Illuminated by IGNITE
IGNITE Broward took place last week January 25-29, 2023 as an extension of Fort Lauderdale's Art & Design Week. Productions as dynamic as IGNITE Broward, take a village. The vision was presented by Broward County Cultural Division in partnership with MAD Arts in Dania Beach. The festival of immersive, large-scale projection mapping, interactive light sculptures and installations was another big push to showcase the commitment to art and culture in Broward County. These folks have been working hard for years to build something special here. The events were also supported by Riverwalk Fort Lauderdale and the Department of Arts & Culture of Florida. Sponsorship was by Visit Lauderdale and the City of Fort Lauderdale. A collaboration of extreme proportions held together by visionaries.
In Fort Lauderdale proper, illuminations and celebrations were held at the Museum of Discovery and Science (MODS) and in Esplanade Park directly across the street, with incredible experiences all within close proximity, which is optimal for an event like this. Being able to access everything within visual distance is key. Executing an event like IGNITE Broward is only possible with the buy-in from the cultural leaders in a city, for the belief in something grand must have total support from those writing the checks. Broward Arts and Culture is headed up by “art and culture powerhouse” as he seems to be known, Phillip Dunlap, who stated in 2021 that “ the Division’s annual budget is around $7 million, with an additional $2-3 million in Capital Appropriations for our public art program.” For cities to understand the undertaking, we know some people reading this are wondering about budgets for growing arts districts and bringing cultural events to their communities. Fort Lauderdale is the perfect place with so much walkability and an already art-centric culture. The close proximity to Miami, with an airport fifteen minutes from downtown puts the location in a prime range for expansion.
The lively and vibrant neighborhoods extend far past the shore and the intracoastal. Neighborhoods stretch from the ocean to the city center and that is important. Communities like that attract new residents, visitors, young people and entrepreneurs. Connecting arts with the community can make art tourism explode when you live in a destination city. Bridging the neighborhoods with the art mission is paramount. Interestingly, the arts council also has five members that are community liaisons and they also run a devoted marketing department, which indicates that they are serious about attracting and investing to increase tourism to new visitors to art related events. Art activists also play a role. There are independent organizations like FATVillage and Zero Empty Spaces, founded by Evan Snow, that stretch from Hallandale been to Natick, Massachusetts. Established areas for artists to live, work and sell is very significant to creatives, who inevitably contribute to establishing a “cool factor” for cities. Putting out a beacon to collectors and bringing tourism into a city supports the missions of these artists. This. This very act makes it possible for artists to live, work and play in Fort Lauderdale. It also attracts like-minded people to vacation there. In addition, collectors make time to add it to their itineraries.
Seeing Fort Lauderdale get behind the arts in this compelling way was the most important thing I witnessed. With Miami and Delray Beach so close, the momentum in South Florida for targeted growth of arts for international attention is pretty impressive. We can’t wait to see what’s next in Fort Lauderdale. With direct flights from Boston, our local airport on Jet Blue, we may have to keep visiting.
VIDEO: Daydream V6 by Nonotak*
*To view the video below, turn up the volume and definitely click the expand box!
How did Juniper Rag end up going to IGNITE? With one LinkedIn message from Joe Cox, the former President of Worcester’s Ecotarium, now President and CEO of the Museum of Discovery and Science, we arranged a visit to witness the magic of IGNITE. The event brought vivid color and vibrancy to the entire city center, where many thousands of people live and walk every day. Joe Cox is truly a gem and is what you call a “connector” of people. Within a few days he connected me through emails and LinkedIn with VIP tickets to the kick-off celebration and had me in touch with the cultural department and planners of IGNITE, who are also savage connectors. This is the secret sauce right here. We have personally found that success comes partly from madness and vision, but also from being smart and resourceful, taking care of people, and linking them to others who are driven to do the same. The results, Joe inspired our trip to experience this burgeoning fire in the belly of arts in Fort Lauderdale.
Phillip Dunlap’s opening remarks for IGNITE celebration at MODS. Joe Cox, President and CEO (right)
The IGNITE events were free and open to the public. Attendees were young and old, walking through the park and able to access the lobby of the museum to witness the black and white projections on the inner courtyard walls. We stood in this courtyard filled with hundreds a the kickoff celebration, recognizing the round glasses and style from his LinkedIn profile, Philip led the charge listing all the people and organizations that made this event possible. This is what we were interested in as well. HOW did they do it?
To see the list of amazing artists from all over the world at IGNITE, click here.
Fort Lauderdale is no stranger to tourism. In a popular beach community, we had visited before but my knowledge of the art scene there was nonexistent. I had been there for sun and relaxation and only for 3 days. Not any more. After a fun night of illumination, the next day we visited Mac Art Gallery, which is a $16 Uber ride north of the city center. We had a wonderful conversation with Art Gallery Director, Adam Collier Noel and discovered some new artists and recognized a few from Scope at Basel. Adam showed us around and spoke about the art and artists’ stories. Mac Arts was voted number one art gallery by Fort Lauderdale Magazine. We handed him a copy of Juniper Rag and told him why we are on a mission to share work with artists on our pages, as he flipped through the magazine and we had conversations about several artists. Adam showed us work that was not up in the gallery when we had interest in one specific artist.
