Artist London Amara and Chief Curator Frank Verpoorten by Tom Hall

By: Tom Hall
 
FORT MYERS, Fla. - Sept. 21, 2013 - PRLog -- New Baker Museum director and curator Frank Verpoorten doesn't mince words. He sees the museum emerging from the long shadow the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra and Artis Naples. He envisions the museum hosting contemporary exhibitions that showcase emerging and mid-career Florida artists. He expects the Baker Museum to be the penultimate fine art museum within a 400 mile radius. And in so doing, he fully expects to elevate the Baker to both national and international prominence.

To accomplish these goals, Verpoorten and the Baker must compete with art destinations in both Tampa and Miami. "The art scene in Tampa revolves around theTampa Museum of Art (http://tampamuseum.org/) and FMoPA (http://fmopa.org/) [the Florida Museum of Photographic Art]," reports Fort Myers abstract artist London Amara (http://www.examiner.com/topic/london-amara), who's spent the last five years in Clearwater. The Tampa Museum of Art is a "beautiful contemporary building [that] houses a rotation of current artists, with an award-winning cafe, Sono, that is fun to visit after an exhibition exploration. [And] just a few blocks away, FMoPA is dedicated to exhibiting important photographic arts as central to contemporary life and culture."

But Amara is quick to point out that the Tampa art scene cannot be viewed in isolation. St. Petersburg is also included in the mix. "St. Petersburg is [also] known for its art scene," London points out, "especially with glass artist Dale Chihuly's museum and the infamous Dali Museum ... plus the rise of the community called Winthrop in Riverview that is beginning to house some underground artist's activity." The Museum of Fine Arts (http://fine-arts.org/about/) is no slouch either. From a legendary permanent collection, to fascinating traveling exhibits and exciting events in the heart of downtown St. Pete’s scenic waterfront, the MFA inspires visitors with diverse and ever-changing opportunities to experience art.

But Amara has little doubt that Verpoorten can pull off the feat of making the Baker Museum synonymous with fine art in the State of Florida.

Originally from Brussels, Verpoorten moved to New York City in 2002, where he served in curatorial roles at the Museum of Modern Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, the Dahesh Museum of Art and, most recently, as Cultural Attaché for the Representation of the Government of Flanders (Belgium) to the U.S. He attended the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium and received dual masters degrees in art history and cultural studies. There, he held research and curatorial positions at the Museum for Musical Instruments and the Royal Museum for Fine Arts in Brussels before moving to New York in 2002.

"We have a good collection of American and Mexican modernism," Verpoorten noted during his Gallery Talk at the Alliance for the Arts on June 8. "But we're too young to narrow our focus to those sub-collections." In fact, had the museum prematurely done so, it would have had to decline Olga Hirschhorn's recent gift of the Mouse House, collection of intimately-sized works collected to fill her carriage house in Washington, D.C. "The collection had been on loan to the museum since 2009, but Ms. Hirshhorn was waiting for the right time to make the loan permanent [in February]," Verpoorten explained.

Other influential Naples and Southwest Florida collectors could one day follow suit as the museum expands its partnering opportunities, sphere of influence and reach.

For now, Verpoorten is acquainting himself with the pool of talented emerging and mid-career artists at work throughout Florida, a number of whom he's met in the course of judging the Alliance for the Arts' 27th Annual All Florida Juried Exhibition. And next year, the Baker Museum will host its own contemporary show, which he plans to make an annual event.

To gain insight into the type of work that Verpoorten finds compelling and the direction he is likely to lead the Baker Museum of Art, you can visit the Alliance for the Arts (http://www.artinlee.org/) to see the All Florida Show. It remains on display through August 2.

For more information about the Baker Museum and its current exhibitions (Multiplicity, Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitsky, Searching for Meaning and Inner Worlds of Domestic Violence Survivors III, which are on view through July 7), please visit www.thephil.org/museum/museum.html.

Author, Tom Hall
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Source:Tom Hall
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Tags:Artist London Amara, Curator Frank Vanderpoorten, Baker Museum, Tampa Museum Art, Tom Hall
Industry:Arts, Media
Location:Fort Myers - Florida - United States
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Page Updated Last on: Sep 22, 2013
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