© David Gauld Architect, 2017. Courtesy of The Bass, Miami Beach.

Miami Beach‘s contemporary art museum, The Bass, is set to reopen on October 8 after a $12 million restructuring (“and a snappy rebranding that has removed ‘Museum of Art‘ from its name,” noted The Art Newspaper). Chief curator Silvia Karman Cubiñá described the change to The Art Newspaper as “less of a quiet churchlike space, more of a dynamic experience.”

The construction, which launched in 2015 and faced a slew of delays, roughly doubles the museum’s usable square footage, adding 4,100 square feet to the museum’s existing 8,700 square feet. The facelift was overseen by architect David Gauld, who also consulted on the design team for the museum’s previous expansion in 2001, which added 16,000 square feet in the form of a new wing and second level to the museum’s existing Art Deco building dating from 1934.

The museum was founded in 1964 by the City of Miami Beach after the donation of the private collection by John and Johanna Bass. The museum opened in what was formerly the Miami Beach Public Library and Art Center, a building designed by Russell Pancoast, which was the first public exhibition space for art in South Florida.

The Bass collaborated with Project-Space in New York to re-design the interior aesthetic of the museum, and New York-based design team Project Projects for the museum’s new logo, website and on-site signage.

Sylvie Fleury, Eternity Now

The museum has previously organized solo museum exhibitions in the United States of international artists such as Erwin Wurm, El Anatsui, Isaac Julien, Eve Sussman, and Piotr Uklański.

For the opening season, solo exhibitions will be dedicated to the artists Pascale Marthine Tayou, from Belgium, and Mika Rottenberg, from Argentina. In addition, the entire second floor will feature the work of Swiss-born, New York-based artist Ugo Rondinone; he has been working with the Bass on the show for about two years. Beforehand, Rondinone’s “Miami Mountain” (2016) was acquired by the Bass last year as part of the museum’s ten-year acquisition initiative, which the institution launched in September 2016. “Miami Mountain” consists of five stacked Nevada-sourced limestone boulders, painted in a fluorescent palette, now installed on the southeastern corner of Collins Park. (A second acquisition brought in Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury’s site-specific neon work “Eternity Now.”) The Bass’ new collections committee will acquire a major work of contemporary art every year to be presented to the public each fall. The selections will champion established and mid-career international contemporary artists.

For more information, do visit The Bass.