Mac Arts was the highlight of day trip and we were disappointed that many artist studios were closed in this area. FATVillage looked good on paper, but there was not a soul around and everything was locked up as tight as a drum. I wish we hit it at a different time, but it was hard to tell because their website calendar was not populated with any programming or events. The website boasts “ FATVillage™, the downtown historic warehouse district, is burgeoning with productivity. Techies, artists, designers, and creative professionals call this daytime enclave home.” We were really hoping to learn more and chat with the people about their business and the area, and to measure how the artists live and work in the ecosystem of Fort Lauderdale.
Jeff Muhs, Botany Bay available at Mac Art Gallery, Fort Lauderdale
The development happening in Fort Lauderdale is similar to the Seaport District in Boston. We could not believe how many cranes were there in the process of builds and how many new-looking buildings populated the streets. According to a May 2022 report, downtown Fort Lauderdale had more than 40 projects with 16,000 condos and apartments in the works, a number released by the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority. Many developments are going up in the Flagler Village and Fat Village areas, where a collection of artists studios and galleries are located. With a population of around 200K people, an airport 15 minutes away from Las Olas, the heart of downtown and a lavish intracoastal waterway with multi-million dollar mansions, Fort Lauderdale is certainly an interesting place for all walks of life.
Artem Mirolevich
Third Temple
Third Temple, from a series painted by Artem was also presented as an immersive piece with partner, ArtLab. This immersive experience is described as “ [this piece] will take you on the trip to futuristic Jerusalem, the birthplace of three world religions, in the prolific attempt to envision the future of peaceful and enjoyable co-existence.”
Artem notes, “This version shown has a distinct marking for each of three bases - Judaic, Christian and Muslim, three world religions centred around Jerusalem, with the Third Temple on the top, unifying all three into one. The city below is of actual Jerusalem as today.”
An earlier (and very similar ) version of it was featured in Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
See Artem in action Tree of Life at 1Hotel Miami Art Basel 2022, here.
We beat a few rain drops the next day with another Uber excursion to the waterfront home studio of Artem Mirolevich in Hollywood Beach. Artem is a founder and CEO of Russian Pavilion, an arts organization based in New York, that showcases and promotes artists from Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Baltic regions during leading international contemporary art fairs in U.S.A., Europe and Asia. We first met Artem at Scope, Miami, in December 2022, where he was exhibiting. His work is dystopian surrealism, and made us think of Polish artists Zdzisław Beksiński and Jacek Yerka, colors and forms reminiscent of Dalí, and beautiful etchings, which were our favorites. The etchings were remarkable and reminded us of Dürer. Ancient civilizations mashed up with futuristic fantasy worlds with grand perspectives of architecture and cityscapes populate his surfaces, visually describing dreamy, atmospheric tomorrows hinged on questions of where and how they exist.
IGNITE Broward festivities continued in Dania Beach a fifteen minute ride south to Mad Arts, “an experimental tech art project space focused on the creative process, immersive experiences and blockchain perpetuity.” Marc Aptakin, Founder and CEO has made some magic here. A sister company, Mad Studios pays it forward by using their marketing talents to push artists forward in their careers. What Marc has tapped into by building community and lifelong friendships is something that takes time and nurturing and a lot of dedicated resources and capital. His organization was inspiring. A space like this to show work, with the built in marketing and support system for artists is a dream.
So what does it take beyond the collaboration of all the arts organizations? The SunSentinel reports, “Dunlap says the free IGNITE Broward bash costs roughly $400,000, financed through the Cultural Division, county tourism arm Visit Lauderdale, and the city of Fort Lauderdale.” Cash, grants, sponsors and focused people and their organizations, together with a strong marketing team packaging it all up to deliver to the audience that has been nurtured for years it seems. To put it in perspective, Basel celebrated 20 years in 2022.
We ended the trip with a great brunch with friends at Louie Bossi’s and a gallery stroll on Las Olas and really enjoyed the work at Chic Evolution in Art and our conversation with Ivan Pitoni, who showed us around the gallery and intimately describes art from national and international artists. This gallery was so tightly curated. The art selection was as fun as it was provocative and everything there was exquisite.
and even caught an Alex Katz show in a gallery, New River Fine Art, simultaneously running with Alex Katz: Gathering, the Guggenheim retrospective that closes on February 20th.
Wolfgang Stiller
Chic Evolution in Art
Wolfgang Stiller is a German artist whose sculptural installations are striking. Stiller has a killer CV listing 57 solo exhibitions since 1986 internationally A few of his Matchstick Men were on display. The installation had several six foot plus burnt “matchsticks” representing the human burn out depicting the extreme impact of over worked people that suffer from exhaustion creating irreparable damage to themselves and collectively, the whole of their community and society.
The images we saw on social media of his work drew us to the gallery. It is one of the best we found in Fort Lauderdale, with recognizable artists from our previous trip to Miami for Basel, like Lucio Carvalho.
See the entire collection at Chic Evolution in Art, Fort Lauderdale.
