How Curator Katherine Hinds Is Defining Miami's Critical Contemporary Art Collection.

Curator Katherine Hinds defines Miami’s critical contemporary art collection.

Katherine Hinds has been curator for collector and real estate developer Marty Margulies and The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse for over four decades. Activating 50,000 square feet and drawing from thousands of artworks, Hinds’ creative vision has helped define this critical nonprofit art collection. With an emphasis on vintage photography and contemporary art, Hinds pairs Helen Levitt (1913-2009) with commissioned installations by German conceptualist Anselm Kiefer and more. Located in Wynwood Art District since 1998, The Warehouse’s admission proceeds are donated to the cherished women’s shelter Lotus House. Miami magazine speaks to Hinds about how she curates this formidable collection.

Jannis Kounellis, “Untitled,” (1960), mixed media on paper laid down on canvas PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARTIN Z. MARGULIES

How did you start working with Marty Margulies?

My parents introduced me to Marty in 1980. My mother, an attorney, was starting up the Mercy Hospital Foundation. She knew Marty because he was building Grove Isle next door to the hospital.

How would you define the collection?

The collection is large, encyclopedic and diverse. This gives us the ability to historicize contemporary art and produce exhibitions that are educational and interesting to our local, national and international audiences.

George Segal, “The Bar,” (1971), plaster, wood, plastic, metal, television, and neon lights PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MARGULIES COLLECTION AT THE WAREHOUSE

What have been your highlight exhibitions?

The Arte Povera: Postwar Italian Art from the Margulies Collection exhibition we produced in 2021 was well received by our European audience. Collectors flew to Miami for the day just to see that show. Our 2005 large-scale sculpture show, when we installed a fifty-ton earthwork by Michael Heizer inside the building, was memorable. Working directly with Anselm Kiefer, one of the world’s greatest living artists, was a fascinating period. This year, in our Motherwell, Segal and Stella exhibition, we are showing seminal works from the early sixties, which was such an influential period in American art.

Katherine Hinds, longtime Curator of the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MARGULIES COLLECTION AT THE WAREHOUSE

What are you working on currently?

We have a show traveling to the Gibbes Museum of Art in South Carolina and are working on a collaboration with an institution in Barcelona. When you work with museums, you always learn and discover something new. We have a huge collection in Miami and decide what is interesting for us to do year to year.

Installation view of Arte Povera: Postwar Italian Art from the Margulies Collection, 2021-2022. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MARGULIES COLLECTION AT THE WAREHOUSE