Jorge M. Pérez harnesses the power of creative storytelling in the collecting strategy through the art of Nereida Garcia-Ferraz.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOSH ARONSON
Condominium art is often singly decorative. This is not so for Related Group developments, which boast museum-quality art. The timeless abstract works at luxury condominiums Rivage Bal Harbour and the Residences at Six Fisher Island to the contemporary art at NoMad Residences in Wynwood are thanks to cultural vanguard and Related Group CEO Jorge M. Pérez, his wife, Darlene, and curators Patricia Hanna and Anelys Alvarez. Together, their creative ambitions touch South Florida’s public art landscape and multiple art and education organizations, including the monikered Pérez Art Museum Miami (pamm.org) and El Espacio 23 (elespacio23.org), founded to advance underrepresented artists and critical thinking.
Transcending bottom-line business, Pérez attributes his civic determinations to the impact the power of art had on him. Following five decades of collecting, Pérez reveals, “Art has made me knowledgeable and proud of my roots and culture. It helped me understand the world by explaining the past, unpacking the present and giving a peek, through artists’ eyes, into the future.”
The St. Regis Residences, Miami PHOTO COURTESY OF BINYAN STUDIOS
As such, Pérez wants art to be publicly accessible, integrating Omar Barquet’s mural at Paraiso District, Typoe’s mural on Wynwood 25 and Glenda León’s sculpture at Icon Marina Village in West Palm Beach, among others. Art appears across Related Group’s properties, from condominiums to rentals to affordable housing communities, in collaboration with Miami-Dade Art in Public Places. He continues, “During my time at the National Endowment for the Arts, I saw statistics proving art’s immense impact, especially within education. If it can touch people’s lives how it touched mine, why not include it in all we do?” However, Pérez acknowledges that careful consideration must be given to audiences and their living environments, ensuring thoughtful and relevant curation. His curators actively source art at international fairs, including recently at ARTBO in Bogotá, Colombia, to complement each distinct property, including high-end residential projects such as Icon Beach Waterfront Residences and The St. Regis Residences, Miami.
Harnessing further opportunities via collecting, Pérez is equally focused on increasing visibility for underrepresented artists, especially those working in Latin America and Africa. Motivated by Darlene Pérez, their personal collection is composed of half of women artists, with American abstract expressionists Joan Mitchell, Georgia O’Keeffe and Elaine de Kooning, among others, at the foundation.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOSH ARONSON
“During my time at the National Endowment for the Arts, I saw statistics proving art’s immense impact, especially within education. If it can touch people’s lives how it touched mine, why not include it in all we do?”–JORGE M. PÉREZ
Access and visibility also underpin El Espacio 23, founded in 2019 in Allapattah as a safe space to explore sociopolitical museum-level content. Perhaps in response to free speech repression experienced in Cuba and Florida today, El Espacio 23 mounts curated exhibitions to educate and develop accurate history-in-the-making for future generations. Pérez shares, “I’m not afraid of negative responses, and I want conversations to be open and uncensored. We organize programming to make dialogue approachable to our immediate neighbors, under-resourced public schools, and to Miami and international visitors alike.”
This year, El Espacio 23 showcases Mirror of the Mind: Figuration in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, an exhibition exploring the body’s interconnected physical and emotional components.
“The body is political. We have been schooled by feminism, which brought permission for women to have a voice… and we still fight for it,” explains artist Nereida Garcia-Ferraz.
A 70-year-old Cuban American artist, Garcia-Ferraz shares that her narrative-rich painting featured in the exhibition reflects who she is. Growing up with the impending threat of leaving Cuba cultivated a conscious space in her mind to study her surroundings intently. Moving to Chicago at age 14, Garcia-Ferraz started keeping diaries and making drawings actualizing her observations. This eventually led to a scholarship to The Art Institute of Chicago, where she found freedom exploring artmaking and film, later producing a documentary about the bold practice of her friend, the late Cuban artist Ana Mendieta.
“THE BODY IS POLITICAL. WE HAVE BEEN SCHOOLED BY FEMINISM, WHICH BROUGHT PERMISSION FOR WOMEN TO HAVE A VOICE… AND WE STILL FIGHT FOR IT.”–NEREIDA GARCIA-FERRAZ
PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOSH ARONSON
Garcia-Ferraz comments, “I am Cuban, and Cuba is like dynamite. Politics is in everything we do.”
Moving to Miami in 2001, Garcia-Ferraz found communities connected with her identity, which further grounded her creative practice. She shares, “Miami made me reach into the real space of the studio.”
Catapulted in the last two years, Garcia-Ferraz won the 2022 South Florida Cultural Consortium; in 2023, she was awarded the Knight Art + Tech Expansion grant to digitize her extensive archives, and received an open working studio in the Miami Design District thanks to Dacra curator Karen Grimson. This visibility introduced her to gallerist Anthony Spinello, who invited Garcia-Ferraz to participate in a 40-year survey exhibition at Spinello Projects, which facilitated further visits by the Pérezes.
“Jorge Pérez purchased two works from the exhibition, including my most poetic painting, ‘Swimming Without Looking and Without Listening’,” concludes Garcia-Ferraz. “It is about becoming aware. This choice says a lot about Jorge and his deep understanding of artmaking.”
Photography by: Photos By: Josh Aronson
