MOCA North Miami Presents Virtual Reality Tours, Youth Programming And More

While the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) remains temporarily closed, the museum continues its commitment to the community by remaining "open" virtually to the public with new online content and initiatives. MOCA's mission of making contemporary art accessible to diverse audiences is as active as ever through virtual tours of its exhibitions, access to youth education, deep dives into our permanent collection and more.

Virtual visitors can explore two of MOCA's exhibitions showcasing women artists a?? artist Cecilia Vicuña's "Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen" and French-Mexican Surrealist Alice Rahon's "Poetic Invocations". From the comfort of their homes, guests can enjoy 360-degree photographic scans of both exhibitions, information and meta tagging of the exhibitions, including the original object labels from the museum and automated tours designed to provide the viewer with a guided walk through of the virtual exhibition space.

The first major U.S. solo exhibition of influential Chilean-born artist Cecilia Vicuña: "Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen" traces Vicuña's career-long commitment to exploring discarded and displaced materials, peoples, and landscapes in a time of global climate change. Vicuña was recently recognized as a finalist of the 13th Hugo Boss Prize and the exhibition has received critical acclaim with features in the New York Times, Artforum and more. The exhibition is organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (CAC), and co-curated by Andrea Andersson, The Helis Foundation Chief Curator of Visual Arts at the CAC, and Julia Bryan-Wilson, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley.

"Poetic Invocations," guest curated by Mexico City-based art historian Tere Arcq, marks the first solo show dedicated to Alice Rahon's work in the U.S. in 55 years. This exhibition examines a robust moment that emerged in 1940 as an international community of artists fled World War II in Europe and settled in Mexico. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the same name, featuring an essay by curator Tere Arcq. This represents the first Alice Rahon catalogue to be published in English and in the United States. The catalogue is 64 pages and contains many full color plates of works in the exhibition in addition to a chronology of the life and times of the artist.

MOCA North Miami will also feature weekly "close looks" at past exhibitions through images, original text and video on MOCA's social media channels. Exhibition highlights will include "AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People," which the next chapter of the exhibition was selected as an official Collateral Event of Biennale Arte 2019 in Venice, Italy, "Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly," curated by Risa Puleo and more. Visitors will also have access to MOCA's 2019 South Florida Cultural Consortium exhibition, featuring artists exclusively from South Florida who live and work in Broward, Martin-Monroe, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties, as well as its catalog.

Guests will receive a deep dive of "Collection Focus: Works on Paper from 1960-1980s," curated by Elizabeth Shannon, Ph.D. The first in a series of new explorations of MOCA North Miami's permanent collection known as "Collection Focus," the exhibition presents a selection of works on paper dating from the 1960s through the 1980s.

MOCA will continue is educational programming with initiatives such as its "Fun Fridays" series - a series of free at-home art projects that will pull inspiration from contemporary artists, techniques, and accessible art making. The educational programming will be activated through MOCA's social media pages and step-by-step instructions on MOCA's website.

"We are living in a challenging time, with unprecedented disruption of life in Miami-Dade and around the world. Art and its impact on our well-being is invaluable in every way," said MOCA Executive Director Chana Budgazad Sheldon. "That is why at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, will continue our mission to make contemporary art accessible to diverse audiences. While our doors are temporarily closed, we continue to serve, connect and inspire our community virtually."

To visit the museum virtually, guests may visit mocanomi.org.