From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Best Arts Center

September 21 2005

Museum of Contemporary Art
770 N.E. 125th St. (Joan Lehman Building), North Miami, 305/893-6211, www.mocanomi.org

Under the guidance of director and chief curator Bonnie Clearwater, the Museum of Contemporary Art continues to present some of the most cutting-edge local and international artists. The recent Trading Places exhibition allowed a group of select artists to utilize the museum's galleries as temporary studio space, resulting in intriguing work such as Kim Brown and Maria Martinez-Canas' collaborative installation, literally made from dust collected from the MOCA facility. The recently concluded For Everyone and No One explored "mail art," a subversive 1970s movement that created ephemeral fine art by actually mailing works, often with satirical and political intent. In its seventh year, the Optic Nerve film festival returned to MOCA in August, presenting short films and videos by South Florida artists, from stop-motion animation to meditations on violence in the aftermath of a riot at a punk-rock concert. Similarly, Cut/Film as Found Object showed artists cutting and pasting pre-existing films to create new works. The museum has also drawn crowds with its free monthly Jazz at MOCA concerts, one of which featured former James Brown tenor sax man Pee Wee Ellis. Nearing the end of its ninth year, MOCA has stayed true to its mission of "discovering new artists and contemplating the work of contemporary masters."