--partly because of crazy write-off stuff in Chicago, but also because Chicago has some powerful institutions and is a strong regional foci. There's also the large independent music scene there which goes part and parcel with the visual arts.
I'm not so sure about Chicago not being part of the top 4. There's a lot of stuff going on there--partly because of crazy write-off stuff in Chicago, but also because Chicago has some powerful institutions and is a strong regional foci. There's also the large independent music scene there which goes part and parcel with the visual arts.
I didn't mean in arts necessarily, but in anything, two of their qualifiers are being large, and having numerous international events. Therefore anything under that umbrella, nyc, la, sf, and miami are going to fare near the top by default. Chicago I'm sure has more things going on than Miami, but it isn't as international.
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