Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Irma-Proof Armor and Nights at the Museum: Shielding Florida’s Arts

“Gone But Not Forgotten” (2014), a Damien Hirst piece at the Faena Hotel Miami Beach that survived Hurricane Irma, thanks to careful preparation and good luck.Credit...via Faena Hotel Miami Beach

Even before Hurricane Irma became a blip on a forecaster’s radar, the Faena Hotel Miami Beach wanted to make sure that its $15 million, glass-enclosed, outdoor Damien Hirst sculpture, “Gone But Not Forgotten,” became neither. So it tapped a company called Armor Screen to design an extra layer of protection against wind and debris.

To protect the valuable collection at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, just off Biscayne Bay, an emergency crew of 14 security, operations and engineering staff members began staying overnight in the museum starting on Friday.

In Sarasota, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Joseph Volpe, the former general manager of the Metropolitan Opera and current executive director of the Sarasota Ballet, rode out the hurricane in a hotel near the ballet, along with several dancers from the company.

All weathered the storm. “We really dodged a bullet,” Mr. Volpe said.

As a battered Florida began to rebound from Hurricane Irma on Tuesday, many of the state’s cultural organizations were breathing sighs of relief at initial reports that — thanks to careful preparations and good luck — the damage had not been as bad as they had feared.

It is not just the proliferation of high-rises and condos that has made Florida more economically vulnerable to hurricanes in recent years, but the growth of its artistic infrastructure as well: Art collections and museums have blossomed in the Art Basel Miami era, and performing arts organizations have thrived as the state has grown in both population and wealth.

Measuring the damage left behind by a storm can be difficult at first. In Houston, some arts groups, including the Houston Grand Opera, initially underestimated the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey. It took days before the opera realized that its home, the Wortham Theater Center, was so damaged that it needed to find new venues for its first operas this season.

Florida’s arts institutions work hard to prepare for hurricanes: The Dali Museum’s new building in St. Petersburg, which opened in 2011, was designed with 18-inch-thick hurricane-proof walls. The Pérez Art Museum Miami, completed in 2013, was designed by Herzog & de Meuron with the area’s mercurial weather in mind.

Outdoor artworks required planning as well. The Mark di Suvero sculpture outside the Pérez was safe. “It can handle up to a Category 5 because of its cement base,” Franklin Sirmans, the museum’s director, said in a telephone interview from Atlanta.

The state’s many al fresco artworks posed special challenges. On the northern tip of Miami Beach, a new luxury complex called the Oceana Bal Harbour took no risks with its two Jeff Koons sculptures, “Pluto and Proserpina” and “Seated Ballerina,” which are both exposed to the elements. Each piece was cushioned in foam and covered with an anchored metal box draped in fabric. “We wanted no surprises, nothing left for the last minute,” said Ernesto Cohan, the development’s director of sales.

Many arts groups in Florida attributed their relatively good fortune to the twists and turns Irma took — with some areas that had expected to be walloped being spared. But other areas, including Jacksonville, were hit much harder than expected.

Image
The sign for Artis-Naples, a cultural campus in Naples, Fla., that was in a mandatory evacuation zone. “Our sign was clearly not up to hurricane standards,” said Kathleen van Bergen, the organization’s chief executive.Credit...Artis-Naples

The Jacksonville Symphony hopes to go ahead and open its season on Saturday, Amy Rankin, a spokeswoman for the orchestra, said in an email. She said that its hall had not flooded, but that the basement of the building, the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, had water in it.

In Key West, some cultural organizations served as shelters for those who did not evacuate. Ten people who rode out the storm at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum emerged unscathed, as did the property’s famous six-toed cats.

Quincy Perkins, the director of development of the Key West Film Festival, said that the Tropic Cinema, the Studios of Key West and the Key West Art and Historical Society suffered what appeared to be only minor damage, while the studios served as an impromptu shelter for some 20 people. “For some reason, arts groups are in some of the strongest buildings,” he said by telephone Monday from North Carolina.

In hard-hit Naples, Artis-Naples — a cultural campus with five buildings, including a fine art museum and a concert hall where Gustavo Dudamel is to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic later this season — was in the mandatory evacuation zone.

Kathleen van Bergen, its chief executive and president, said that the organization had worked hard to prepare, consulting with Arik Levy, the artist it is presenting in a big exhibition. “Some things were moved inside, some things were moved upstairs, some things were taken off walls and put in large bins,” she said, relieved that initial reports, done by flashlight and backup generators in its shutter-darkened buildings, suggested they had been fortunate. But there was some damage outdoors, including a toppled sign on Pelican Bay Boulevard.

“Our sign was clearly not up to hurricane standards,” she said.

Having steeled themselves for the worst, the major family collectors that fuel Miami’s art scene were collectively exhaling when the storm passed.

“Our team decided to stay till the very end,” Mera Rubell of the Rubell Family Collection, located in Miami’s Wynwood district, said in an interview from Los Angeles.

Ms. Rubell said she and her husband, Donald, were traveling when the storm landed, but that her staff hunkered down in the Rubells’ home behind the gallery, which she referred to as a concrete bunker.

“I said, ‘Listen, guys, there comes a point where your life is more important than any piece of art in the collection,’” Ms. Rubell said. “‘Stay if you think you’re going to stay safe, but don’t stay there to protect the art.’”

Norman Braman, whose home on the east side of Biscayne is filled with an impressive collection, removed all of the paintings from the house’s first floor, confident that the outdoor sculpture would be resilient. “We did not expect the Richard Serra to move, or the de Kooning,” he said.

Craig Robins, who spearheaded the rejuvenation of Miami’s Design District, said he expected that Art Basel Miami in December would proceed.

Asked whether Miami’s vulnerability made residents rethink whether to stay in the city long term, Ms. Rubell said: “It’s an existential question. Ultimately, how can we predict what’s going to happen anywhere?”

A correction was made on 
Sept. 14, 2017

An article on Wednesday about structures designed to protect art from extreme weather quoted incorrectly from comments by the director of the Pérez Art Museum in Miami. He said that the Mark di Suvero sculpture outside the museum could survive a Category 5 storm because of its cement base, not that the museum could survive.

How we handle corrections

Peter Libbey and Jennifer Schuessler contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: Foam, Armor and Nights at the Museum: Protecting Florida’s Art From Irma. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT