When Miami was in Vogue by Donette Francis, PhD

Provisional Obstruction (Little Haiti II) by misael soto and Ayesha Singh, photo by Frank Casale.

Miami, especially during this season, is in vogue. The creative industries have gained momentum from the 2002 launch of Art Basel and the fiscal resources it and other arts infrastructures have brought into the city. Local organizations and initiatives have intentionally worked to make the arts more accessible to diverse communities and more available throughout the entire year, and to devise more equitable pathways for Black and other marginalized artists to participate in the city’s dynamic arts ecosystem.

Yet, our conjuncture is reminiscent of another time and place: when Harlem was in vogue before the stock market crash of 1929. And our current moment rehearses a familiar set of paradoxes: the proliferation of representations of blackness and Black cultural practices; Black art and Black artists are being collected and circulated in various national and international art fairs, galleries and museums. Simultaneously, however, Black residents are increasingly being displaced from the urban cores that they have historically made home. While art industries have become vehicles that catalyze neighborhood changes — making them safe for others to enter — these same neighborhoods are increasingly unavailable and unwelcoming to Black, brown and low-income folks.

Art inspires us to imagine other worlds. When Harlem was in vogue, many Black artists did not receive the financial benefits and security of the market trade in their artistic output. How might this Miami art boom moment serve as a mandate to create more equitable profit shares, living conditions and housing for Black and low-income residents?

Donette Francis is co-director for the Center for Global Black Studies and past director of the American Studies Program at the University of Miami.  Her research and writing investigate place, aesthetics and cultural politics in the African Diaspora.